More Muslims Gaining Political Ground

[michael_ital]

Although Md. delegate-elect doesn't trumpet faith, his win signals surge

Eric Miller / Reuters file
Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to U.S. Congress, is shown in Minneapolis on Nov. 7.

By Michelle Boorstein

Updated: 7:06 a.m. ET Nov 30, 2006
WASHINGTON - Since Gaithersburg software engineer Saqib Ali was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates this month, he has been flooded with calls and e-mails from across the country asking: How'd you do it?

The calls come from American Muslims like Ali, who, longtime political watchers and Muslim activists in the area say, is the first Muslim elected to a statewide -- or districtwide -- office in Maryland, Virginia or the District.

Although the 31-year-old made little of his faith during the campaign -- in fact, he bucked those who said he should put it on his campaign literature -- he is part of a concerted march of Muslims into civic and political life. His campaign was part of a push that began after Sept. 11, 2001, with worries about civil liberties and immigration policy and has blossomed this year.

Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison became the first Muslim to be elected to Congress. In the D.C. area, eight Muslims ran for office in Maryland this year, significantly more than in previous years, although only Ali won. And initial polling data and anecdotal evidence suggest that significantly more Muslims in Virginia registered and voted this month than in previous elections.

According to data gathered by the Muslim American Society and the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee, the number of Virginia Muslims who voted was up 13 percent from 2005. The vast majority of the estimated 51,000 Muslims who cast ballots in Virginia voted for Democrats.

There are no statistics from previous years on Muslim voters in Maryland, but according to a post-election poll done by the Muslim American Society and the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee, there are about 50,000 Muslim voters in Maryland, three-quarters of whom voted Nov. 7. A large majority voted for Democrats, the groups' data show. The Virginia Muslim PAC is gathering voting data throughout the country.

Data collection on U.S. Muslims is relatively new and imprecise, and even estimates of the community's size range from 1 million to 7 million. However, the available data mirror what activists and scholars of U.S. Islam say is indicated in anecdotal evidence: Muslims are quickly moving into the public sphere.

"It's very obvious that there is more involvement," said Zahid H. Bukhari, director of Georgetown University's Project MAPS, a long-term research project on American Muslims that estimates there are 1.5 million to 2 million registered American Muslim voters. "More Muslims are running for office; Islamic centers are becoming more of community centers; everybody is much more involved," Bukhari said.

Ali, whose parents were born in India and Pakistan, said he comes "from a family where they were always having political debates around the house, but then I found out that among all these family members who had all these grand ideas, none of them ever voted. There was a sense that, 'I don't like the way things are, but there's nothing I can do about it.' I thought: I'm going to show these people."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15958637/