Muslims relieved at Obama's election
Nicole Neroulias/Religion News Service
Issue date: 11/23/08 Section: Divine Intervention
After months of balancing their support for the presidential candidate with concerns that their allegiance could do more harm than good, millions of relieved American Muslims cheered the election of the son of a Muslim immigrant whose middle name is Hussein.
Record numbers of U.S. Muslims had cast their votes, boosted by registration drives held by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, which targeted swing-state residents. MAS Freedom estimates that about 70,000 Muslims voted in Virginia, a state that had not backed a Democratic president in more than 40 years, and which President-elect Barack Obama won by fewer than 160,000 votes.
"We used Friday prayer, religious holidays, gatherings and conventions to register Muslims," said Imam Mahdi Bray, MAS Freedom executive director. "In Virginia (on Election Day), we had 30 taxi drivers who did nothing but take people to the polls all day."
The Muslim community has mobilized greatly since 2000, when most of its voters - with the exception of African-American Muslims - had supported George W. Bush. Ultimately dismayed by the president's post-9/11 policies, they began swinging Democratic in 2004, a shift that MAS Freedom was able to build on for Obama, Bray added.
Early estimates indicate that between 70 and 90 percent of Muslim voters supported Obama this year; official numbers won't be ready until January or February, said Ahmed Younis, an analyst with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
Throughout the party primaries and the general election, Muslims had to temper their political activism against a smear campaign calling Obama a "secret Muslim," based on his father's Kenyan roots. These efforts ultimately backfired; Jen'nan Read, a Duke University sociology professor, said the rumors helped galvanize Muslims and other offended Americans to fight back.
But some Muslims were more frustrated that Obama's campaign, which responded to the accusations by highlighting the candidate's Christian faith, did not also state that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim American - an anti-Islamophobia point finally made in Gen. Colin Powell's mid-October endorsement.
Record numbers of U.S. Muslims had cast their votes, boosted by registration drives held by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, which targeted swing-state residents. MAS Freedom estimates that about 70,000 Muslims voted in Virginia, a state that had not backed a Democratic president in more than 40 years, and which President-elect Barack Obama won by fewer than 160,000 votes.
"We used Friday prayer, religious holidays, gatherings and conventions to register Muslims," said Imam Mahdi Bray, MAS Freedom executive director. "In Virginia (on Election Day), we had 30 taxi drivers who did nothing but take people to the polls all day."
The Muslim community has mobilized greatly since 2000, when most of its voters - with the exception of African-American Muslims - had supported George W. Bush. Ultimately dismayed by the president's post-9/11 policies, they began swinging Democratic in 2004, a shift that MAS Freedom was able to build on for Obama, Bray added.
Early estimates indicate that between 70 and 90 percent of Muslim voters supported Obama this year; official numbers won't be ready until January or February, said Ahmed Younis, an analyst with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
Throughout the party primaries and the general election, Muslims had to temper their political activism against a smear campaign calling Obama a "secret Muslim," based on his father's Kenyan roots. These efforts ultimately backfired; Jen'nan Read, a Duke University sociology professor, said the rumors helped galvanize Muslims and other offended Americans to fight back.
But some Muslims were more frustrated that Obama's campaign, which responded to the accusations by highlighting the candidate's Christian faith, did not also state that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim American - an anti-Islamophobia point finally made in Gen. Colin Powell's mid-October endorsement.
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