GROWING DIVERSITY
Facing challenges and benefits, Bowling Green’s Muslim population comes from more than 20 nations
Nathan Morgan/Daily News
Photo by Nathan Morgan/Daily News Imam Sedin Agic (right) delivers an English version of his message to Mustafa Atici following the evening isha prayer at the Islamic Center of Bowling Green, Thursday, May 16, 2013 in Bowling Green, Ky.
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Nathan Morgan/Daily News
Diversity
Photo by Nathan Morgan/Daily News Armin Smailhodzic (center) talks with Haris Kazaferovic (left), 13, and Ismail Hasanovic, 10, all of Bowling Green, Ky., before the evening isha prayer at the Islamic Center of Bowling Green, Thursday, May 16, 2013 in Bowling Green, Ky.
Posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 1:50 am | Updated: 5:52 am, Sun Jun 2, 2013.
By LAUREL WILSON OF The Daily Newslwilson@bgdailynews.com/783-3240 | 0 comments
When Sulejman Hasanovic moved to Bowling Green 15 years ago from Bosnia, he recalls the few Muslims who lived in the community at the time meeting in homes to worship.
Now, Bowling Green has two mosques and an estimated 7,000 Muslims, who make up about 10 percent of the city’s population. They have emigrated from as many as 23 countries, including Burma, Iraq and Russia.
Even with such a presence, Hasanovic still meets people who aren’t aware of Bowling Green’s Muslim population.
“It’s a big shock for them. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re here,’ ” he said. “But after 15 years, I think people are getting used to us here.”
Hasanovic and other Muslims in Bowling Green say their experiences here have been largely positive, though not without instances of backlash, and that practicing their religion can easily fit in with American culture. Muslims believe in one God, Allah, and view the Quran as the sacred word of God, which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
Practicing Islam in Bowling Green
An important part of Islam is praying five times a day – at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and night. Though it’s better to pray at a mosque, that’s often not possible, since many of the prayer times take place during work or school hours.
In predominantly Muslim countries, everybody stops to pray during designated prayer times, said Sedin Agic, imam for the Islamic Center of Bowling Green at 2140 Morgantown Road.
“Your life is actually your religion … every sphere of life is all Muslims,” he said. “Nobody’s there to discriminate against you or judge you.”
In the U.S., workplaces aren’t set up for Islamic prayer time, but Muslims in Bowling Green say they have no problem incorporating prayers into their workdays.
“There are some challenges, but as long as you are sincere, it can work,” Hasanovic said.
He’s able to go into a separate room at work to say his prayers, which each last five to 10 minutes.
Muhamed Hasanovic, a cousin of Sulejman, agrees that it’s not hard to fit in prayers.
“If you want to do it and you believe in God and you follow his commands, it’s not difficult,” he said.
Though she has no problem completing her prayers here, one thing Mersiha Omic thought might be challenging when she moved to America is wearing a head covering. Islam teaches that a woman’s body is private and that women should wear a head covering, or hijab, whenever they are in the presence of males outside of their immediate family.
Omic, Agic’s wife, wasn’t sure how people here would react to seeing her wear a scarf in public, but she hasn’t had any issues. In fact, she feels safer wearing a hijab here than in Egypt, where people would sometimes try to remove her head covering. She is originally from Bosnia but studied in Egypt for six years.
“It’s a different kind of life than here,” she said.
In Bowling Green, the most that happens while she’s covered up is people sometimes stare at her. When she asks them why, it’s always been because they’re curious and not because they’re being hateful. Still, she thinks some Americans have misconceptions about the hijab, such as that the women wearing them don’t have lives, but that’s not the case. They juggle raising children and having a career just like anyone else.
“It’s not like the hijab is restricting you,” Omic said. “It’s not that you wear (a) scarf and sit at home doing nothing.”
She’s met many other Muslim women who shared her initial thought that it might be hard to wear the head covering in public in America, but it’s always proved to be unfounded.
“They are scared something would happen, (but) they see that actually everything they were thinking of did not happen,” Omic said.
That’s been the case for Hanka Hotilovac, who has lived in Bowling Green for 18 years, but only started wearing a hijab a few years ago, because at first she was afraid she might lose her job if she did so.
“I’ve been covered up for three years now. I haven’t had any problems. I feel more comfortable with the way I am,” she said.
Hotilovac wishes she had started covering up sooner, because people accept her just as they did before and many even respect her more.
“I thought it would be such a big deal, (that) they would make rude comments or make me feel bad, but none of that has happened,” she said.
The more the Muslim community grows, the more comfortable Hotilovac and Omic feel wearing a head covering.
“I think people get used to a covered woman,” Omic said. “It’s not something that they (don’t) see. It’s not strange.”
A growing Muslim population
As they have in Bowling Green, Muslims have become part of the national fabric, with about 2.5 million living in the U.S., said Lawrence Snyder, associate religious studies professor at WKU. Bowling Green has one of the highest percentages of Muslims in the state, and it’s rare for a city of its size to have two mosques.
“For the most part, they have been welcomed without much backlash,” Snyder said. “I think that says a lot about the nature of our community.”
The large growth of Bowling Green’s Muslim community occurred in a relatively short amount of time because the city is seen as a good place for refugees to resettle and a lot of those refugees happen to be Muslim, Snyder said.
“In some ways it’s just kind of a quirk of history,” he said.
The rise of Muslim immigrants is not limited to Bowling Green, but is a trend across the nation as well.
Compared to 20 years ago, a smaller percentage of new U.S. green card recipients are coming from Europe and the Americas and a growing number are coming from Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, according to a report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
In 2012, Muslims made up about 10 percent of new legal immigrants to the U.S., compared to 5 percent in 1992, according to the report.
