Muslims quick to respond after shootings at Fort Hood

HACKENSACK, N.J. — Muslim organizations around the country are making concerted efforts to distance themselves from violence that some associate with Islam following the Fort Hood shooting spree, allegedly by a major of Middle Eastern descent.

Shortly after the shooter, accused of killing 13 people, was identified as Nidal Malik Hasan, the Darul Islah mosque in Teaneck, N.J., posted a message on its Web site condemning the massacre.

Days later, the mosque posted yet another message, this time assailing a former Virginia imam's remarks praising Hasan. "Islam is a religion of peace," the mosque stressed. The imam's views, the site read, were "not those of American Muslims, and do not reflect mainstream Islamic beliefs or sentiments."

"It's a necessary evil," said Salaheddin Mustafa, president of the Clifton, N.J.-based American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of New Jersey. "If you don't respond — and explain that what this man did is contrary to how Muslims are raised and taught — you get criticized."

However, Mustafa said, "If you do respond, there will still be people who say we haven't done or said enough."

Many mosques have urged their congregants to be extra vigilant of their surroundings. Some, such as the Teaneck mosque, have asked their local police departments to step up their presence around their place of worship.

"Nothing has happened, there hasn't been an incident," said Waheed Khalid, the president of Darul Islah, "but we thought we should be cautious."

Even before the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Muslims say, they felt dread whenever news broke about an act of terror, especially in the U.S.

"You think, 'Please God, don't let it be a Muslim,' " said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. "Whenever there's a tragic incident like this, we seem to go through the same script by all parties — the ones who see Islam as a reason for it — and our condemnations. I wish we could break out of it somehow."

By now, it is, indeed, almost a process: An act of violence occurs, and attention turns to the Islamic faith, whether or not the perpetrator claimed to commit it in the name of Islam, or even when — as in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building that killed more than 150 people — the violence is carried out by non-Muslims.

Reports that Hasan shouted "Allahu akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic) before opening fire at the base earlier this month further fueled talk that religious zealotry triggered his actions.