toledoblade.com --

Members of the local Muslim community Friday denounced the shootings at Fort Hood in which an American-born Muslim and Army officer is suspected of killing 13 people and wounding 30.

Some also expressed fears that the actions of one individual could spark a backlash against all Muslims.

Imam Farooq Abo-Elzahab, spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, preached at yesterday's prayer service - usually the biggest gathering of the week for Muslims - that Islam teaches that all life is sacred.

"It is forbidden to kill yourself. If my soul is sacred, then it is forbidden to terminate it. If it is 100 percent forbidden by God to terminate your own life, then it is a million percent forbidden to take another person's life," Imam Farooq said.

He decried the Fort Hood killings in the sermon and called on all imams and Muslims to condemn the atrocity.

"You are all ambassadors of Islam. You must show the human side of Islam. You must condemn these horrible, ungodlyacts," he told several hundred

worshippers at the Perrysburg mosque.

Jamele Jarouche said after the service that because the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is a Muslim, she worries that the general public will blame the violence on all Muslims.

"We are afraid there's going to be a backlash," she said. "But what happened at Fort Hood is no different than what happened at Virginia Tech" in 2007.

In both cases, massacres were blamed on a single gunman. But because of Major Hasan's faith, many Muslims fear that they will take some heat.

"As Americans and Muslims, we always feel like we have to pay somebody else's bills," Dr. Abed Alo of the Masjid Saad, the Sylvania mosque, said. "We don't know what the motive is [for the shootings] but regardless of the motive we will be painted with a wide brush."

He said area Muslims have worked long and hard to build relationships in northwest Ohio, and cited as an example tomorrow's long-scheduled showing of the documentary Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, at the University of Toledo.

Adding to concerns of area Muslims was a report from Fort Hood's base commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, that some witnesses said the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great!" before opening fire Thursday.

"There is no justification, no way a person's belief in God can justify killing innocent people," said Saleh Jabarin, a University of Toledo professor, shaking his head.

Mr. Jabarin said he could not sleep Thursday night after hearing reports of the Texas killings because of the horrors inflicted on innocent people, not because of the suspect's religion.

Rafae Hasan, 26, a U.S. Marine veteran who received the Purple Heart medal while serving in Iraq in 2004, was angry that anyone who has the honor of wearing a military uniform would commit such a horrific deed. It's even worse that the suspect is a Muslim, he said.

"When something happens that's tragic and a Muslim is involved, you take it personally," he said.

His father, Dr. S. Zaheer Hasan, said the family feels fortunate to be living in northwest Ohio, "where people are objective. We're OK here."

Contact David Yonke at:
dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.

Permanent Link