Intelligence

Private Moments in the Public Eye: MUSLIMS IN LAS VEGAS PART V

Private Moments in the Public Eye

By Peter H. King, Times Staff Writer

A full year had passed and it was time for a final visit to the Muslims of Las Vegas. April to April, spring to spring, the world had coughed up one arresting image after another, from the fire-streaked thunderclouds of shock and awe to the charred body parts of Americans dangling from a bridge in Iraq.

And every day, it seemed, a fresh body count from the war — one, two, three more Americans dead. And every month or so, another front-page picture of rubble and ripped limbs, another dateline marking the latest large-scale terrorist assault — Riyadh, Casablanca, Jakarta, Istanbul, Moscow, Madrid.

While these calamitous events translated into more unease, more muttered comments from co-workers, more hard looks in airports, they were not, in fact, the touchstone moments by which Las Vegas Muslims measured the previous 12 months.

Rather, like people everywhere, the landmarks they looked back on tended to involve the universal turns of everyday life: a death in the family, a business venture gone bust, a child who made the honor roll, a new house, a memorable trip.

Muhammad Ali, the car lot philosopher who had suggested that heightened scrutiny of Muslims since Sept. 11 was only natural — "If you are bitten by a snake, you are going to be afraid of a rope" — did not seem himself as he sat down in his tiny office off the showroom floor.

He had proved over the course of many conversations to be a man of good humor and wit. At home one Sunday, he had punctuated a family discussion about patriarchal customs by breaking into an Archie Bunker impersonation. At the lot, he had laughed along with colleagues when they warned customers that, if they didn't buy a truck, "Muhammad will light his shoe."

On this April afternoon, however, he seemed subdued.

"A lot has happened," he said.

Two months earlier he had made a trip to Pakistan to visit his 90-year-old mother. At McCarran International Airport here, a snag had developed. As other passengers filed aboard the jetliner, Ali was held back. Twenty minutes passed.

"What is taking so long?" he asked.

"We have to get your clearance from Washington," he was told.

Ali, an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War, was receiving the rope treatment. His reaction?

"It worked both ways. It was kind of …" He began to grope for the right words. "You feel, uh, degraded, you know, that they want to check you out. The other side is that, you know, some Muslim people with the name of Muhammad did it." He meant the Sept. 11 hijackings and attacks. "And I don't want that my plane should go down too."

At the opposite end of his flight, Ali arrived at the family home in Lahore and was greeted by his sister. A nurse was dressing his mother, whom he had not seen in a dozen years.

"Just give us some time," his sister told him, "and I'll call you in."

A few minutes passed. There was a commotion. Someone scurried to a neighboring house and brought back a doctor. She disappeared into his mother's room for a moment and then approached Ali.

"Your mother died," she told him.

He had been home for 10 minutes.

"I never even said hi," he said.

August 22, 2004 at 08:16 AM in Muslim background | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home