Linda Sarsour and Faiza Ali are two people who keenly felt the recent controversy over the film, “The Third Jihad,” which had been shown to some police officers attending a 2010 counterterrorism course offered by the New York City Police Department.
Some Muslim leaders in New York protested against the film and said it would encourage Americans to be suspicious of all Muslims. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the episode had damaged relations between Muslims and the city’s police.
Mrs. Sarsour and Ms. Ali felt damage of a different kind — a setback for their chosen course of speaking out about prejudice, of difficulties in Muslim relations with other Americans, but also in the dealings outspoken Muslim American women like them have with some Muslim men, particularly first-generation male leaders in immigrant communities.
“What we are trying to do is to build bridges between the Muslim community and all the others,” said Mrs. Sarsour, who has received a letter from the White House commending her work. “But we are facing also problems by trying that.” It is important to speak out, said Ms. Ali. “There aren’t many people doing it.”
The furor surrounding “The Third Jihad” was particularly problematic, according to the two women, because they had always advocated good relations with the Police Department.
“We had invited the N.Y.P.D. folks several times to meetings and even had a soccer game where our young men were wearing N.Y.P.D. shirts,” Mrs. Sarsour said. After the story about the video came out, she said, critics of those overtures crowed: “See, we told you, they are not trusting us.”
Both women were born and raised in the New York borough of Brooklyn. Mrs. Sarsour, 31, is executive director of the nongovernment Arab American Association of New York, and of Palestinian origin. Ms. Ali, 27, lost her father when she was 16 but became the first woman in her family to go to college, studying political science. She works for the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition.
Both women favor jeans, eyeliner, head scarves — and tireless efforts by the hundreds of thousands Muslims in New York to confront both the curiosity and the prejudice surrounding Muslims after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Listening to Mrs. Sarsour on her phone, particularly with older Muslims, you often hear her switch from English to Arabic. “You have to be patient and explain everything to them, as some of them still have the mentality, ‘It’s better to keep silent and not to be too much in public,”’ she explained.
Ms. Ali sees Muslim women having a special responsibility in this area. “We were and still are the ones who are easily identifiable as Muslims because we are wearing head scarves,” she said. “It is therefore more important that we don’t keep silent.”
When she started work in the Muslim community, she said, her youth, gender and Pakistani origin worked against her. “Most of the leaders in the Muslim community were either Arabs or African-American leaders,” she said.
Her father was an elevator operator, her mother an active, hospitable homemaker who entertained often. Ms. Ali said she came to see herself simply as a Pakistani from a certain part of Brooklyn.
Mrs. Sarsour, the eldest of seven children, said she too feels at least as much of Brooklyn as of the Islamic faith.
A good student in high school, she graduated early and was then seen by others only as marriageable “and I thought they were right.” At age 17, she became the wife of a Palestinian from Massachusetts, and she eventually gave birth to three children.
Both women said they were worn down by the frequent criticism from inside and outside the Muslim community, where women rather than men tend to work at outreach.
Mrs. Sarsour said members of the first generation of immigrants usually sought contacts with the police or other American authorities only at formal talks or iftar dinners, during which the Ramadan fast is broken.
“But we as American Muslim women think we need to get engaged in a policy-making level,” she said. “Many in our society think we should not have any relations.”
Ms. Ali noted that one difference between Muslim men and women working in the community is that women are not arguing over who should take credit. “We care about getting the work done.”
The Rev. David Rommereim, pastor of Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, has worked with both women. “Linda has been exemplary in her leadership,” he said. “Faiza is showing strong abilities to build strong community. They are leaders and impressive in their sensitivity, informed thoughts and goals, as well as personally able to break down the boundaries through humor and clear talk.”
Take, for instance, violence against women. Mrs. Sarsour is very wary of the term “honor killings,” because, she said, such acts should not be connected to faith. “How come in the U.S., when a non-Muslim man is killing his wife or daughter, we call it a crime,” Mrs. Sarsour asked, “but when it happens in a Muslim family, it’s an honor killing?”
Both women prefer the term domestic violence — saying it must be discussed openly, but not to the exclusion of fighting off attacks against Muslims from outside.
Such attacks have, they feel, increased in the past 10 years. “Islamophobes” argue that people like them are simply angling for key positions and power, they say. “No matter what you are doing, they will use it against you. If you are not active, people will say, ‘Look, they don’t want to engage with the society,”’ Mrs. Sarsour said. “I am really confused.”