By Rebecca Henely
Inside his mosque on 72nd Street in Jackson Heights, Imam Mohd Qayyoom keeps many mementos of the lost Twin Towers.
A framed photo of the towers rests on his desk, his clock has a picture of the World Trade Center superimposed over an American flag and among some papers he keeps a battered photo of himself sitting on the observation deck in 1995.
Yet the true artifact of the destroyed World Trade Center may be the mission of his mosque, which is posted on the wall behind his desk and declares that the mosque’s members do not believe in “extremism, radicalism, terrorism.”
“Everybody has a right to exist in this world,” Qayyoom said.
Shortly after the attacks 10 years ago, Qayyoom, imam for the Muhammadi Community Center of Jackson Heights at 37-46 72nd St., made it his mission and the mission of his mosque to fight against terrorism.
He was living in Astoria at the time, and remembers running to the window when he saw the news about the planes hitting the buildings and wondering how such destruction was possible. The attacks came just before his immigration lawyer, Taufiq Chowdhury, was due to arrive at his office on the 46th floor of the North Tower. Chowdhury was unharmed, but Qayyoom, who is from Bangladesh, lost his medical records and birth certificate in the attack.
“Everything was gone. Everything was exploded,” he said.
Qayyoom said some of the more radically minded Muslims were happy after the attacks, but many faced prejudice. Qayyoom said soon after 9/11 he tried to approach a woman whose car was broken down to offer his help, and she backed away in fear.
“After 9/11, Muslims suffer a lot,” Qayyoom said.
Queens Muslims feared reprisals from the community in 2001. A little more than a week after Sept. 11, Afghan Muslims marched through downtown Flushing condemning the attacks and affirming the religion’s commitment to peace. The private Islamic Razi School in Woodside had to increase security that month due to threats.
Cyrus McGoldrick, a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations who recently visited the Muhammadi Community Center, said American Muslims were both hurt by the terror attacks and the prejudice from others against Muslims that followed.
“The American Muslim community has been victimized twice,” McGoldrick said.
Qayyoom said while some Muslims still face discrimination, he does not worry about hate crimes since he believes most Americans realize Osama bin-Laden, who was killed by Navy SEALS in Pakistan in May, was the one responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The imam’s stance against terrorism has earned him some criticism from fellow members of the faith. He began his mosque in 2005 after running into conflicts at the mosque in Elmhurst where he then worked. He is also in favor of background checks for mosques that may be backed by Islamic radicals.
Yet Qayyoom has a commitment to both building bridges with other religions as well as fighting terrorism, and said he hopes on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 that all faiths can come together to stop any more attacks from radicals.
“We should not let it happen anywhere in the world in the name of Islam,” he said.
Reach reporter Rebecca Henely by e-mail at rhenely@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
