Incidents, political rhetoric have many Texas Muslims nervous

Worshippers at mosques across state say they’ve been threatened, targeted

AUSTIN — Just before dawn last Nov. 16, Zaki Chasmawala arrived for morning prayer at the Islamic Center in suburban Pflugerville to discover feces were smeared on the door and sidewalk and the floor was littered with pages ripped from the Quran.

“I was gagging because of the smell. We just could not understand why someone would do such a stupid thing,” said Chasmawala, who co-founded the mosque four years ago. “The only kind of feeling that went through my mind, to be perfectly honest, is that I was so thankful to Allah that it was human excretion, and not human blood, that no one came in with a gun and shot us.”

With anti-Muslim political rhetoric growing in the aftermath of terrorist attacks overseas and in San Barnardino, some Muslims say they are living in fear. Across Texas, worshippers at mosques say they have been threatened and targeted by increasing hatred that has them guarding their every movement.

In December, a man pointed a gun at two Muslim women while driving in Austin, and two Muslim women complained of being harassed at a popular cafe. In November, armed anti-Islam protesters rallied outside a mosque in Irving, and a protester posted the names of local Muslims online with their addresses.

Last May, an Iraqi refugee was killed after moving to Dallas in what police have classified as an anti-Muslim hate crime.

“Still, to this day, every morning I go in and look around to make sure there is no one over there,” said Chasmawala, an Austin engineer. “I tell everyone to be extra vigilant. We don’t have the capability to fight someone who might come with a weapon, but I tell everyone, try to fight with love.”

Experts have attributed growing anti-Muslim sentiment to the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, as well as arrests of suspects in various

cities, including Houston, allegedly tied to terrorist groups. While hate crimes nationally have dropped in the past year, anti-Muslim attacks have risen, tripling i n the month after the California attack, according to FBI statistics.

Prevalent anxiousness

The targets mostly are Arab and South Asian people whose appearances are outwardly Muslim or fit mainstream ideas of what a Muslim is supposed to look like. That includes women wearing hijab head coverings, darker-skinned men with large beards, and turban-wearing Sikhs – who are not Muslims – but sometimes are targeted because they fit the stereotype, according to officials.

The office of the Council on American-Islamic Relation in the DallasFort Worth area used to receive two to three cases of Muslims experiencing discrimination or violence per month, according to Executive Director Alia Salem. Now, she said, they receive at least a call each day about incidents across Texas.

“I would tell the people who don’t believe the issue is widespread to come work in my office one day, and you’ll see what it’s all about. They aren’t isolated incidents,” Salem said. “This is happening on a much larger level than before, in terms of aggression and in terms of job discrimination.”

In January, after an Iraqi refugee living in Houston was arrested on charges of aiding a terrorist organization, the Bayou City’s sizeable Muslim community hunkered down once again, fearing a backlash that often comes when ter- rorism makes headlines.

At the time, Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston chapter of the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, said elected officials “give credence to the fear of Muslims” when they heighten fears about all refugees as potential terrorists.

Earlier this week, officials in Lubbock notified federal and state law enforcement agencies after a black banner with Arabicstyle writing mysteriously appeared hanging from the top of a governmentowned building, and quickly spurred community concern before it was taken down.

Translated, the writing read: “Love all.”

Sirat Al-Nahi, one of the women who complained of being harassed at the Austin cafe, said one of the most difficult aspects of the experience is the expectation to easily overcome it.

“We cried for literally hours, and I had finals that week,” said Al-Nahi, a student at the University of Texas at Austin. “What’s my excuse? I can’t study because I’m hurt, and it’s hard to focus? The world moves on, and you have to be able to move on with it, deflect everything, and act like you’re strong. But sometimes you’re just not.”

Although Texas’s Muslim population in 2010 was larger than any other state, Al-Nahi said living in the conservative South only increases her fear.

“I don’t ever remember having so many incidents of Islamophobia directed personally toward me before this year,” Al-Nahi said. “We’re in Texas. It’s not like we’re in Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve gotten into Ubers with stickers that say ‘go home infidel’ — Confederate flags here, Trump stickers there. I never want to go out at night alone.”

In recent months, Muslims in Austin say their heightened sense of fear has been amped up by harsh rhetoric from local and state officeholders, along with Republican presidential front-runners, including Donald Trump’s call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, a position that garnered the support of 54 percent of likely GOP voters in a subsequent Public Policy Polling survey.

‘It’s a religion of love’

Snehal Shingavi, a UT English professor and activist, blames that level of support on a larger campaign to vilify, scapegoat, and demonize Muslims for the sake of America’s foreign policy agenda in the Middle East. He compared it to the political aggression toward Japanese-Americans during World War II.

“Every time there has been a kind of political antagonist that the United States has identified, it’s managed to round people up, make the antagonists’ lives miserable, and actually whip up a popular hyste- ria against those groups in order to basically erase its own complicity,” Shingavi said. “This makes it feel like ordinary citizens need to take up arms against this thing called Islam, and we’ve seen it happening.”

Despite the anti-Muslim rhetoric coursing through the media, Chasmawala and other Muslims say there is a hopeful future for Muslims in the United States, and the current atmosphere will subside.

Until then, Sara Bawany, 20, a UT-Austin graduate student said she plans to practice Islam even more diligently as a means of resistance.

“At the end of the day, it’s very important to understand what you’re hated for. So, I go back to Islam,” Bawany said. “I go back to the Quran. I go back to listening to lectures and reminding myself that even though people try to depict Islam as a religion of hate, it’s a religion of love, and if you study it enough, you understand that. At least, for myself, I’m going to make sure I understand that.”