(Kevin Dean) It is a religion of peace, submission, and commitment to one God,

and all he created.

(Dean) It is a way of being; a way of life.

(Dean) It is Islam, and fully one-fifth of people in the world follow this faith.

(Dean) They call themselves Muslims.

(Dean) Hello; I'm Chaplain Dean with the Chicago Police Department.

(Dean) This is the second in a series of videos to expand your knowledge and understanding of the many diverse communities within our city.

(Dean) Having even a basic knowledge of a person's customs and culture

enables police officers to conduct their duties in a more efficient,

and respectful manner.

(Dean) Today, we explore Islam.

(Dean) The Chicago area is home to more than 400,000 Muslims.

(Dean) Many are immigrants from around the world, but many more are second-,

or third-, or even fourth-generation Americans.

(Rami Nashashibi) For example, within the United States, the largest

constituency of Muslims happens to be African-Americans.

(Nashashibi) After that, you have many Southeast Asians, Pakistanis, Indonesians,

Malaysians, and then down there, then you have some Arabs.

(Mazen Asbahi) And there are Muslims of every stripe, of every color and nationality.

(Asbahi) There are white Americans who are Muslim; African-Americans who are Muslim.

(Asbahi) There are Russians and Chinese and Japanese who are Muslim.

(Asbahi) It's very important to keep in mind that Islam is not an ethnicity; it is simply

a very basic religious creed.

(Dean) Muslims believe in one God, who revealed Islam through all the prophets,

with the final prophet being Mohammed.

(Toni Khatib) Abraham is like the father of the three faiths, they call it, and the

Christianity and the Judaism; it's all linked together: we're all of one God.

(Azshar Usman) That is the very definition of Islam, is to submit oneself to the

message of God.

(Imam Wallace D. Mohammed) We must stand for the protection of life.

(Mohammed) We stand for law against crime; we stand for morality, and

obedience to the law.

(Nashashibi) As human beings who are living in society, we're very committed

to the upliftment of this society, and that we see as definitely a religious obligation.

(Kareem Irfan) We bring a strong essence of moral values, family values, social values,

notions of justice, notions about community service and social interaction,

which are an inherent part of Islam, but which are also very important in the

American fabric.

(Dean) A Muslim place of worship is called a Mosque.

(Dean) The Imam is the person who leads the prayers.

(Dean) The Islamic holy book is called the Koran.

(Dean) And God is often referred to as Allah.

(Irfan) So the word "Allah" is nothing other than an Arabic word for God.

(Irfan) In fact, many of the Christian population in the Middle Eastern areas,

they refer to their God as Allah, because it's just an Arabic term for God.

(Dean) Muslims practice the five pillars of Islam.

(Dean) These are: Witness: affirming the absolute unity of God, and accepting

the prophecy of Muhammed.

(Dean) Worship: offering ritual prayers five times a day to God, while facing

in the direction of the Ka'bah in Mecca.

(Dean) Charity: obligatory donation annually of at least 2.5% of accumulated wealth.

(Dean) Fasting: complete abstinence from food, drink, and conjugal relations

from dawn until dusk by able-bodied adults during Ramadan.

(Dean) Pilgrimage: visiting the Ka'bah and other sites in Mecca at least once

in a lifetime.

(Dean) Muslims will conduct their daily prayers privately if possible, or publicly

if necessary.

(Nashashibi) When a Muslim prayers, he prostrates or she prostrates him or herself

to the ground, and puts their head to the ground, and again, it's not a prayer --

unless you have seen this before or been around Muslims -- that you're

accustomed to seeing.

(Irfan) If law enforcement officals, police officers, have to contact some Muslims,

it'd be best to avoid those times, when people are focusing on prayer,

especially in public places.

(Dean) Friday is the holiest day in Islam.

(Dean) Between 12 noon and 2, Muslims gather at mosques

for congregational prayers.

(Mohammed) Very, very sensitive, Friday prayers, and the mosque is very, very

sensitive.

(Mohammed) If you have to go in the mosque for a criminal, I beg you to have

the same respect you would have for a Catholic church or for a Protestant church.

(Usman) We don't wear our shoes, we don't wear our shoes onto the actual

carpets and the prayer rugs, so that would be considered extremely inappropriate

and offensive for, for example, police officers going into investigate something

and what have you, to walk on the rugs with their shoes.

(Usman) Of course, also, there are copies of the Koran, oftentimes, that are kept

in these mosques on bookshelves throughout the mosque area itself.

It's considered extremely appropriate to put that on the floor.

(Dean) Islam attaches high significance to personal modesty, and requires

both men and women to dress in clothes that do not emphasize bodily contours.

(Dean) Women are also expected to cover their hair, and many -- but not all --

Muslim women wear the headscarf known as the hijab for this purpose.

(Dr. Lena Shahbandar) The real purpose is just to notify yourself as somebody

who believes in God, and it's really respect for God that you do this for.

(Shahbandar) You have to cover in front of men who are unrelated to you,

so I uncover at home, in home environments with family; if I was with a group

of women, I wouldn't have to cover.

