Meet Jamal
Interviewed by Johns Hopkins University students supervised by Dr. Homayra Ziad.
Interviewers: Naba, Nicholas, Sophie, Maiss
About the Interview
Jamal is a teacher in his 70s from the east side of Manhattan. His interview took place on November 11, 2021 via Zoom. The questions of the interview focused on his experience as a Muslim before and after 9/11, his community organizing, how his relationship with his faith changed due to 9/11, and his vision for what freedom and justice looks like in the future. He spoke about a broad range of topics, prominently his experience on the day and the days following 9/11, the adversity many Muslims faced as a result of the impacts of 9/11, and how he now aspires to help young people think for themselves.
Jamal’s interview focused on state violence both indirectly through government watchlists, and directly, through a personal experience with police brutality. It also focused on interpersonal Islamophobia, the impacts of Islamophobia, and community responses. Throughout the interview, connection building came up again and again. Jamal’s connection to his home, New York, made 9/11 a much more personal experience to him. It is incredibly important to Jamal that he connects to students and that students make connections in their learning and their culture and so on. He hopes that people are motivated by the connections they make to issues such as Islamophobia and the future of freedom and justice for Muslims, and that these motivations push them to educate themselves and those around them, connecting people and communities, which he sees as the only way to create lasting reform.
Guiding Questions
How can education and the ability to think critically be an effective tool against Islamophobia?
Has this general atmosphere of fear surrounding Muslims and 9/11 been dispelled or has it simply become less blatant?
Is education the key to achieving freedom and justice in the future?
“In the coming days when I had to go pick up stuff from my job, we were stopped. Now today the road that leads down to the school where I used to formally work - it was an intersection and there were no lights, there were no traffic lights at that time back then. It was just a regular old stop sign. So I was coming down the road proceeding home and there was a car in front of me. It went ahead. And then I waited to go into the intersection. As soon as I reached the intersection, lights from police officers come. This was a very belligerent officer. He was African-American but it didn’t make any difference. I was a Muslim and that’s all he saw. What are you doing? He accosted me.
Put your hands on the dash - put your hands on the dash!
He didn’t tell me to get out of the car, and he unfastens his holster. He’s yelling epithets - you know racial epithets at me. And my wife is trying to argue back.
I’m telling him Calm down, Calm down.
He couldn’t do anything but you could see that he was on the verge of tears. Literally and trying to hold back. And his anger, the anger - now I’ve been in some very hairy situations where there’s fighting or something else is going on and I’m on the steps watching people but when it’s directed towards you and you do not have anywhere to go, and I’m not about to - my children were in the car - and I’m not about to sacrifice my life or their life because I’m having a reactionary response from an officer of the law. I just like, I just like completely cooled out - chilled out. He wrote me out a ticket, not even a ticket just a warning ticket, but he just shoves it into my face basically.
You know he says You people...
This is I said ironic because now that I’m Muslim - and I can give you examples of that too - I became illegal because he doesn’t see me as a man of color, he sees me as a foreigner. He sees me as maybe an immigrant. He sees me as maybe a potential terrorist.
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“[T]his was the general atmosphere. There was mayhem. There was confusion. There was fear. There was uncertainty of what going to happen. And then consequently a few of the individuals who are in my job now as time is going on are now suspect. They are under the watchful eye of the FBI and the CIA. A few of them get detained. They have visitors at their home. I was put on a watch list as well. Because of my name basically. Under certain things, if I wanted to send money, I couldn’t do it. I was blocked. I couldn’t send money through Western Union. Also in the days that followed I was getting mail from INS. (chuckling) You know I was born here. But this is what was happening.”
“ [T]he reason why I do what I do, Inshallah we say God willing, to benefit other people is to bring about awareness to bring about a positive social change. If I can’t do it, it is OK…. So people do work - they do groundwork and they are often not thinking about themselves. They’re giving them a future. They are giving them vision.
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