In the late 1980s, when 37-year old Jabril Hough was a Methodist who attended church every Sunday, he began having religious doubts about Christianity's Holy Trinity and the worship of Jesus as the Son of God. "I searched for an authentic Christian Bible that had not been altered or tampered with, but couldn't find one," Hough recalled. Then after the Gulf War broke out in 1991, Hough became aware of Islam and began studying the religion. "Islam's monotheism began making sense to me," Hough said. "The religion says God is one and he has no partners, parents, sons or daughters." Today, Hough, one of approximately 4.5 to five million Muslims in the US, is chairman of the national board of the Islamic Political Party of America (IPPA), the country's first and only Islamic political party. With about 4,000 members and chapters in 12 states, the IPPA seeks to encourage Muslim Americans to become more involved politically.
"We need to organise politically because we are living in the most dangerous period in our history," said Ali Abdur-Rashid, the IPPA's national coordinator and one of the party's three co-founders. "Muslim Americans are scared. We know what happened to the Japanese during World War II, and we don't want that to happen to us." The party was founded in April 2001, five months prior to 9-11, but IPPA officials said that Muslim Americans were facing serious problems like religious profiling and hate crimes long before the event happened. "The U.S. government was putting Muslims in prison on the basis of a secret evidence law," Abdur-Rashid said. "Remember that famous case of al-Najjir? He was put in prison for several years and the government didn't even have to explain why." The US government arrested Mazen al-Najjir, a former University of South Florida professor, in 1977 on charges of overstaying his visa and having ties to terrorist organisations. Al-Najjir was released in December 2000, only to be arrested again in November 2001 and then deported in August 2002. IPPA officials said none of the political parties have taken the Muslim American community seriously. "When it comes to Muslim Americas, there is no balance in American politics," Hough said. "Look at that first presidential debate between Kerry and Hough. They both talked about the War on Terrorism and Iraq being about ensuring Israel's security." |