In response to my last piece in The Pueblo Chieftain, I received an anonymous e-mail to my Web site. The writer wrote, “Your story, ‘They don’t hate Americans, just the policies,’ isn’t correct. Why would they burn us alive, then hang us on a bridge; why would they cut us to pieces, why would they kill us in cold blood? The Americans there serving in the Armed Forces did not make the policies, they’re just there serving, yet they get punished by the Muslims just for being an American. That’s hatred. I disagree with you.”

The writer here has committed an understandable and typical mistake. We should not mistake the actions of a few Muslims for the feelings of all Muslims. President Bush himself has made the same point in decrying the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Don’t judge all of America as being disrespectful and abusive toward Muslims because of the actions of a misguided few.

Certainly, a vocal minority of all Muslims worldwide holds hatred for America. But what population in the world today does not? American policies are hated everywhere, unfortunately. Just ask the French! Furthermore, when American involvement is perceived as invasion, some members of that vocal minority will engage in what they feel is self-defense. Whether that is right or wrong, it is a natural risk we take in our noble efforts to help the people of Iraq. News reports say that Iraqis are horrified by the killing and mutilation of Americans abroad, as most Muslims probably are. It goes against all standards of decency in Islam and is counter to rules prescribed in Islam for combat. Polls of Iraqis show that a majority actually welcomes the U.S. presence. Are we, as Americans, going to abandon the poor and hungry people of Iraq who desperately need us because a vicious few have engaged in the most abhorrent of shock tactics?

In order to win the war on terror, it’s important that we not lose sight of the goal. Our goal is not to eradicate Islam. If you truly believe that is the goal, then prepare yourself to lose the war on terror. More than a billion of the world’s inhabitants are Muslim, about one-sixth of the world’s population. This number means that one in six people in the world is Muslim. Just for comparison’s sake, the population of the United States is about 300 million. Based on the numbers alone then, we Americans are quite outmatched. Add in that Muslims are spread all over the globe, in every corner of the Earth, and with all kinds of ethnicities and languages, and we face even worse odds.

The Muslim world is not all the same. The strategies to attack one Muslim population cannot necessarily be applied to another on the other side of the world.

Other countries and empires have done their best, devoting far more resources than the U.S. has, to decimate the Muslim population, and at times when it was smaller. They all have failed, and sometimes the failure sent off shockwaves that prompted the beginning of the end for that nation. Some of you may remember that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Russians, by their own admission, assumed the invasion would be swift and simple. How hard could it be to defeat a ragtag band of scraggly, dusty Third Worlders and establish a communist satellite? They soon found out it was impossible.

The resources the Soviet Union dedicated to the perpetual war with Afghanistan put a second burden on the empire, already engaged in a costly arms race with the United States. Buckling under the pressure, President Mikhail Gorbachev ordered Russia’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. The turbaned, tattered warriors – some descendants of the fierce Genghis Khan – had devastated the Western front of the Soviet Union. One of the world’s most powerful superpowers was brought down by a fierce, tribal civilization.

This story is only one of many where Muslims have prevailed over insurmountable odds. CIA documents now available show that the United States supplied weapons and aid to these Afghan fighters, assuming fully that the Russians would slaughter them. The United States’ goal was simply to distract the Soviet Union’s attention to gain an upper hand in the Cold War. While the United States did achieve this goal, even the CIA was surprised that the Afghans won. We had sent these tribal warriors to their deaths, with our U.S. guns. No one was more surprised than we were when they actually lived and won!

To convert the war on terror into a war on Islam would be a mistake. We simply cannot go to war with more than 1 billion of the world’s population. We will lose. President Bush, Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell know this fact and, for that reason, state that that War on Terror is not a war on Islam. Although these sound bites appear simply to be politically correct rhetoric, truthfully they are the administration’s prudent recognition that a war against Islam is impossible to win. The famous Islamic scholar, and former Catholic nun, Karen Armstrong has noted in her writing that whenever Muslims have been pressured by external forces, they have prevailed triumphant.

But do not worry. I am not saying that we will lose the war on terror. What we are fighting is the use of terrorism to scare people, to create instability, to turn the world into a “Wild West” gone mad. As President Bush said in his address on the evening of 9/11 no citizen of the world should have to face the fear that Americans did that horrible day, that the United States will make the world safe from those who seek power through fear and cruelty. To fight terrorism is a goal of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad himself fought the terrorists of his day -the pagan tribes of Mecca, whose society was governed by blood vendettas and revenge. Muhammad ushered in an era of peace in Arabia, an era that is now being threatened by psychotic tyrants disguising their lunacy as Islam.

I, as a Muslim, fully support the war on terror. To make the world safe is a noble goal. As an American, I am proud that my country has taken on the challenge and has the vision of a peaceful tomorrow. The United States is the only country brave enough to do it. We must not let the enemies of peace derail us with their small-minded evils. Our goal is greater than they can fathom.

Asma Gull Hasan, a Pueblo native, is the author of the new book, “Why I Am A Muslim: An American Odyssey” (Thorsons/Element 2004). Her Web site is www.asmahasan.com.

