Word: imam
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...willing to cooperate, but he knew he would have to convince his congregation that getting cozy with the FBI was in their interest. Some members--particularly those who had come from countries with repressive regimes where the security service was an organization to be avoided--were uneasy. The imam invited agents to the mosque to explain how Muslims could help, but the initial meetings were heated, and the lawmen had to sit through "some very harsh questioning," says Uzma Unus, vice president of the ADAMS board of trustees. The congregants vented about law-enforcement profiling, which they felt targeted...
...American imam becomes de facto mayor of his Muslim community. A line of congregants often stretches outside Magid's office filled with followers asking for all kinds of help. Finding love, for example, can be difficult for observant Muslims scattered in U.S. cities; Islam forbids physical contact in dating or cruising for mates in nightclubs that serve alcohol. A breathless young man once phoned Magid in the middle of the night to ask if he could perform a marriage in a parking lot "right now" so the suitor and the woman in his car wouldn't feel guilty about what...
...also counsels on safe sex and the health dangers of binge drinking. As for the bikini wax, Islam's rules on female modesty allow it, he decided--if a wife's husband will be the only one to see the result. "He's not some big, scary imam sitting in his office passing judgment," says Zohra Atmar, a 25-year-old legal assistant who is a mosque member...
...bureau when a stranger with a questionable background wanders into his center. In one case, mosque members alerted him to a newcomer who dealt only in cash and wanted to list the ADAMS-center address as his home on his driver's license application. The next time the imam saw the man in his mosque, he kept the newcomer in his office until agents showed up to question him. In the end, the FBI cleared the man. It turned out he had gone through a messy divorce in another state and was simply trying to start a new life...
...Sept. 11, 2001, "changed the role of the American imam for good," Magid believes. Muslims in this country found their religion under attack. His female congregants who wore the hijab, or traditional scarf, on their head were harassed at shopping centers. Last year a man shouted "Terrorists!" at the mosque's Girl Scouts as they sold cookies at a nearby grocery store. And since 9/11, the ADAMS center has been vandalized four times and the graffiti GO HOME painted on its walls...