Snyder believes religious and cultural diversity is a good thing that enriches the community.
Many Muslims in Bowling Green say they welcome the fact that other religions are practiced here, because it means everyone is able to enjoy strong religious freedoms.
“Really, you can be what you want to be and believe what you want to believe,” Omic said.
Suljeman Hasanovic is accustomed to living in the same community with people of different religions, because his native country Bosnia is a melting pot of religions.
“For us, we are so used to other religions that we are not surprised,” he said. “We might disagree with it, but we respect it.”
His cousin agrees that Muslims can live in harmony with adherents of other religions.
“The world is not just created for one type of people. It was created for all of us,” Muhamed Hasanovic said.
Agic feels exposure to a variety of religions is a positive thing, and he works with WKU professors to introduce students to Islam.
“It’s very important to know that there are different people. We have to understand that the one who created everything, He created all these differences between us,” Agic said.
Discrimination against Muslims in America
Though many Muslims feel at ease here, some say they have faced hateful comments.
Ayoob Akteyarlee worked as an Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. military and is now living in Bowling Green through a Special Immigrant Visa, which was granted to him after he received a number of death threats and several assassination attempts from terrorist groups in Iraq.
Akteyarlee told the Daily News in April he has been the target of racial slurs since coming to the U.S.
“Some people say ‘Go back to your country, you terrorist,’ ” he said. “We served the United States for five years, why are they telling me to go back to my country?”
“I hate that word,” Akteyarlee said about being called a terrorist. “It feels so bad.”
Khaldoun Almousily, who moved to the U.S. from his native Jordan in 2009, said that to some extent, he thinks Arabic Muslims are treated differently in America than white Muslims.
“Some of my friends, based on the color of their skin, people would treat them differently,” he said.
But overall, his experience here has been good. He hasn’t faced any harassment in Bowling Green, though he has in other states.
“People said ‘Go back to your own country,’ ” Almousily said. “(When that happens), I just smile and keep walking. … If someone is that closed minded, there’s nothing you can do to change their mind.”
He chose to leave Jordan so he could teach his language and religion to Americans as well as to receive an education. Almousily is an Arabic instructor at Western Kentucky University, where he is getting a degree at the same time.
“I love this country so much that I left my own country to come teach here,” he said.
Muhamed Hasanovic has had hateful comments directed at him because of his religion, but he believes those people just don’t understand Islam.
“I don’t blame them at all because I know they’re not informed,” he said. “They just create their whole opinion on us based on something they hear.”
By and large, most people have been welcoming to him, and he has many Christian friends.
“Most people I meet that actually learned about it, they actually respect me more,” he said.
Though Sulejman Hasanovic feels accepted in Bowling Green and hasn’t faced discrimination, he’s sometimes frustrated by national media reports about Muslims that often focus on religious extremism, which isn’t representative of most people who practice Islam, he said.
“The media wants you to watch something extreme, not something good,” he said.
Religious extremism is not isolated to Muslims, Almousily said.
“I think there are idiots in every religion,” he said. “There are some bad Muslims who present Islam in a bad way.”
Ultimately, though, he believes “if you respect others, they will respect you no matter what your religion.”
Americans visiting predominantly Muslim countries
Just as Muslims feel accepted here, Steve Marcum and Nate Hovee felt welcome during their visits to predominantly Muslim countries.
Marcum of Bowling Green has twice been to Western Sahara, a territory of Morocco where about 99 percent of the population is Muslim. He went there in 2011 and 2012 to volunteer with the International Development and Relief Board.
He enjoyed the chance to broaden his life experiences and had a wonderful time, though he saw distinct differences between the Moroccan culture and American culture, he said.
“I’ve really just kind of embraced the people and their kindness,” Marcum said.
Whereas many Americans are focused on punctuality, he noticed life in Morocco moved at a more leisurely pace. Yet when it was time for the five daily prayers, everyone stopped what they were doing to pray, some going to the mosque to do so, with others praying silently wherever they were.
“Their daily life revolves around that (prayer) schedule,” Marcum said.
Hovee, 23, a senior at Western Kentucky University who is currently studying abroad in Istanbul, said in an email that he feels comfortable in the city and hasn’t been treated differently because he’s not Muslim. Turkish people helped him figure out how to get to Yeditepe University, where he has been studying since September, and are also honest and accommodating to each other.
“I strongly believe that the Islamic faith (statistically, 99 percent of Turks are Muslim) has a lot to do with this helpful, respectful, trustworthy attitude I notice time and time again in Istanbul,” Hovee said in the email.
Though Turks haven’t tried to impose Islam on him, he observes the religion all around him.
“It is very evident that I’m in an Islamic country. I hear the call to prayer five times a day from several mosques in my neighborhood (starting at 4:30 every morning), and I see the traditional dress (especially the hijab worn by the women),” he said.
Like Marcum in Morocco, Hovee has noticed that Turkish people tend to be more laid back, with classes and meetings often starting late. Turks are also more interdependent on friends and family than Americans.
“In this culture, family and friends (and how they view you) are extremely important,” Hovee said. “You, as a person, are defined less by yourself and your own independent successes than by your close social group or family and what they have accomplished collectively.”
Among the differences, Marcum also saw similarities between Moroccan culture and American culture. People in both places have the same aspirations and are family oriented.
“We all share some of the same struggles every day,” Marcum said. “As far apart as we are when it comes to our beliefs, we also have some things in common.”
—Rialda Zukic contributed to this report.
— Laurel Wilson covers faith and general assignments for the Daily News. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/FaithinBG or visitwww.bgdailynews.com.
Islamic Center of Bowling Green Kentucky 