During the past two months, Mohammed Sharif has been much in demand for speaking engagements because he's president of the Southern Rhode Island Islamic Society, an educational arm of the local Muslim community. Only twice during his many appearances has he, in his words, "encountered hatred." The first time was at the Cumberland Public Library, when a small group harangued Sharif and expressed support for bombing all the Muslim countries into extinction.

The second occasion was during the recent opening lecture of a series, titled "In the Wake of Tragedy," at the Providence Public Library. Toward the end of the program, a man representing about five others cited a lack of evidence against Osama bin Laden and praised the Taliban for shielding him. Sharif then challenged the description of bin Laden as someone with advanced religious training, leading the man to storm out of the hall after sputtering, "That is a lie. You don't know nothing about this brother."

Sharif, who came to this country more than 20 years ago from Bangladesh, calls such individuals "the people who are giving such a bad name to my faith," although he understands the historical reasons behind a black Muslim's distrust of this country. But Farid Ansari, who is black and an imam with the Muslim-American Dawah Committee in Providence, says those African-Americans who sympathize with bin Laden because of their own heritage are "holding on to past harm." Ansari adds, "There's no future in the past. It's time to move on and take some responsibility for their own lives."

As for the isolated outburst at the library, Ansari stresses, "Does Timothy McVeigh reflect what a Christian is about? If McVeigh had called upon Americans to blow up federal buildings, would they have done it? Same thing with bin Laden calling on Muslims. Am I supposed to respond to the ravings of a lunatic? It's not even logical."

The remaining lectures in the PPL series will be "The Nature and Ethics of War," on December 2, by US Naval War College professor Porter Halyburton, and "God, Politics and the Community of Believers: The Taliban of Afghanistan, the Wahhabis of Arabia who are their Mentors, and Women," December 9, by Brown visiting scholar Eleanor Abdella Doumato.

Issue Date: November 23 - 29, 2001