US law enforcement gets lessons on Islam

Jeddah: Nawal Ebrahim, a 27-year-old Saudi woman, shared her experiences in building awareness about Islam among senior US police and intelligence officials with a group of journalists, including Gulf News, while visiting her family in the city.

"Our lectures have contributed substantially in ensuring fair dealings for Muslims at the hands of US investigating officials," she said.

Nawal delivered lectures on the fundamental principles of Islam to officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and to the city's police force in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cultural classes

The lectures were part of a programme to acquaint US police officials with the culture of Islam that may help them avoid high-handedness in their dealings with the Muslim community.

Nawal narrated an incident involving three Muslim youths, which was a telling example about the depth of misunderstanding prevalent among the US police forces about Muslims.

"The youths were watching a basketball match and cheering their team in a US stadium.

"When the time for prayer approached, one of them asked the employee, who was in charge of the stadium, about a vacant place where they could per form the prayers."

"When the three started praying, "one of the security guards noticed them and thought that they were engaged in some [suspicious] activities".

The frightened guard informed the FBI and the officials "whisked them away for interrogation" soon after, she said.

Nawal cited the incident as one of the best examples of the situation in the United States after the September 11 terror attacks. "This prompted us to launch a wide variety of programmes aimed at removing misgivings about Islam and Muslims and presenting the true picture of Islam."

Leaders of the Muslim community started interaction with a cross-section of US society aimed at narrowing the gap between the Muslim minority and the American public.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) played a key role in this respect. "It was Cair that organised the awareness programme for US police forces, and the organisation selected me to deliver lectures on Islamic teachings.

"A four-hour training programme was started on an experimental basis for the officers in the beginning," she said, adding that it was purely voluntary and there was no compulsion to join.

"The success of the programme has prompted the authorities to start a compulsory training programme beginning in 2007, and the duration of the weekly training class has been reduced to one hour.

Focus on police

"There are 40 officers attending the courses now," she said while noting that nearly all the police officers, totalling 1,600, in the city of Cleveland, would be trained by the end of this year.

Nawal has been living in the United States since her marriage to a US citizen in September 2005.

"Our training programme focuses on the police forces dealing with Muslims in unusual situations," she said.

"Several policemen thought that the congregation of Muslims in mosques especially after midnight during Ramadan was an unusual affair. But after completion of the training, they realised that it is only part of a religious ritual," she said.