Five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Muslim communities in America are now debating how Muslims can prevent such attacks from happening again, with divisions emerging within the community over the role of Muslims citizens. News reports of recently thwarted terrorist attacks in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada note that individuals alleged to have been involved were all citizens of Western countries. Muslim leaders among communities in those countries point out that several plots appear to have stopped with the help of other Western Muslims. This sentiment of denial, that sort of came as a fever to the Muslim community after 9-11, is fading away, said Muqtedar Khan, a political scientist at the University of Delaware and author of a book on American Muslims. They realize that there are Muslims who use terrorism, and the community is beginning to stand up to this. In both England and Canada reports suggests Muslim citizens worked with authorities to tip off law enforcement officials about possible terrorist plots. Canadian-born Muslim Mubin Shaikh said he feared any violence would ultimately hurt Islam and Canadian Muslims. But community leaders, and some Muslim citizens in Western countries are loath to cooperate with law enforcement agencies they see as antagonistic towards their religion. Safiyyah Ally, a graduate student in political science at the University of Toronto warned that Shaikh s actions could harm Muslims. North American Muslim community is fragile enough as is, she wrote on a website, without members spying on each other. Leaders should counsel Muslims against violence and report suspicious activity to police but nothing more, she argued. We cannot have communities wherein individuals are paranoid of each other and turned against one another, she wrote. But Salam Al Marayati, executive director of Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in Los Angeles, says cooperation with authorities underscores that Muslims are loyal citizens, and gives them a way to air concerns about how they are treated. We re not on opposite teams, Al Marayati said. We re all trying to protect our country from another terrorist attack. MPAC founded the National Anti-Terrorism Campaign, in which hundreds of U.S. mosques agreed to monitor their communities and speak out against violence. Other groups have also encouraged cooperation with authorities and ran adverts rejecting terrorism.
