(Khalid Shahu, UNC-Chapel Hill professor and Apex mosque imam talking to congregants after Friday prayers. Photo by Zhai Yun Tan)
After more than three hours of teaching Arabic on Fridays, Khalid Shahu packs his bags and disappears into the bathroom.
He washes his hands and runs his wet fingers over his mouth, nose, hair and face three times.
It is a ritual that symbolizes the cleansing of sins before prayer– a ritual that Shahu performs before going from his role as a UNC-Chapel Hill professor to an imam, or a mosque leader, at the Apex mosque.
Fridays to Muslims are like Sundays to Christians. It is the holy day when Muslims gather for prayers at the mosque and listen to a sermon by the imam.
Built in 2009 and located less than a mile from downtown Apex, the mosque looks just like any other building. It has yellow brick walls, a green roof, and a United States flag flying high on a pole by the main entrance. Shahu was there when the mosque was built, and he saw the Muslim community in Apex grow from a mere 25 people to nearly 300 people who come and pray at the mosque every Friday afternoon.
But this also means that he has witnessed the growing tension surrounding Muslim communities in the United States as Muslims are stereotyped as terrorists by some terrorists.
“After September 11 there was a lot of concern, fear and doubt,” Shahu said. “It increases again whenever an incident happens.”
It was triggered by events like the September 11 attacks, and brought to light by tragedies like the Chapel Hill shooting last year that took the lives of three young Muslim Americans. The Paris attacks this past month piled more fear on Muslim Americans as they fend off judgments and insults on their religion. Some worry for their safety.
“One of the missions of the mosque is always to try and reach out to the other side and have people distinguish between what is a regular Muslim citizen and what is someone who might have an extreme understanding of the faith,” Shahu said.
The Triangle Muslim community was shocked by the death of three young Muslim Americans in the Chapel Hill shooting earlier this year. Some suspected the shooter of committing a hate crime. To Shahu, the tragedy reminded people that Muslims are just like other American citizens—good citizens who contribute to the wellbeing of the community.
Deah Barakat, one of the shooting victims, was a second-year UNC dentistry student. Together with his fiance Yusor Abu-Salha, who was also one of the victims, they headed efforts to purchasing canada drugs online Syrian refugees in Turkey and offered free dental services to the homeless in Durham.
“They were offering a lot of services to all the population, not just the Muslim population,” he said. “The American community couldn’t know about them until they were killed…the cost was so expensive for people to understand that Muslims are part of the community.”
A message condemning the terror attacks in Paris, Lebanon, Syria and many other places can be seen on the Apex mosque website’s main page. According to Shahu, this is the norm for Muslim communities. Imams regularly condemn these terrorist attacks. He said the perpetrators misused the name of Islam.
But the message might only stay within the confines of the Muslim community—a problem that he said the mosque outreach department tries to resolve by building connections with the non-Muslim community.
They organize a yearly open house at the mosque, when they bring food from different countries and invite their neighbors and friends to join in the feast. They also started an initiative to invite non-Muslim neighbors to Muslim homes.
“We need to let people know what is going on in this Muslim institution so people can become more friendly and comfortable with us,” he said.
By 1:15 pm, Shahu is seated in the front of a spacious room, dressed in white robes with gold linings. Men file into the front of the room, while women gather in a line at the back. Shahu recites prayers in Arabic as the congregants kneel on the floor and touch their foreheads on the ground, murmuring “Amin” at the end of a prayer.
As the congregants settle down, sitting cross-legged on the floor, Shahu begins his announcements.
He brings up an upcoming talk about “clearing misconceptions” by a group called Triangle Converts to Islam, and he highlights a plan the mosque has to reach out to non-Muslim neighbors to build a strong community.
Congregants continue to file into the room, silently performing the prayer ritual as Shahu launches into his sermon.
“Every human soul matters in our faith,” he said. “Whoever kills one soul is like he killed every mankind. Every soul matters whether it is in Paris, Mali, Lebanon. We should not only be concerned about certain people and that is the position of this faith.”
Shahu is preaching to a group of about 60 people who showed up for the 1:15 pm prayers—there are several sessions of prayers on Friday afternoons.
Muslims in Chapel Hill
While Shahu is part of the effort to increase outreach toward the non-Muslim population in Apex, Jamil Kadoura, owner of Mediterranean Deli on Franklin Street, is a prominent Muslim figure in Chapel Hill.
Kadoura regularly gives speeches in mosques, churches and Jewish temples about Islam and about peace.
“After 9/11 people started being interested to know more about Islam,” he said. “They want to know, what is this religion that came in here and bombed the hell out of us? I tell them this is not our religion, Islam is a beautiful religion. It’s the fanatics that try to translate Islam.”
After 9/11, he said he had the busiest month ever in the restaurant as people came to support him. When UNC picked a book explaining the Quran as the 2003 Summer Reading Book, Kadoura was proud that UNC stuck with the decision despite strong opposition.
Fear and concern, however, still disturbs him despite the overwhelming support he receives from the community.
He has seen a few incidents similar to one when his worker from Peru, who looks like a Middle Easterner, was cursed at on the street or told to “go back to where you come from.” His daughter called him from school when she had to write an essay about 9/11 for school and she wasn’t sure what to do. On the day of the 9/11 attacks, he rushed home, concerned for the safety of his family.
“I feel uncomfortable sometimes for my wife when this happens, it’s hard for me to explain to my children,” Kadoura said. “But honestly, we should be proud that we didn’t see anything major happen. We don’t hear a guy going to a mosque with a machine gun and shooting people.”
Instead, he focuses on the necessity to keep peace when he gives his speeches and when he teaches his daughter.
“If somebody knocks on our house and kills one of you, it does not give me the right to knock on his house and kill his kids,” he said to his daughters.
At UNC, the Muslim Student Association keeps busy by organizing educational and outreach events, bringing notable speakers on campus to speak about Islamic issues of the day.
Sara Khan, chair of MSA publicity and public relations, said the organization is planning a safety reporting project in conjunction with the police department to increase reporting on hate crimes and other disturbing behavior toward Muslim students. They also launched an Islamophobia teaching series earlier this year.
“In all of our events we have Muslim and non-Muslim students,” Khan said. “UNC MSA has taken a lot of efforts to ensure that our Muslim community on campus after the Chapel Hill shooting feels safe.”
Just like everyone else
By the end of the sermon, Shahu leads another round of prayers. Men and women form horizontal lines as they kneel and touch their foreheads on the ground. Shahu recites the prayer in Arabic, a prayer that sounds almost like a calm, spiritual song.
A few congregants stay behind for individual conversations with Shahu. Some settle at the back of the room with books on their hands, while others cluster in the hall, catching up with each other. Children run around the room as the women give each other advice on childcare.
Thirty minutes later, Shahu slips out of his white robe and leaves the mosque in his UNC professor attire—a suit—to resume his life as an ordinary American.
