altmuslim
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After the long arm of the (US) law caught up with Mir Amil Kasi, the Pakistani national suspected of killing two CIA employees in Langley, VA in 1993, it was only a matter of time before he was convicted (he admitted the crimes). That led to Kasi’s execution this week (as he recited “There is no God but Allah“) despite appeals for clemency by the Pakistani government and Amnesty International (mostly for opposition to the death penalty). Kasi’s lifeless body was received in his hometown of Quetta, Pakistan as a martyr with many supporters angry at those who turned him in four years after he fled the US to hide in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Before his execution, Kasi said he was not a terrorist and had no regrets about the murders, claiming they were politically motivated (er… wouldn’t that be terrorism?). However, in 1998 he told Salon magazine, ns. “With the growth of anti-Muslim rhetoric, we’re seeing a greater need to reach out and explain ourselves,” said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “An isolationist attitude will only feed the bigots out there.” Outreach – or da’wah – events include interfaith meetings, mosque open houses, fundraising drives for local charities, political events, Islam awareness events, blood drives, and more. “If we ‘think foreign’ by withdrawing into a cocoon, people will treat us as outsiders,” says Sadullah Khan, director of the Islamic Center of Irvine, California, “when all we’re trying to do is live like decent American citizens.”
Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.
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