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Masnet - March 31, 2004 U.S. Muslim Community Leaders Gather ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, March 31, 2004 (MASNET) - Imams from across the United States gathered over the weekend in northern Virginia to initiate discussions on the development of a council designed to foster better communication between mosques, Islamic centers and the American Muslim community. Recognizing the lack of unity among American Muslims, the Muslim American Society (MAS) sponsored a conference aimed at directly addressing religious leaders within local communities in order that they spearhead efforts to organize and coordinate relations between imams and Islamic centers. Currently, mosques and associated Islamic centers in the U.S. are fragmented along ethnic and national lines as different communities have established their own worship and social facilities. “We’re trying to unite the community,” said MAS President Souheil Ghannouchi. Organizers state that the establishment of the National Council of Imams and Islamic Centers (NCIIC) will help alleviate a leadership vacuum at national and local levels, provide credible community representation for government relations and the media, and create a counterpart organization matching those of other ethnic and religious minorities in order to foster efficient interfaith and coalition building efforts. “The Muslim community is fragmented along ethnic, organizational and geographical lines,” said Ghannouchi, “and that is exactly what the project is trying to solve, to build a cohesive community, better organized, and establish more credible and legitimate representation for the community in dealing the government, media and civic society…and other minorities and religious groups. “The integration of plans and coordination of activities, the pooling of resources,” are some of the steps being initiated “for a unified voice and unified leadership,” he said. One manner in which to tackle such issues is to address the fundamental relation between religious leaders and Islamic centers, where the role of the imam varies from that of an employee to that of a significant board member, differing from one locality to another and from one mosque to others within the same locality. “There is a lot of confusion about the role of the imam and his relationship with the boards, something that has often led to endless disputes,” Ghannouchi said. “We need to improve and standardize the function of the imam and the Islamic Centers.” To help better understand and improve upon relations between imams and the centers, the presentation of a survey designed to assess the background, training, and performance of the imams was introduced. Imam Abdul-Malik Johari of the Coordinating Council on Muslim Relations, said the survey asks about what services Islamic centers provide, a performance evaluation gauged by imams of those services, and an assessment of the community imams serve. “How do they [imams] think they are doing in terms of serving the community?” was the basic premise behind the survey, said Johari. He said the survey asks questions that a prior survey neglected: “What is the condition of the imam, where do they fit in the administrative structure (of the Islamic center], what’s their salary, do they have benefits, and do they have a contract?” Johari said the survey was basically a self-assessment tool for the imams, the results of which would be generated and used for the next NCIIC planning conference. Those attending the present conference reflected the effort to cross ethnic and national lines as representatives of African American, South Asian and Arab American Muslim communities were present. They came from all corners of the U.S., as attendees said they came from as far away as the West Coast, with the largest amount coming from the Midwest (Chicago, Detroit) and the East Coast (New York, New Jersey, Florida and Massachusetts). Organizers hoped that the ethnic, national and geographic diversity reflected by imams at the conference would help create a climate reflecting unity among the diverse Muslim backgrounds that could only occur here in the U.S. “The meeting was a major step in that direction,” Ghannouchi said. |