DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. - MASSACHUSETTS:

Visitor promotes nuanced view of Islam
By Jason Feifer TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Mohamed Azam Mohamed Adil is in town from Malaysia, and went to the Islamic Society of Worcester for a prayer service on Friday. Afterward, as he was chatting with other attendees, some asked him why he hasn’t grown a beard.

Mr. Adil is clean-shaven, and was surprised by the question.

“It is not a must for everybody to have it,” he said, recalling the incident yesterday. “For them, it is compulsory. My belief is different.”

These are the sorts of nuances — the way Islam, like other religions, isn’t the same to every follower — that Mr. Adil can show best. He is a Fulbright Scholar visiting Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner on a mission to counter American stereotypes of Islam that have developed since Sept. 11.

A lecturer at the Centre for Islamic Thought and Understanding at Mara University of Technology in Malaysia, he’s here as part of a Fulbright program called Direct Access to the Muslim World. From now until March 10, he’ll be in the region talking to groups and classes about Islam.

Today, he’ll be speaking to students at B. F. Brown Arts Vision School and St. Bernard’s High School, both in Fitchburg.

As he tries addressing Americans’ misunderstandings of the religion, Mr. Adil often introduces something more complex: an Islamic world that is full of debate and countering philosophies, no different from what happens in Christian or Jewish communities.

For example, he said he is frequently asked about the way some Islamic women are dressed in head-to-toe black hijab. It’s a custom that may run counter to American values, and some Americans see it as enforced and abusive.

Mr. Adil said that in some countries, such as his native Malaysia, the hijab is not mandatory, although some women wear it because of social pressures. But the larger issue, he said, is the way Islamic law is hypocritically applied: There are requirements for how men and women should dress, but some countries only enforce it for women, he said.

He last came to America in 1996, and found a country relatively tolerant of Islam. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, though, he saw that change. As he watched CNN from his office in Malaysia, he saw Americans grow fearful of an Islam that had been defined by radicals.

On this trip, he said, he expects to talk with people who are confused by Islam, or who wrongly believe it’s inherently violent or vengeful.

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Brainwashing via NUANCE, I would think the people in Massachusetts are going to fall for that hook, line and sinker they have voted for the NUANCED JOHN F. KERRY and the alcoholic Teddy Kennedy...

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