Conservative Muslims find isolation a challenge

By Caryle Murphy

updated 8:10 a.m. ET Sept. 5, 2006

WASHINGTON - Twelve girls sat in rows at the front of the community room in Silver Spring's Muslim Community Center, calming their nerves with giggles and girl talk. In their sweaty hands, they held prepared speeches. On their heads, they wore scarves in a rainbow of colors: pink, brown, gold, white and lavender.

The seventh- and eighth-graders were competing in a debate on this question: Is a segregated, all-Islamic upbringing key to protecting your Muslim identity?

Eight of the dozen argued yes, using variants of the theme offered by Fatimah Waseem. Young Muslims "join with the non-Muslims, copy them and look up to them. This is hurting our identity. . . . Sometimes, we turn way from Islam," she said. "In conclusion, . . . we cannot sway in the wind and become weak. We need to be protected . . . by segregation."

" Takbeer! " shouted some in the audience of proud, clapping parents as each girl concluded her case. "Let us praise God!"

Like Fatimah, most of the debaters attend Al-Huda School in College Park. It is run by Dar-us-Salaam, one of the Washington area's most conservative Muslim congregations. Many of its members believe that, in order to be true to their faith, they should live apart from secular society as much as possible. The congregation's Web site describes how it hopes one day to become a self-contained Islamic community.

The kind of Islam practiced at Dar-us-Salaam, known as Salafism, once had a significant foothold among area Muslims, in large part because of an aggressive missionary effort by the government of Saudi Arabia. Salafism and its strict Saudi version, known as Wahhabism, struck a chord with many Muslim immigrants who took a dim view of the United States' sexually saturated pop culture and who were ambivalent about participating in a secular political system. It was also attractive to young Muslims searching for a more "authentic" Islam than what their Westernized immigrant parents offered.

But the discovery that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Saudi and that their violent al-Qaeda ideology was rooted in Wahhabism had a particularly deep impact on Salafis, whose theology and practices were suddenly suspect.

The attacks "shook the foundations of anyone affiliated with Wahhabism or Salafism," said Chris Khalil Moore, 31, of Annandale, a convert who became immersed in Wahhabism while studying in Saudi Arabia before abandoning that approach to Islam. "Because they were fingered, pointed at, as being the ideology that helped foster the mentality of those hijackers," he said, "I think a lot of people got scared."

One of the area's most prominent Salafi preachers, Ali al-Timimi, is in prison, convicted on charges that he incited young Muslims to wage war against the United States. Dar al-Arqam Islamic Center in Falls Church, where he preached, is now closed. The Saudi government's proselytizing campaign has also been rolled up. Its preachers were sent home, and a Saudi-run institute in Fairfax that taught a strict Salafi outlook no longer has any students.

Moderate Muslims have become more vocal in warning about the dangers of separatism and fundamentalism while policing rhetoric that could be construed as radical or extremist. In particular, they increasingly take exception to the sharp divide between Muslims and non-Muslims drawn by some Salafis, saying it can encourage intolerance and violence.

The sense of beleaguerment among many Muslims in the Washington area is particularly strong among Salafis. "In the past, people would say, 'I'm Salafi.' Now, I never encounter people who say that," District resident and Muslim activist Svend White said. "It's a combination of fear, anxiety and a real change in the community."

Seeking 'pure' Islam
Taken broadly, practicing Salafism means imitating the ways the prophet Muhammad and his companions in the 7th century practiced their faith, from their clothing to the spiritual principles that guided them. Salafism also stresses a return to fundamentals in pursuit of "pure" or "authentic" Islam.

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Wahhabism is an ultra-conservative brand of Salafism that emerged in Saudi Arabia. Its strictest adherents read Islamic scriptures literally, reject centuries of Islamic legal scholarship as unnecessary "innovation" and regard many Western values as un-Islamic. They also regard Jews, Christians and non-Wahhabi Muslims as "unbelievers" who should be avoided.

"Salafis are the fundamentalists of the Muslim world," said Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky. "Just as Christian fundamentalists are focused on who's going to heaven and hell, who's the true believer and who's the nonbeliever," Salafis "are really focused on belief. . . . For the most part, they are apolitical."

Polling by Bagby found that about 8 percent of worshipers at U.S. mosques favor a Salafi approach. But although Salafi Muslims are more isolated now, some scholars say their approach to Islam could become more appealing in response to increasingly negative views of Muslims among Americans and vitriolic Islam-bashing on the Internet.

"Salafi teachings begin to be more attractive to more Muslims as a defensive response," said Peter Mandaville, an assistant professor in George Mason University's Public and International Affairs Department. "In the face of this new global war on Islam, they are saying, we will hold fast and emphasize anew the fundamental tenets of our faith."

Safi Khan, Dar-us-Salaam's imam, declined requests to discuss the mosque or his theological beliefs, and Minhaj Hasan, a spokesman for the mosque, said its officials had decided not to talk to Washington Post reporters.

But other Salafis have tried to allay fears that their brand of Islam fosters extremism.

Salafi Society D.C., a group of mostly African American Muslims who worship in an unadorned white brick building in Northeast Washington, has a prominent disclaimer on its Web site stating that "we are free from . . . car bombings, highjackings [sic], suicide killings, and all forms of terrorism."

Nihad Awad, executive director of the D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Salafis increasingly are prepared to participate in the U.S. political system instead of shunning it. "I have been invited [by Muslims] to talk about election strategy, whereas I would not have been invited before," he said.

Yasir Qadhi, a lecturer with AlMaghrib Institute, an Islamic educational organization founded by a former prayer leader at Dar-us-Salaam, cited his own experience as an example of how Salafism has adapted in the United States.

Qadhi, who was born in Houston and graduated from Saudi Arabia's Islamic University of Medina, is getting his doctorate in Islamic studies at Yale University -- a sign, he said, of how second-generation Muslims are adapting. "It's unprecedented that a Salafi is doing a graduate degree at an Ivy League school," said Qadhi, 31. "Our forebears would see that as anathema."

In the past, Qadhi said, Salafis debated whether Muslims should even live in the United States. "For me, that question is so utterly ridiculous," he said. "Where do you want us to go?"

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