(Dean) Police then should treat Muslim women with particular care and sensitivity

about modesty and touching, regardless of whether the hijab is worn or not.

(Shahbandar) Muslim men and women are prohibited from being alone in a room

with a person of the opposite sex with the door closed.

(Shahbandar) So if it's necessary to interview somebody of the opposite sex,

whether it's male-to-female or female-to-male, it would be preferable to have

another person in the room.

(Dean) Police will also find that many Muslim women and men will not shake hands,

and will avoid direct eye contact with members of the opposite sex.

(Nashashibi) And that may be misconstrued as disrespect, or a person is averting

something, are anxious about something, but oftentimes what it is is again,

the modesty that is prescribed as part of the way Muslims conduct themselves,

whether they are men or women.

(Dean) The headscarves and long skirts worn by some Muslim women lead to

erroneous assumptions that Muslim women are somehow oppressed.

(Shahbandar) A lot of times, people think that Muslim women haven't really had

much experience, or are not allowed to do many things, and I think that couldn't

really be further from the truth.

(Khatib) Nothing holds me back as far as being a Muslim woman.

(Khatib) Once you really study Islam, if you're in university, and take the classes,

you'll see that Islam basically was the first women's liberation movement.

It helped the poor; it helped the women from being oppressed.

(Usban) They can own their own businesses; they can own their own property;

they were given voting rights from the very beginning in the Islamic tradition.

(Dean) And Muslim boys and girls are equally cherished, and keep their parents

equally busy.

(Irfan) Children go to school; my daughter is a typical teenager, she's fascinated with

basketball, she plays for the school team.

(Irfan) Both my children are into tennis; they follow it very closely, because that

is one of my avid avocations, aside from work and other community work.

(Dean) Like Muslim women, Muslim men wear a variety of dress.

Headcoverings, such as kufis, skullcaps, or turbans, are not religious requirements,

but cultural preferences.

(Usban) For a man to remove his hat, or that which is covering his head, is much

less of an issue in public than it is for women.

(Dean) Many Muslim men also grow beards in deference to the prophet Muhammed.

(Dean) Cultural dress does not necessarily mean the person is foreign.

(Dean) Assumptions based on a person's clothing should be avoided.

(Asbahi) Muslims aren't necessarily from somewhere else.

(Asbahi) Just because a woman wears a headscarf doesn't mean she came off

the boat from somewhere.

(Shahbandar) Because a lot of times, people meet me and they think, "Oh, this

is a foreigner; she doesn't know how to speak English; she's not educated,"

and then I turn out to be pretty normal.

(Dean) Dr. Lena Shahbandar was in fact born here, and educated at

Northwestern University.

(Dean) Muslims are valued members in all professions.

(Ofc. Ziad Hamideh) I was born in Jordan; I lived there for the first ten years,

and then I emigrated to the United States, and I've been living here for the last

23 years.

(Hamideh) I've been a policeman with the Chicago Police Department going on

six years; my brother's a policeman, and I have a lot of good friends who are

police officers that speak Arabic, and they put their life online for the American public.

(Dean) Police officers, doctors, teachers, attorneys, parents, students, volunteers.

(Dean) Muslims integrate the tenets of their faith into all aspects of their lives.

(Irfan) When I come into work, I cannot leave my Islamicity, for lack of a

better term, outside.

(Irfan) I bring it in; I bring my values about being good to people, about being

sensitive, about being caring, about being ethical: all of those values come with

me; in addition, I've got to follow the traditional rituals of practice.

(Dean) Muslims, just like people of all faiths, expect police officers to exhibit

those same values.

(Khatib) I want my son to always feel like an officer is someone he can trust,

he can look up to, and he can call, and not fear.

(Dean) And police need to be sensitive to an increased fear among Muslims,

in light of current world events.

(Nashashibi) I think a lot of explanation on the part of the police officer, or a

sense of reassuring them that this is just a routine stop, will go a long way in

allaying some of those concerns.

(Dean) As a police officer, there are many religious and cultural considerations

to keep in mind when dealing with people of the Islamic faith.

(Dean) The five daily prayers are an important part of Muslim life, and are done

in a prostrate position.

(Dean) Fridays are the holiest days for Muslims, and large crowds gather at mosques.

(Dean) Muslim men and women may avoid direct eye contact with members of the

opposite sex, and many prefer not to shake hands.

(Dean) Unless there are safety or security concerns, the following considerations

are recommended:

(Dean) Remove your shoes when entering the prayer area of a mosque.

(Dean) Because modesty is highly valued in Islam, if possible, Muslim men and women

should be interviewed by officers of the same gender, and Muslim women should

be allowed to remove their headscarves in private whenever possible.

(Dean) Also, keep in mind, some Muslims have an increased fear of law enforcement

due to anti-Muslim sentiment following terrorist attacks by foreign Islamic extremists.

(Dean) All of the people we encounter on a daily basis expect to be treated with dignity

and respect.

(Dean) Those who practice the Islam faith are no exception.

(Dean) It is our hope that this video will serve to enlighten and foster a new

awareness and understanding.

(Dean) Thanks for watching, and as always, stay safe.

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