Through the personal experience of a young, bright American Muslim woman, we can identify the smiling face of Islam. The author extended a rich, generous zone of comfort, welcoming her generation and generations to come to a better understanding and better future.

Dr. Maher Hathout, Senior Advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and spokesperson of the Islamic Center of Southern California

Sure, abuse happened here and there, but it’s not like what they’re doing to us,” the radio host said at the outset of our 10-minute interview. I was on the road for my book on Islam, and already, the backlash had begun. After a few days of hearing Bush Administration officials repeat the mantra, “Don’t judge us all by the misguided actions of a few,” the horrific beheading of Nicholas Berg apparently put everything into a new (and dangerous) perspective.

On The Dennis Miller Show on CNBC, where I appeared after my radio interview, a fellow guest, a member of the Bush administration, said that badness has gradations. While the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was bad, it certainly was not nearly as bad as the beheading, said Wade Horn of the Health and Human Services department. The guiding theme: We Americans can now feel better about the prison pictures because we are not as bad as “they” (meaning, Muslims).

What does the prison scandal, indeed, the entire war in Iraq, mean for American Muslims like me, who must represent our faith to our fellow Americans while representing America to our fellow Muslims? Since the war’s start last year, we have had a hard sell on both sides. Many of us have friends and family in the countries that we or our parents emigrated from. The Iraqi prisoner photos put us in an impossible position.

In London about a week before the radio interview, I appeared on an ethnic television show with two Pakistani political party officials. They were stunned that I supported the United States’ entry into Iraq and our continuing presence. I argued sincerely that the United States needed to rid the Iraqi people of Saddam Hussein, who was monumentally cruel and abusive. Even absent weapons of mass destruction, I said, the Iraqi people needed us to help them.

“How are you helping them now?” they both responded, pointing to the photos. “Doing exactly what Saddam used to do!” Diametrically opposed on other policy issues, this was the only point on which these politicians agreed.

These politicians and I, along with all Western Muslims, have been fed a steady diet of “Muslims silently approved September 11.” Even today, nearly three years after the tragic 9/11 attacks, I am still asked why Muslims did not condemn September 11. The truth is that Muslims immediately condemned (and still continue to condemn) the horrific attacks of that day. Poor media coverage of these condemnations-which came in the form of peace marches, letters, and press releases-gave anti-Islamic commentators an opening to slam Islam.

Now we have the Iraqi prison photos. And it would only be fair for me to ask where the outrage is among Americans. Although outrage has been expressed, it is no greater to me than Muslim outrage at 9/11. Yet that level of outrage – at all levels of the American Muslim community – was not sufficient for the critics. Based on the standard Muslims are held to, I’d like to ask: where are the protest marches, the continuous and unconditional statements, the howling disapproval of outright American abuses and humiliations?

But I won’t ask where the outrage is, won’t expect it to be constant, and won’t comment on the “deafening silence” of Americans. Naturally, I assume that any decent person would disapprove, that a default silence is not implied approval. Frankly, what aspect of tying up naked Iraqis is there to approve of? Yet many Americans do not extend to Muslims that same assumption of outrage they now believe Muslims will assume that they feel.

I never felt that the Muslims involved in September 11 represented all of Islam. Al Qaeda is a self-appointed fringe group, not a national military. But the American soldiers goofily smiling over a pyramid of naked Iraqi detainees are members of a regular army. They wear our flag, right along with standard-issue fatigues, helmets, and boots. As a Muslim, I can certainly understand that the actions of these individuals do not represent American values. As an American, though, I refuse to accept the excuse, “at least we did not kill them.”

America has stood for all that is good in the world, for freedom and for justice. In some places, America does still stand for these noble goals.

When my aspiring filmmaker brother visited Pakistan last summer, he wanted to film the old walled city of Lahore, the inner-city ghetto of that third-world country. Our family members warned him that even locals do not visit that part of the city. But he went anyway, wanting to capture the real face of Islam today-not the ski-masked terrorists presumably of Al Qaeda but the poor, hungry, and undereducated children of Pakistan’s slums.

When the children asked if he was American, he modestly told them yes. Excitedly, they jumped up and down, wanting to touch this young Pakistani-American with the camera. “Take my picture,” they chortled in Urdu, exuberant with excitement. To them, he represented the freedom and wealth of America-that a boy as brown as they could wear blue jeans and have an expensive video camera. Like the Pied Piper, he walked through the streets of the old city of Lahore, a trail of peasant children following him. They didn’t hate him. When my brother recounted for me the events of that day, I felt proud to be an American-happy that these children, who lived, ate, and slept in the same alleyways in which they were born, reveled in the sight of an American, had been given hope by his presence.

A different, unfamiliar feeling came over me on the plane home to San Francisco a few weeks ago. I had saved up articles about the prison abuse from the British papers for the ride. As I read the descriptions of the photographs, I felt a stillness, a numbness, a hushed solemnity. Usually when I read the newspaper, I reflect as I read, connecting the news to other things I have learned. But this time, I just wanted to finish the articles quickly, not think about them, as if I could ignore what they contained. It was a new feeling for me, and it was not pride. It was shame.

