equality Thursday when 1.1 million children in America’s
largest school district will take the day off to mark Eid Al-
Adha.
It is a small but hard-won victory at a time when American
Muslims complain of growing Islamophobia and worsening
anti-Muslim rhetoric following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
For the first time, more than 1,800 public schools in New
York will close for the Muslim feast of sacrifice, a day after
also closing for Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish
calendar.
Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled the new policy in March,
announcing that New York public schools would get two
days off for Eid Al-Fitr, which falls during the summer, and
Eid Al-Adha, in addition to major Christian and Jewish
holidays.
Since then, city hall has added a further day off — February
8, 2016 — for Lunar New Year, celebrated by Asian-
Americans.
“It is a huge victory to actually see the day come,” says
Linda Sarsour, a member of the Coalition for Muslim School
Holidays and a New York activist with three children.
“As an imam as well as a parent I am very happy,” agreed
Imam Shamsi Ali, director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in
Queens.
“I’m sure this kind of policy from the government side will
push Muslims further to feel a sense of belonging,” he said.
10 million Muslims
Muslim New York parents previously faced a quandary:
keep their children at home to observe the holiday and skip
class, or send them to school and let celebrations fall by the
wayside.
There are an estimated seven to 10 million Muslims in
America, of whom a million are believed to live in New York
— about 10 percent of the city’s population.
New York follows at least seven other school districts that
close for Eid in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Vermont,
but activists are still campaigning in other parts of the
country.
Activists hope that embracing Eid in the school calendar will
make Islam more mainstream and counter Islamophobia.
“It’s a very tense time,” Sarsour told AFP. “No one can talk
about Islam without talking about terrorism.”
In the last two weeks alone, a Sikh American was so
viciously beaten in Chicago and called a “terrorist” because
of his dark skin, beard and turban that he wound up in the
hospital.
In Detroit, a mosque was refused planning permission and in
Texas, a 14-year-old Muslim teenager who is the son of
Sudanese immigrants was arrested for building a clock that
teachers thought was a bomb.
At the weekend, Republican candidate for president,
African-American retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, said a
Muslim should not be president of the United States.
Billionaire Donald Trump, top of the Republican polls in the
2016 race, was roundly condemned for not challenging a
town hall questioner who said Barack Obama was a foreign-
born Muslim.
Positive message
Then there are daily headlines about extremists in Syria,
arrests of American sympathizers and Islamist terrorism
that many say feeds paranoia about Muslims in the United
States.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-
Islamic Relations (CAIR), the country’s largest Muslim civil
liberties organization, agreed that the holiday comes at the
right time.
“Amidst a spike in anti-Muslim sentiment and anti-Muslim
rhetoric in our society as we see with Trump, Ben Carson,
and the arrest of a Muslim teenager, which sends a negative
message, this sends a very positive message of inclusion,”
he said.
But if New York sets a precedent, it is still an uphill struggle.
“It was fabulous, oh my gosh!” enthused activist Zainab
Chaudry, who was disappointed when Montgomery county
in Maryland refused to make Eid a day off and removed all
religious references to pre-existing Christian and Jewish
holidays.
“It came as a shock to us. It was not what we were asking
for,” said Chaudry, co-chair of the group Equality for Eid, a
position she shares with a Jewish council member.
Sadyia Khalique, director of operations for CAIR in New
York, said there is “a huge problem” with Islamophobia in
the United States but that the holiday could help change
that.
“We’ve never had accommodation in the way we do now,
recognition of our religion and also to celebrate it,” she said.
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