Viewing page 2 of 12

00:02:14
00:08:12
00:02:14
Playback Speed: 100%

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: {SPEAKER name={Unknown Speaker}

[00:02:16]
Today we are honored to have people from the Muslim Community Center of Silver Spring. Asalamalakim.

[00:02:23]
The Muslim Community Center itself is a wonderful example of unity and diversity. There are people from many, how many countries? [Murmurs]

[00:02:35]
Almost every country represented in the Muslim Community Center. And they have the challenging task of mediating between and embracing the many cultures that come to the Center.

[00:02:47]
Um Usman, OK last one, Sarwar is the president of the Muslim Community Center, and he is going to be the facilitator of of this wonderful group from whom we can learn something about their lives and identities.

[00:03:03]
As you know the way that we break down barriers between people is to listen to their stories and to tell our own stories. So, I encourage you to listen, to participate, and to ask questions.

[00:03:15]
Along with Usman, we have Sabr, who I understand means patience—one with patience. Sanjana, whose name means calm and gentleness. And Nazia, who means pride.

[00:03:35]
And Aziz, who is a servant of the Almighty and who brings us much strength to this session. So I would like to turn it over to Usman, and please join me in welcoming them.

{SPEAKER name="Usman"}

[00:03:48]
Thank you everyone. I just, uh, first want to thank Alyssa, Sojan, Olivia and all the organizers for the Smithsonian on the Move and for inviting us.

[00:03:58]
It is a really great honor for us to be here, and it is a pleasure for us to be here.

[00:04:01]
And then quickly I will just talk a little bit about, uh, an intro and what MCC is. So, the Muslim Community Center is one of the older mosques, it is one of the oldest mosques in the Washington D.C. area.

[00:04:12]
It was established as an idea in 1976, and then the physical structures kinda came on throughout the years. Primarily, it was, the idea was started as an education center for youth, for weekend school learning.

[00:04:27]
A lot of immigrants came here, migrated from many different nations, and they wanted to make sure that they passed along some of the teachings, religiously and also culturally.

[00:04:38]
So, that is how the idea of MCC came about. But over the years, it is has evolved into many different activities.

[00:04:46]
We do have a weekend school still. It is over 500 students that come there on a Saturday and Sunday.

[00:04:52]
We also have a very strong interfaith presence.

[00:04:55]
Brother Sabr is one of the past presidents, and also has been a pioneer in starting the interfaith culture and also our partnerships around in the area with the interfaith counsel and other groups.

[00:05:09]
So, we are very involved in that. We have a seniors committee, which takes care of the senior's issues.

[00:05:16]
We have a youth group of which Nazia and Aziz were very integral and are still integral in that.

[00:05:21]
We also have a young adults and professionals group with Sandana as the head of that.

[00:05:27]
And we also have a medical clinic, which was established in 2003. It was a all-volunteer, free medical clinic. We are strongly in belief of healthcare for everyone regardless of religion, faith, or gender.

[00:05:41]
And, um, we started out with a very modest clinic of I would say 50 patients the first year in 2003.

[00:05:49]
And, just last year we calculated about 15,000 patient encounters, which is almost about five to six thousand patients.

[00:05:57]
So it's grown tremendously. It is one of [[??]] County primary care coalition clinics. We don't deny anyone.

[00:06:04]
If you have insurance, welcome. If you don't have insurance, please feel free. You will, you will be seen by anyone.

[00:06:11]
It is a full, almost a full facility. It has dental, gynecology, we do labs, lab work, primary care physician, you name it.

[00:06:20]
And it's on our property. So that's just a little bit about MCC. And what I want to do is kind of ask, ask our panelists a few questions.

[00:06:32]
We will start with one question and see how far it gets.

[00:06:34]
It is a loaded question, so I am pretty sure they will have loaded answers for it.

[00:06:39]
And just as a preface to that, with the Muslim community, you know we kind of internally, and I would say loosely, define it within about 3 phases now.

[00:06:48]
The first one is, post, I'm sorry pre-911. Kind of what the Muslim community was at that time. 911 was a very defining moment you know for our country and also for the Muslim community in America in particular.

[00:07:01]
But the tragedy that happened and also the responses to that. Then there's also kind of this generation that I would say probably like, Sabr will talk about the pre-911, and he was the President when 911 happened of MCC.

[00:07:16]
So Jon and I would say are probably more we grew up like I would say maybe from 911 up until like 2010 and that generation.

[00:07:25]
So we are like the 911 generation. We had to grow up in that you know culture and and whatever came out of it, right.

[00:07:33]
But then these two it's very interesting when I started working with the youth group, they've kinda far removed from it. It's the first generation I kinda met that it's history to them, right.

[00:07:42]
They didn't really live through it. So their perspective in terms of what they go through is really very contemporary.

[00:07:48]
And I think you'll find that you know that their perspectives are very interesting. So with that introduction I will ask them one by one.

[00:07:58]
You can answer. Obviously, keep it as brief as possible but don't shortcut yourself.

[00:08:03]
The first question. And the first question is: can you share your personal experience on developing your American Muslim identity? And what does it mean to you to be an American Muslim?