"You did How Many Cities?????"

4th of July weekend every year hosts the annual conference for the Islamic Circle of North America. This year it was held in Cleveland, OH. Also, since last year, ISNA has also held its South Central Regional Conference on the same weekend. The ISNA conference was held in Dallas. Caught between which one to attend, I decided to spread my time between both.

ICNA 29th Annual National Conference

This was held between July 2-4. We had a booth in a very large bazaar but the turnout was not what they were expecting. In years past, for example in Baltimore and Phili, they have had attendance of over 10,000. This year, however, they only had about 3,000; a very big disappointment. This disappointment was not only for the organizers, but also for the bazaar vendors and the local restaurants in the area that ordered "halal" meat from Midamar mostly to host what they expected to be a large gathering. Knowing that I would only be there part of the time, we opted for an expensive booth in a non-prominent location. Upon first arriving, I became a little nervous about the location, especially considering that both Allied Asset Advisors and Azzad were present and had better locations. However, I think the gamble paid off. There were so few people in attendance that the more expensive booths would have been a waste of money.


ISNA SC Regional Conference

I decided not to set up a booth at this conference and chose ICNA instead, because of two reasons: I was speaking in Dallas and most people in Dallas or Texas for that matter know who I am and know Amana. I left from Cleveland early Saturday June 3 and returned early Sunday June 4th. Also, ISNA Dallas covered my cost of travel. I gave 5 speeches in Dallas on various topics including Organizational Structure, Muslim Identity, and Purification of the Soul. There were approximately 4,000 people in attendance from all around the Texas and surrounding states. In each of my speeches, to my surprise, I had a packed crowd, approximately between 300 - 500 depending on room size.


Upon arriving back to Cleveland on July 4th, I wrapped up my booth re-checked in to the hotel. Before the trip began, I had looked up on the internet about the City of Cleveland. It does have the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, but this was closed. The other interesting thing I found was that it has the unfortunate nickname: Mistake on the Lake. Any city with that nickname could not be that fun to spend July 4th in, I thought. I had just entered my room, after thinking on the elevator ride up what exactly I was going to do for 4th of July, when my cell phone rang. It was a friend of mine who said "let's go to see the fireworks in Niagara Falls. If we leave now, we can make it in time!!!!" Not hesitating, I said lets do it and within 5 minutes we had started on our 4 hour journey to the falls. As we got closer and closer, I don't know how it happened, but he convinced me that we should go see the fireworks from the Canadian side. Even though we did not have our passports, he said it would be no problem. I wasn't convinced, but also did not want to be the only one saying no. We did pull over in Niagara Falls, NY into a Visitor Center that looked like a closed up gas station and asked the person inside if that would be ok. The guy, who looked like "Bubba", said it would be ok. I was still uncomfortable with it. The place we stopped to ask the guy looked more like a place you buy drugs than a visitor center!!!! And yet I was quite, a very dangerous move, in retrospect!!!! Of coarse, the US doesn't care if you leave, just when you enter, so getting to the Canadian side was a breeze. When we pulled up at the immigration station, the lady asked for our proof of US citizenship. We all gave her our drivers' licenses and she got a good laugh. She asked us to pull over and go instead. Remember, now we are in the neutral zone, if Canada rejected us entry, we thought, there is no way the US would let us back in!!!!! When we went inside to speak to the immigration officer, she asked if we were all born in the US. My luck, I was the only one who wasn't. She asked when I became a citizen and I told her in 1986. She asked what I had done to get it, and I told her nothing since I was a minor then and got it on the fact that my parents did. She allowed us entry into Canada, but her last words haunted me during my entire stay --- "I am not sure if the US will let you back in" she said looking at me specifically. "The others were born in the US so they are ok. You are naturalized, so I just don't know" Wow, I got scared!!!! The next two hours, while watching the Falls, and then the fireworks, (which were really beautiful) I couldn't stop thinking about how I was going to get back home.

On the ride back over, we began talking strategy. Here were three Muslim guys, going to Canada for a few hours, with a rental car from Ohio, who just finished attending an Islamic conference, with no proof of citizenship except for drivers licenses. On top of this, I kept thinking about what Chris had told me before I left Bellingham: that he heard that the US was looking for suspicious men of Indo-pak origin over this weekend. We decided to throw out everything that had to do with the conference in our car: name badges, program, etc. One guy even shaved his beard (just kidding!!!!). Waiting in line to cross the border, we tried to get our story straight, in case they detained us, put us in separate rooms and tried to ask us the same questions. "we were at an interfaith youth conference in Cleveland and after it was over, we decided to see the fireworks from Niagara Falls." We were convinced this would work.

All our planning and strategizing was for not. The border patrol looked at our driver's licenses, asked where we were born, and then sent us on our way. No problems, no hitches, no detentions. On the drive back, I though alot about my experience. For all the talk about profiling and stereo-typing that Muslims complain about, there are still good people out there. The best part to the story, I usually never take my passport when I travel, but on this trip to Cleveland, I had it in my bag which I left at the hotel. I am not saying that profiling is a good thing, but I can't blame Americans for doing this to Muslims. As Muslims, we have to be honest about our own problems. We do have cancers within our community and we have to come out and admit it, and then if we can't fix it, ask for help. Unfortunately, we are too busy pretending to be victims to do anything about it. In the jumma khutba I heard this weekend, the person spoke about how the US was profiling us, how unjust that is, and how it should be stopped. He spoke about how Islam doesn't allow for injustice and that America needs Islam. That is all great, but not once during his speech, did he mention that we as Muslims have not lived up to the teachings of Islam and that we deserve this injustice until we fix our selves. Allah says in the Qur'an, "Allah will not change a condition of a people until they change what is in themselves". Rather, the speaker conveniently played the victim and wrote off any wrong actions Muslims are doing by staying silent. This is more of an injustice in my opinion; sometimes silence speaks louder than words. I will probably never cross the border again without my passport, but I am glad I had this experience for it gave me an opportunity to reflect. If in the future I get stopped, or harassed, or other Muslims tell me about their story, I will remind myself and remind them of this experience I had, to tell them that not every one is out to get us.

Till Next time,
Babi