‘A painful moment’: Boise Muslims describe backlash, fear, stigma after 9/11 attacks
Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Islamic Center of Boise received threatening phone calls, endured vandalism and had its members suffer years of fear as the Muslim community was shaken by backlash.
In the days after 9/11 — when hijackers took over four airplanes, killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others — the Islamic Center received phone calls in which people threatened to burn the place of worship and warned Muslims to leave Boise. A year later, bricks thrown through two windows left shards of broken glass on a prayer rug. One threatening letter in October 2002 called members “subhuman beings,” according to Idaho Statesman reporting at the time.
“It was a painful moment for us,” said Said Ahmed-Zaid, who was president of the Islamic Center at the time. “This was a frightening time, a climate of tension.”
Twenty years later, Muslims in Boise said they can still feel the impacts of that day. In interviews with the Idaho Statesman, they said they felt “dehumanized” and talked about how their religion had been stigmatized.
Ahmed-Zaid described the shock he felt as he saw the twin towers in New York City covered in fire and smoke on TV. He said he knew at that moment that Muslims would face difficult years ahead. He said about half the center’s members, afraid of reprisal, didn’t show up for Friday prayer after the attacks, which took place on a Tuesday.
“ ‘We need to hang on here, because we’re going to have a rough few years,’ ” Ahmed-Zaid recalled saying to his wife. “And I guess it’s been almost 20 years now.”
Hate crimes are difficult to track, as they’re one of the most underreported crimes to police, said Jessica Knarr, Boise Police Department refugee liaison officer.
Idaho State Police numbers provide a glimpse into reported incidents, though not all specifically report the type of hate crime. Since 2005, the earliest available data online, 29 anti-Muslim hate crime incidents were reported in Idaho. Another 38 calls were of hate crime incidents reported against places of worship.
Knarr told the Statesman that while attacks that amount to hate crimes don’t happen often in Boise, verbal abuse is more common.
Verbal harassment alone rarely rises to the level of a crime, Knarr said. A hate crime in Idaho is “malicious harassment,” defined as physically threatening or causing physical harm to someone because of their perceived “race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin.”
“There’s a line there of what you can say, and it goes pretty far,” Knarr said. “Is it hateful behavior? Absolutely.”
‘I was just scared’: Muslims fear standing out after 9/11
Phillip Thompson, executive director of the Idaho Black History Museum, converted to Islam when he was 19. He said he was drawn by the racially inclusive nature of the religion and the “profound, simple” ways it advised to abstain from carnal temptations. Raised Baptist, he said it fit nicely with the values he already had.
An Arabic tattoo on his arm, “in the protection of Allah,” or God, always prompted an intellectual conversation with someone before 9/11, he said. But that changed right after the attacks.
“It was mind-blowing how much that shifted,” Thompson told the Statesman. “It was no longer an easy conversation.”
The attacks made Thompson more studious of Islam, he said, as he was often asked more questions about the religion.
Muslim women, in particular, were afraid to stand out after 9/11, several said in interviews. One Boise woman recalled a painful memory from the Midwest shortly after the attacks. She was sitting in a taxi with the window down, wearing a hijab, when someone threw a cigarette butt at her, she said. The butt landed on her jeans and burned her skin, and she said the incident shook her enough that she decided to stop wearing a hijab.
Aisha Kayed, who’s Palestinian and Brazilian and was raised in Boise, said she kept her religion hidden. She was only 5 years old at the time, but she recalled that for several months after 9/11, her family hid in their home, afraid to go out. She continued to go to school, and they would still go to the mosque on Fridays. But they cut their visits to the YMCA and other optional outings.
During her school years, Kayed said she avoided disclosing her family background or religion.
“I was just scared,” Kayed said. “I didn’t want people to think that I was a terrorist.”
It wasn’t until college that she began to embrace her identity, she said. But in the year she spent at Idaho State University in 2015, she and her friends faced verbal harassment severe enough to prompt her to transfer to Boise State. Kayed said she and about 20 close female friends left Pocatello, some for larger cities.
Kayed said she felt “dehumanized” by the way Muslims and Arab Americans were portrayed after 9/11. She said the ability to embrace her Muslim background was important — because “it’s a part of you.”
‘A lot of education’ on Islam still ‘needs to be done’
Reshma Kamal, of the Islamic Center of Boise, pointed to nationwide hate crimes, particularly against Sikhs, over the past 20 years. She said many communities of color, not just Muslims, suffered from discrimination as a result of 9/11 — and not enough progress has been made.
Kamal said the most effective way to combat the stigma is creating opportunities to meet Muslims, face to face, to have conversations. That kind of outreach has been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
“I believe there’s still a lot of education that needs to be done,” Kamal said.
For Ahmed-Zaid, the painful memories also came with moments that restored hope. He recalled Jewish, Catholic and Mormon leaders who would show their support and help the mosque in trying times. Several members of the Islamic Center said they thought interfaith partnerships in Boise were especially strong.
Those partnerships showed on Sept. 14, 2001, when dozens arrived at the Islamic Center for its Friday prayer. Many attended the service, while others formed a human chain around the mosque, a symbolic form of protection.
“The message was clear to all the hate-mongers in the world,” Ahmed-Zaid wrote to the Statesman at the time. “We, in this community, will stand united for tolerance and mutual respect, and we will not let a few fringe elements of any group destroy the very fabric that unites us as human beings.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
