Shortly after one o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, Sheik Jamal M. Said leans into a microphone at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview. “Allah Akbar,” he intones, his words resounding throughout the building. “God is the greatest.”
Said, the imam (spiritual leader) of the mosque, then chants from the Koran. Behind him stand two rows of men in stocking feet, their heads bowed in prayer. Ten paces behind them stands a group of a dozen women and girls. Every once in a while a late worshiper darts in and quietly takes his or her place with the others to complete the prayer.
This scene is repeated five times a day at the mosque, where Muslims in the south and southwest suburbs come to pray and commune. Experts call it one of the most distinctive and self-contained Islamic communities in the Chicago area. Adjacent to the mosque are two parochial schools, and during the warmer months street markets sell a variety of items. It all happens in the midst of a working-class suburb not known for its ethnic and religious diversity.
Yet while Muslims seem to have comfortably settled into the community and its routines, they say they must still battle the prejudice and false impressions of society at large. Some complain that the media propagate harmful stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs, especially after incidents such as the terrorist bombing of New York’s World Trade Center.
“There’s a lot of ignorance in society about Islam,” said Rafeeq Jaber of Bridgeview, a vice president at the non-profit Mosque Foundation. “During the Gulf War, we had people who shot at the mosque, trying to intimidate us. Unfortunately, it happens. . . . Racism is still alive.”
“There was some trouble because of the Gulf War, and heightened tension with the New York bombings-increased police surveillance, that kind of thing,” said Aminah McCloud, an assistant professor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago, who is working on a study of Muslims in the Chicago area.
The Bridgeview mosque, with a membership of about 350, serves but a small part of the region’s Muslim population, which numbers an estimated 350,000 to 400,000. According to McCloud, there are other sizable Islamic communities in Morton Grove and Villa Park, not to mention a congregation of Bosnian Muslims in Northbrook.
The mosque and schools are located on a swatch of land just west of Harlem Avenue, a couple of blocks from the Tri-State Tollway. Many of the worshipers come from Bridgeview and surrounding suburbs, though others travel from the city or outlying towns. Jaber said that 90 percent of the worshipers are Arab, with Indians and Pakistanis making up most of the rest.
The community is small but growing. According to the 1990 census, 957 Arabs lived in Burbank, out of a total population of 27,600. The numbers for Bridgeview were 253 and 14,402, respectively.
The non-profit Mosque Foundation was established in 1981 to serve the needs of the growing community. It is now one of 63 mosques in the Chicago area.
“We used to hold prayer meetings in homes or rented hotel rooms, but that wasn’t appropriate for religious services,” Jaber said. “So people got together and built a mosque.”
Jaber estimates that the Muslim community in the south suburbs has grown by 20 percent each year since the mosque was built.
Such migratory patterns “are extremely common in the American scene,” said Dr. Hussein Morsi, an Arab-American veterinarian who lives on the South Side. “There are ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago where you do not even hear English spoken. It has something to do with culture. Immigrants have a tendency to go where they are comfortable and where they feel secure. It’s not particular to Arabs or Indians.”
Jaber said that many Americans are ignorant of Islamic traditions, and that leads to greater prejudice and misunderstanding. He points out that the media routinely refer to “Islamic fundamentalists,” not realizing that fundamentalism is a Christian concept.
“The first question I often hear from people is, `We believe in God and Muslims believe in Allah, right?’ ” Morsi said. “But Allah simply means the one and only true God. It’s the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, the God of Jesus.
“I have found the core expression of faith is still, `Come and worship your creator.’ The details, the theological concepts, are mostly manmade.”
After Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini condemned to death British author Salman Rushdie-a move that many Muslims say they deplored-the media used the Arabic word “fatwa” as a synonym for “death sentence.” In fact, a fatwa is a judgment rendered by a religious authority, often allowing special dispensation for doing something forbidden by the Koran.
Muslims live their lives according to the Koran, a book of sacred writings that adherents believe is the word of God as revealed to the 7th Century prophet Muhammad.
The Koran gives specific guidelines for living. For instance, it forbids usury and the consumption of pork, and believers consult it as both a cultural and religious reference.
“Islam is not just a religious, spiritual thing,” Jaber said. “It is set up to be a way of life. There are laws for how the economy works, how the government works. It’s a political, social, economic system. It’s complete.”
The Koran also lays out the five pillars of Islam: the believer’s testament that there is one God and Muhammad is his messenger; prayer five times a day; Ramadan, a month of fasting in late winter; the zakat, or charitable contribution; and the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.
Local Muslims have integrated the strenuous requirements of their faith into their everyday routines. For example, Jaber, a financial planner in an Oak Lawn insurance office, spreads out a small rug and prays during break time. On the wall nearby is a schedule of prayer times, which change daily based on the Islamic calendar.
Jaber makes a point of visiting the mosque at least several times a week. Besides being a meeting place for prayer, the mosque also serves as a cultural and community center. Recent immigrants can take advantage of social services and programs designed to help them assimilate into a new culture.
“A couple of us brought police in to talk with the community,” Jaber said. “A big portion of the Muslim community comes from dictatorship countries, where they are naturally afraid of the police.”
Parents can send their children to the adjacent Universal School or Aqsa School, which offer instruction in Islamic studies, the Koran and Arabic.
Aqsa is an all-girls high school expecting an enrollment of 100 to 120 this fall. Universal teaches pre-school through 12th grade and has 260 students. The schools have separate faculties and administrations but are both supported by tuition dollars, according to Universal principal Seema Imam.
“Most of our students come from close by: Chicago and Hickory Hills, Burbank, Bridgeview,” Imam said.
Sometimes suburban roads are clogged as a result of traffic from the mosque and schools.
“On holy days (each Friday), there are traffic problems,” said John A. Oremus, mayor of Bridgeview. “The place is packed, and people park illegally. The same thing happens at the Catholic church and other churches, too.”
Yet for the most part, the Mosque Foundation has succeeded in developing a community within the larger community. And Muslims believe that’s at least partly due to the basic, enduring message of Islam.
“If you are a Christian, you’re trying to be a good Christian,” Morsi said. “If you’re a Muslim, or a Jew, it’s the same challenge.”
