Americans, a small number of white and Latino converts, and mostly Rohingya refugees, Milwaukee’s Muslims are diverse yet impressively cohesive, says Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Shah, executive director/secretary general of the Fiqh Council of North America and the religious director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the metropolitan area’s largest Muslim organization, with three mosques. “There is a sense of mutual love and respect between different segments of the community.” Muslim physicians, engineers, academics and other professionals move to Milwaukee for opportunities to work in its renowned hospitals and global companies like GE Healthcare Systems, Harley-Davidson and Rockwell Automation, or to teach in one of Greater Milwaukee’s 25 institutions of higher education, including UWM, Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin. “The intellectual orientation of our community makes it unique,” Shah says. “It is characterized by professionalism and the forward-thinking manner of its leadership.” Greater Milwaukee’s Muslims number 25,000 - 30,000 in a metropolitan area of about 1.6 million people, local imams say. (Some reports put it at 15,000-20,000; there is widespread consensus that is too low.) And it continues to grow. “It may have tripled since I came here in 2006,” Shah exclaims. But it shouldn’t be measured by headcount alone, he adds. “The level of collaboration within the community is unique and encouraging. People of different backgrounds are united and work together for the Ummah.” “Muslims in Milwaukee, despite being a religious minority, have an important presence in the city through active civic leadership and the establishment of many religious and cultural institutions,” states the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. Although there are no Islamic seminaries or other big city amenities of a New York or Chicago, mighty Milwaukee punches above its weight. It has 10 mosques, two full-time schools and a variety of Islamic organizations, including health clinics, refugee and social services, a library and resource center, a civic alliance, a food pantry, a platform for Muslim artists, a re-entry facility for ex-offenders, a senior center, weekend and Sunday schools, a hifth school for memorizing the Quran, a culturally sensitive domestic violence program and a state-wide newspaper.
In the Shadow of 9/11 BY SANDRA WHITEHEAD
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WENTY YEARS AGO, AIRLINERS WERE HIJACKED AND SLAMMED INTO NEW York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil – the hijackers had Muslim names. Aisha Aleiou was a fifth-grader in a public school in suburban Milwaukee, its only Muslim student at the time. Her teacher asked, “Aisha, why did they do it?” Ever after an apologist for Islam, Aisha prepared to answer questions about her faith, Middle East politics and whatever else classmates and teachers might throw at her. For a generation of Muslim Americans, adolescence brought more than the usual teenage angst about how to fit in. The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, brought a decade of surveillance and suspicion, followed by a rise in Islamophobia that culminated in the blatant bigotry of Donald Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign. Before 9/11, Muslims in Milwaukee were not particularly self-conscious about their faith. Their fellow Midwesterners knew little about Islam and didn’t seem very curious. Then suddenly all eyes were on them. “U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft repeatedly painted a dark picture of Arab and Muslim Americans,” recalls Marquette University Professor Louise Cainkar, who has conducted extensive research on Arab and Muslim Americans after 9/11. “He would say things like, ‘They are hiding in our own communities, waiting to strike.’” Some Muslims were angry at the terrorists for “hijacking our religion.” Many felt the need to be more vocal, to be liaisons between their fellow Americans and Islam. The Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition’s Speakers Bureau responded to their fellow citizens’ newfound interest in Islam and sent speakers to schools, churches and community organizations to dispel stereotypes. Likewise, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee hit the speaking circuit. As Trump’s presidential campaign called for a Muslim ban in 2015, ISM’s strategy was to let fellow Milwaukeeans see how Islam is practiced by someone they know. Muhammad Isa Sadlon, then ISM executive director and CEO, a convert to Islam, was known by many for his leadership as executive director of the Milwaukee Art Museum for 20 years. He guided its development to international prominence, culminating with the completion of the stunning Santiago Calatrava-designed facility, now an icon of Milwaukee. He was also a former director of Rotary Club and the 2001 Rotary Club “Person of the Year.” Sadlon spoke to the Rotarians about his “very traditional Catholic background” and the shock of his family, friends and colleagues at his conversion in 1989. He said the suspicions some have about Muslims is to be expected. “I remember seeing old newspapers about the arrival of the Irish in Boston at the beginning of the last century. “People said these people coming in are disruptive … it is just adjustments to new immigrant cultures. He told them how he finally won his family’s acceptance of his conversion. “I had been the typical young man who went off to (the University of Wisconsin) Madison and seldom came home. I had my own life. “As a Muslim, one of the key issues is respect and care for your parents and your family. I took this seriously, started visiting my mother and father once a week, and interacting with my brothers and sisters.” A decade later, his mother was dying. “She had us — my brothers and sisters and me — all together. She said she felt Islam was true because it had transformed our relationships by changing my behavior. For my family, that was a turning point.” This outreach by Muslim Americans maybe working. In a 2017 survey, Pew Research Center asked respondents to rate Muslims on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100. On average, Americans gave Muslims a rating of 48 degrees, which is 8 degrees warmer than in the first poll in 2014. (Never mind that feelings towards Muslims are cooler than they are for any other “religious” group, including atheists.) ih SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 25