Asma Gull Hasan is the author of the new book, Why I Am a Muslim: An American Odyssey (Thorsons/Element, 2004). You can visit her website at www.asmahasan.com.

The answer is Asma (asi-mah) Hasan, a self-described American-Muslim feminist cow-girl, who through exercising the everyday freedoms our growing up in this country allows discovered ijtihad (independent thought) along the way, and in her life study, never took looking back seriously enough to miss a forward beat – generating inspiration to and from, well for one, that infectious Sufi source, the future Sufis themselves, and the Qur’anically described garden that with nurturing and care might become a bunch of flowers, even if they came from the Safeway market up on Portrero Hill. Potted plants? and people just hangin’ out, and being 1950s USA cool. Is this an Islam and Muslims we’ve ever heard of?

Although the usually Muslim-bashing nominals love her non-threatening demeanor, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Asma Hasan (herself) is operating independent of the psychosis-driven imitators that dominate all media; records, books, newspapers, and including much of the Internet culture.

Asma is a kind of self-help-book writer who can say do-as-I-say because what she is saying is so universally true and free enough of polemics the reader can “hear” what she’s really saying. While you read what she says enough space is left between the notes set alongside her bass lines, as a way of saying it, to “hear” what your own heart tells you. Now, there is a trustworthy voice! Who can be more trusted than one who has chosen goodness?

This is a book review of “Why I am a Muslim: An American Odyssey,” and Asma sums up the why in 7 reasons; each her lifetime experience as one, and as perfect as the way it is. One again.

Islam’s beginnings. God’s will is God’s will can’t be improved on. Born Muslim and understanding the commonality of Sufi saints, and little old ladies doing Rosary after (the Catholic) Mass, having chosen, as the 12-steppers in Alcoholics Anonymous might explain, conscious contact (with the Ever-Present) – closer than the jugular, it is written. “Islam as a woman’s religion” caused me to laugh out loud, but she’s right. God is Merciful and Mercy-giving. Muslims have been everywhere since longer than America existed. For whatever reason, God knows, the concerns of Muslims, are the concerns of the world – like at no other time in history, and all at once.

The first Bill of Rights, with liberty and justice for all – unbeknownst to many, al-Qur’an is the original blueprint that includes a freedom of religion and a freedom from religion clause; the protection of religious minorities. “There [should be] no compulsion in religion.” [Qur’an 2:256*]

One of the great values of WIAAM is that it is written by a best-and-brightest youngster with absolute respect for our traditions, who is up on our contemporary American and world culture(s) – from Malcolm X (El-Haj Malik El-Shabazz), to Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam) and Outkast, and is free from judgment. I mean, what would you think of a Muslim with purple hair singing sacred Sufi poems to a hard rock beat, or a Muslim skateboarder with baggy pants and a red t-shirt? I mean, a girl Muslim skateboarder with baggy pants and a red t-shirt? Then what would you think if you learned she was a Cham (Vietnamese or Cambodian) Muslim? They’ve been practicing Islam for generations. What is the lesson here? Besides diversity, Muslims don’t necessarily stop being Muslims after taking up skateboarding…

File this one under Not Even the Taj Mahal is Perfect: The only religious scholar shop-talk technical flaw I found in WIAAM was a reference to “St. John”, of “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John” fame, who Asma related as the mainstay of the “Sabians” (referred to in al-Qur’an as among “People of the Book” – along with Christians and Jews). Many believe that John [His name shall be Yahy

Why do Muslims like being Muslims? This is a question that many non-Muslims don’t stop to ask, but Hasan, an attorney and the child of immigrant parents, goes right to the heart of it with a self-effacing humor not often found in anyone’s discussions of religion.

This is Hasan’s second book, and it confirms her growth as one of the most articulate, candid and downright friendly voices among young Muslims in America today. She writes conversationally, much as if you’d posed a casual question to her over lunch. She speaks of her own pride in her name (which to her chagrin was regularly mispronounced in grade school, to embarrassing effect); of how forgiveness and personal growth have been integral to her faith; of the differences among cultural and religious practices; of what it feels like to be all of female, Muslim and American; and of how being a Muslim makes her a better American.

With reverence blended with feminist verve, Asma Hasan offers a forthright and remarkably readable explication of the nation’s fastest growing religion: Islam. . . . This much-needed book will be appreciated especially by young people, their parents, teachers, and religious leaders.

Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well

For those interested in understanding the fastest growing religion in America, American Muslims is a must-read. Hasan provides a human portrait of a rising religious faith.

Hank Brown, President of the University of Northern Colorado and former US Senator

A refreshing book showing Islam through the eyes of a bright Muslim woman in America. Asma is sincere in expressing her own vision with eloquence, integrity, and passion for her beliefs.

Dr. Maher Hathout, Spokesperson for the Islamic Center of Southern California, Senior Advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

This event is not open to the public. If you are interested in attending, please e-mail asma@asmahasan.com.