Seizing on President Barack Obama’s call for a partnership between America and Islam, some of the nation’s prominent Muslim leaders will meet in Jackson for a conference they say will begin a dialogue of mutual respect and reconciliation.
“With the new administration, everybody is inspired by the message of hope and change. American Muslims are playing a pivotal role in this relationship and this conference sheds some light on opportunities,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations in Washington.
The conference is sponsored by the International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, the nation’s first museum dedicated to educating visitors about Islamic historical contributions.
About 500 are expected to attend the three-day event that begins Friday, said Okolo Rashid, the museum’s co-founder.
Mississippi has an estimated Muslim population of about 5,000, but Awad said the location’s symbolism shouldn’t be overlooked. Mississippi was a hotbed of civil-rights activity during the 1960s.
The museum is only a few miles from the home of Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers, who was gunned down by self-proclaimed white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in 1963.
“We’re standing on the giant shoulders of people,” Awad said. “We’re learning by those who came before us -- African-American leaders who have struggled over the years to make laws and change laws to push back.”
When Obama traveled to Cairo in early June, he spoke of the contention between America and Muslims worldwide. The Democratic president said building a better relationship would be based, in part, on quashing negative stereotypes of Islam.
“There’s also the issue of inclusion,” Awad said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “Muslims from various backgrounds have a lot of resources, interests and expertise and desires to help America turn a new page with the Muslim world.”
The Muslim initiatives come at a critical point in the nation’s history, said Imam Zaid Shakir, a scholar at the Zaytuna Institute in Berkeley, Calif., which is dedicated to classical Muslim studies.
Shakir said practicing Muslim principles could have averted the U.S. financial crisis that began last year.
“We don’t believe in interest and usury, and that’s a big part of the current financial situation,” Shakir said. “We don’t believe in monopolies, hoarding and insider trading. If people took those principles seriously, we’d have a much, more stable world.”
Rashid said she saw a need to better educate the public about the religion after a 2001 Jackson exhibit, “The Majesty of Spain,” didn’t include Islam’s contributions to that country and early Europe. She and Emad Al-Turk co-founded the museum and began to recount to visitors how a Muslim Berber Army in 711 crossed the Straits of Gibraltar from Morocco, and defeated the Army of Spain.
With them, the Moors brought ideas of strong monotheism, scholarship and technology, she said.
Housed on the second-floor of the Mississippi Arts Center in downtown Jackson, the museum displays ancient manuscripts written in Arabic on loan from a library in Timbuktu, and a 20-by-30-foot leather camel skin tent under which Rashid recites tales about the lives of early Muslims.
The exhibit has drawn more than 50,000 visitors since 2001, Rashid said.