Islamic center advocate joins Philadelphia King celebration

Philadelphia's interfaith community celebrated the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday by honoring Daisy Khan, a champion of moderate Muslim Americans whose standing in this country has been "hijacked," she said, by extremists of many faiths - including her own.

"The fight is by the moderates of all religions against the extremists of all religions," she told a crowd of about 300 gathered at Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Center City.

Schools, religious congregations, neighborhood associations, and civic leaders across the region will also celebrate King's legacy Monday, the national holiday in honor of the slain civil-rights leader.

Khan, who in 1997 cofounded the American Society for Muslim Advancement, and her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, met harsh resistance last year when they announced plans to create a Muslim center in Lower Manhattan, blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center.

She and her husband "could not have survived" the "ordeal," which she said included death threats and demonstrations, without the support of religious leaders sympathetic to the cause of civil rights and religious freedom, she said.

When she came to America as a college student decades ago, "I thought I could do everything," the Kashmiri-born interior designer said, "but the past six months" of hostility toward the Islamic center "have altered that view.

"I still think [Muslims] can attain anything we want," she said, "but not without a struggle for acceptance."

Principal host of the nearly three-hour event, which included songs and prayers, was the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement, a nonprofit community-service organization with links to 58 congregations throughout the city.

The Shalom Center, also based in Mount Airy, presented Khan with its annual Prophetic Voice Award.

"This planet is too small to pretend we can wall ourselves off from one another," said Rabbi Arthur Waskow, the Shalom Center's director, who called Khan "one of the prophetic voices of our generation."

At the height of the sometimes ugly debate over the appropriateness of building a mosque near the site of buildings destroyed by Islamic terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, Waskow had visited Khan and her husband last year and presented them with the traditional Jewish gift to new neighbors: bread, salt, honey, and a candle.

Khan and Rauf announced Friday that they were stepping down as leaders of the effort to build Park 51 - the proposed community center - to embark on a national campaign to promote better understanding of moderate Muslims. Other religious leaders are taking charge of the project.

Rauf's and Khan's separate speaking tours will take them to churches, mosques, synagogues, and universities, Khan said, in hopes of acquainting Americans with a truer picture of mainstream Muslims.

"Dr. King's struggle for the rights of blacks gave me the strength" to take a leadership role, she said after the program.

In her speech accepting the Shalom Center award, she said the root of racism "comes from 'I do not recognize myself in you, and you do not recognize yourself in me.'

"Our task today is to demonstrate how intensely essential the interfaith movement is" in overcoming ignorance and hostility. "A crime committed in the name of religion is a crime against religion," she said.

She also thanked evangelical Christian leaders who discouraged Florida pastor Terry Jones from publicly burning a Koran as a protest against the Islamic center last year.

Jones, she said, had said he would cancel the Koran-burning if Rauf relocated the building.

"Will Americans allow us the right to formulate what it means to be Muslim in America?" Khan asked. She said she thought they would, citing the success of Catholics and Jews in overcoming suspicion and isolation.

"I know the day will come when Islam will be accepted as an American religion," she said. "The day will come when Islam is not linked with terrorism . . . and when extremists will no longer set the agenda for the entire Muslim community."

In a panel discussion afterward with a rabbi, a Tibetan Buddhist community leader, and a Lutheran minister, Khan got a round of applause when she declared "No one owns God; God owns us."

The event, titled "We'll Walk Hand in Hand" - a line from the great anthem of the civil-rights movement and a favorite of King's - included young people reading from some of King's most memorable speeches, and songs by three choirs.

NIM's executive director, Rabbi George Stern, also used the occasion to honor those slain and wounded by a gunman last week in Tucson, Ariz. The injured included U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.). A federal district judge and one of Giffords' aides were among those killed.