disapproval, commenting loudly about how she was a bad parent who could not keep her son under control. Sufyaan’s other siblings were embarrassed, and Muhammad, like many others in that situation, simply might have gone home and stayed away from the mosque. But she refused. “He deserves to pray,” she says. “He has a right to faith, too.” She went to the imam and told him about the situation, and he addressed the topic of compassion during his sermon the next Friday. The community as a whole soon became eager to understand more about autism and learn how to support Muhammad, Sufyaan, and the rest of their family members so they could all maintain a positive and meaningful experience at the mosque. Masjid Waarith ud Deen now serves as a role model to other communities in similar situations. It was featured in a PBS Religion and Ethics episode in 2009 and in a new book by Mark Pinsky, Amazing Gifts: Stories of Faith, Disability, and Inclusion. Stories like Sufyaan’s remind us that there may be many occasions when we pass judgment on an individual or a family in our community without understanding the circumstances. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 1 in 5 people in the U.S. have some kind of disability. One in 3 people have a family member or close friend with a disability. And yet many report that they do not know a person who has a disability in their mosque. Sometimes this is because there are people who have invisible disabilities that we do not detect. Sometimes this is because people with disabilities feel so unwelcome or unsupported that they cannot or will not come. And sometimes this is because we forget that many elders in our midst face challenges that may be “disabilities” — like hearing or vision loss, arthritis, depression, an unsteady gait, or diabetes. One of the most beautiful things about Muslim communities around the world is the value placed on the elderly. This may serve as a model for the community when dealing with individuals with disabilities. Younger members of our community like Yousuf also deserve accommodation. Still other community members might not need a chair or similar assistance — perhaps all they need from their community is a smile. “There are people you’re avoiding,” says Ginny Thornburgh, Director of Interfaith Initiative at the American Association for People with Disabilities. “Maybe you’re avoiding them because you’re afraid you’ll
say the wrong thing to them and offend them. But sometimes people don’t want you to go out of your way to welcome them — they just want to be valued. They want to feel that their presence is appreciated, even enjoyed. Maybe there is a reason why the accessibility ramp at the mosque isn’t being used. Is it possible that a person came to the mosque but found no friends?” Everyone wants to feel part of a community. “They might be thinking, ‘I just need you to know that I like flowers,’” she says, “‘and to know that my mom is really ill right now and I’m worried about that.’” The gift of friendship is the best way for us to include everyone in our community, in addition to demonstrating dignity, respect, and patience for everyone in our midst.
Keeping Islam Accessible In 2000, Nashiru Abdulai and other deaf Muslim students worked to explain their particular needs to the Muslim community in Rochester, NY. Nashiru came from Ghana to study at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). As with his classes, the university provided him and other deaf Muslim students with a sign-language interpreter during every Jummah prayer. Whenever he went to a mosque off-campus, however, no interpreter was provided. But as the Islamic Center of Rochester came to understand the growing needs of the large deaf community there, it did everything it could to make sure their mosque was accessible and supportive. “They opened one hall so we could have American Sign Language (ASL) classes for the hearing community every weekend,” he says. “We did that and it was very successful. And whenever someone from the Islamic Center of Rochester came to RIT to give a talk, they made sure there was an interpreter there.” Even more significant, it was through the support of the Muslim community in Rochester that Abdulai and other deaf Muslims were able to establish Global Deaf Muslim (GDM) in 2005. “Without the help of the Muslim community in Rochester, there would be no GDM,” Abdulai says. “The Islamic Center of Rochester provided us with funds to pay for the paperwork and moral support, giving us all the attention we needed to go through with the paperwork.” Global Deaf Muslim (www.globaldeafmuslim.org), of which Abdulai is now president, works to make Islam accessible to deaf Muslims worldwide, and to address
Islamic Horizons September/October 2012
Making Room for Guide Dogs By Maggie Siddiqi
S
ebastian is well-known in the halls of the U.S. government. He has made his reputation keeping people on the right path, avoiding obstacles, and making it known if there are bumps in the road. But Sebastian is no government employee. He’s a dutiful seeing-eye dog who guides his blind owner, Mazen Basrawi, an attorney in the Obama Administration. Despite Sebastian’s stature in the government, he faces some challenges when he travels to the mosque with his owner. “People don’t know how to behave or what to expect,” says Basrawi. He finds a place for Sebastian out of the way, outside the prayer area, but is often asked to take the dog further away, even outside the mosque altogether. Unfortunately, Basrawi needs Sebastian to help him find doorways and let him know when there is an obstacle in his path, so needs him to be very close by once prayers have ended. “I would like to see more education on this issue among our community leaders and their communities as a whole,” Basrawi says, “both on a) fiqh regarding dogs and service animals in particular, and b) etiquette on how to behave around people with guide dogs.” He cites one community in the Chicago area that gave him hope, when he went to attend a meeting at the mosque. “I walked in and asked where the best place to put the dog might be. To my surprise, one of the leaders of the community said, ‘Come right this way,’ and took both of us into the meeting room.” That man, he says, was an elderly member of the community who was also the head of his local Lion’s Club. The cause they had chosen to work on was blindness and so he knew exactly what to do. There is a lot that our communities still need to learn about this issue, and mosques have a special obligation to help blind members of our communities feel comfortable and welcomed, together with their guides. To overcome, the dog issue, in fact, Muslims like Detroit native Mona Ramouni are trying alternatives. She goes about life with Cali, her seeing-eye 5-year-old miniature horse. And the horses can live into their 30s, more than twice as long as most dogs.
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