U.S. Muslims assess state of Iraq

Speaking at a Shi'a awareness seminar at Rutgers University's Busch Campus Center in Piscataway, Sheik Husham al-Husainy said former Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari's decision to step aside was "democratic change." Husainy, director of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Mich., is an associate of both Maliki and Jaafari's.

"This is democracy, we have to give it (a) chance," Husainy, a Baghdad native, told a gathering of students and community leaders. "In Iraq, we have all the elements to make a democracy. "It might be a long way. It might be costly, but in the end, I think democracy will win."

Until now, however, "opportunities for creating democracy in Iraq have failed," Husainy said.

"It's really bad in Iraq," he said, noting his family members, who encompass both Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, are still in Baghdad. "Bodies in the streets -- blood in the streets. The country is gone. Iraq is destroyed."

Syed Meesam Razvi called for heightened awareness of the historical persecution of Shi'as. Razvi spoke on behalf of Sheikh Fadhel al-Sahlani, head of the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation in New York and the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in North America.

Razvi said Shi'as were victimized under Saddam Hussein's Iraq and also as minorities in other countries such as Afghanistan and on the Indian subcontinent.

In an interview, Razvi, Al-Khoei's representative to the United Nations, said Sahlani also viewed the political change in Iraq as democracy at work.

"It's a fact on the ground that Jaafari has not been able to deliver," Razvi said, adding Jaafari is a "nice person."

"He was a very popular candidate (but now) they want to bring a new person -- a new face," Razvi said. Maliki, he said, doesn't have Jaafari's accumulated "baggage."

INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

Yesterday's event was held on the two-month anniversary of the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, one of Shi'a Islam's holiest shrines. Images of the so-called Golden Mosque served as the backdrop to speakers. Among the speakers were political activists and community leaders from Shi'a groups and other religions, including Allyson Gall, executive director of the New Jersey American Jewish Committee in Millburn, and the Rev. Philip Latronico of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Newark.

Organizers stressed the event was an opportunity to raise awareness of Shi'a identity and to provide a forum for Muslims to speak out against terrorism.

"We're using the Iraq situation as a backdrop for an interfaith dialogue," said organizer Hasan Rizvi, of the group Message of Peace in Bloomfield. "The dialogue that can be gained here can be applied anywhere."

"I think this is a wake-up call," said co-organizer Sausan Merali, a pharmacy graduate student by day and social activist by night. The Saddle Brook native said Muslims have to speak louder to spread the word that "terrorism belongs to no religion."

"There's such a need now to just bring awareness of true Islam," Merali said. "I don't think al Qaeda are Muslims at all."

Participants said Iraq needed to be pulled from the brink of sectarian strife.

"I think people all around the world need to come to the realization that we're all similar in an unconventional way," said Sumaiya Virji, 16, a student at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge. Virji, an active public speaker, said the significance of the event was to galvanize people to go out and raise awareness.

"In the Iraq that I know, Iraqis didn't identify themselves as Sunni or Shi'a or even Muslim or Christian," said Hadani Ditmars, a Canadian journalist who has been covering Iraq for several years since the first Gulf War. "It was a very secular society."