Philadelphia: Women and children walk hand-in-hand from this white-walled and deeply carpeted community centre, cheery faces smiling from hijabs, normal in this neighbourhood of the city.
The headquarters for the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (AICP), the centre provides cultural, religious and community support for close to 3,000 Muslims living in the city.
From behind a large paper-strewn desk, the large frame of Omar Dimachkie makes for an imposing figure as president of the AICP. Right now, he oversees seven such centres across the US, another four in Canada, and he's about to open another centre in Toronto in the coming weeks. The AICP serves the needs of close to 30,000 Muslims in North America, and operates an elementary school for 130 students in the local Philadelphia community.
"We are focused on teaching people about Islam — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — what moderate mainstream Muslims are all about," he says. "Not the perverted version presented by Osama Bin Laden or Fox News."
For the past 27 years, the native of Beirut has made the US his home. And since the events of September 11, 2001, Dimachkie says it has become a more difficult task to reach out. "Before the Iraq War, the attacks, the war in Afghanistan, people were more open to Islam," he says.
"If you remember the big bad red wolf of Communism, McCarthyism in the States, someone always has be to be pariah," he says. "Right now, some see Islam as being that pariah. Fear is a very forceful weapon and people do fear what they are ignorant off."
Dimachkie told Gulf News that he has seen the American mindset change over the past two decades. "Americans were much more tolerant, much more open towards ‘foreign' ideas — yes, you will always have those ‘rednecks' on the fringe — but mainstream American were open to new ideas."
He said that recent events in Tennessee, where a court heard a lawyer claim that Islam was not a religion in an attempt to stop a mosque from being built, make him sad. "There are always extreme elements in any ethnicity. Hitler and Mussolini were Christian, yet they were responsible for millions of deaths. Stalin killed millions in pursuit of his vision of Communism," he said urging not to judge 1.3 billion Muslims by the actions of a few.