Dr. Bash Pharoan, a Timonium resident and president and co-founder of the Baltimore County Muslim Council, says the county's Muslim community is, considering its size, relatively invisible. To most countians, it remains a mystery.
"We are your next-door neighbors," said Pharoan, who estimates the number of Muslims in Baltimore County to be "in the tens of thousands."
"We are physicians, pharmacists, engineers, state employees, 7-Eleven workers and gas station workers. We are scattered everywhere."
Pharoan, a private practice surgeon and critical-care physician with offices in Parkville and at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, and a dozen or so other local professionals of the Muslim faith founded the Muslim Council in 2000. It was incorporated as a nonprofit organization two years later.
The council's mission statement, then and now, is to "improve the lives of Muslim-Americans in the county, foster a better understanding of Islam and Muslims in the county school system and the state government and the nation at large."
In other words, the council wants to make the community more visible and dispel whatever mysteries or misconceptions might still exist about it.
Since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, these efforts, according to Pharoan, have taken on an urgency.
"Post 9-11, our community was hit twice," recalled Pharoan, a native of Syria who has been a U.S citizen since 1981. "First of all, we were hit by the events themselves „ there were Muslim-Americans who died in the World Trade Center. It didn't spare anybody."
The "second hit," according to Pharoan, came in the form of "racial profiling and discrimination" against Muslims and Americans of Arab origin. "We really felt like the Japanese-Americans in World War II, minus the internment," said Pharoan, who along with his wife, Hana, has raised three sons in Baltimore County who all attended public schools. "We knew we weren't going to be physically interned, but it was electronic internment, mental internment."
Pharoan said that after 9-11, he, like a number of the other 7 million Muslims in the United States, was called in by the FBI for what he called a "let's get acquainted" interview.
"I have the greatest appreciation for how difficult the job is that the FBI needs to do," he said. "But the interview itself was humiliating in nature, and it left a bad taste. It really felt like intimidation, like, 'We are watching you, we are in the background.'
"It seems to me that if you are someone like me who has lived and practiced as a physician in the U.S. since 1979, and the FBI still doesn't know if you are clean or not, then there is a problem there," he said.
It was the pall of suspicion that fell across Pharoan and many other Muslim-Americans that made them want to make their voices heard more clearly in the political process and their presence felt more in mainstream culture.
"We felt that we really needed to be better represented in local government," he said. "We realized that we needed to energize the Muslim community to be part of the local and state political system."
The council has been working on several fronts - from testifying before the General Assembly in Annapolis on issues such as the legalization of slot machines (the council opposes it) to donating money as well as volunteer hours to local charities such as Meals on Wheels or relief efforts for victims of the recent tsunami.
Drug and alcohol use among high school students is another issue Pharoan and the council have discussed with both police and school officials.
"(Drug use) is prevalent out there," Pharoan said. "Dulaney High, where my son goes to school, is considered one of the jewels of the educational system, but it's infested with drugs, all in and around it. Drugs destroy the brain and break up families, and those kids who use them grow up to tolerate drugs in their own kids, and it becomes a vicious circle."
Last year, the council hosted a reception called United We Stand that was attended by County Executive James Smith, county police Chief Terrence Sheridan and Special Agent Kevin Perkins, director of the FBI's Baltimore field office.
"It was a very successful meeting, and we had a lot of worthwhile communication both ways," Pharoan said. "Basically, we asked the FBI to be sensitive and not call (Muslim) businesspeople at their places of business if they have a question for them and a number of similar things."
"When the FBI called me to come in for an interview, they left a message with my receptionist, which immediately creates a cloud of suspicion among employees and contributes to the 'Islamophobia' that's been going on nationwide," he added.
In January, the council invited members of the media and local elected officials to services at Baltimore County's two mosques - An-Nur in Carney and the Alrahma in Catonsville. There, they had an opportunity to take part in the observance of Eid ul-Adha, a celebration of the completion of a pilgrimage to Mecca, and, in the process, gain a deeper understanding of the Islamic faith.
In recent years, Pharoan and fellow council members have collaborated with the local chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Islamic Society of Baltimore in an ongoing effort to get the Baltimore County Board of Education to give the major Muslim holidays the same official recognition as Christian and Jewish holidays.
From time to time, Pharoan also has taught diversity classes to Baltimore police cadets, an activity that he particularly enjoys. "Those are the most fun, very informal," he said.
And diversity is clearly a concept to which he pays more than mere lip service.
"Our three sons have friends of all colors and religions, of every national, ethnic and religious background," he said with quiet pride.
E-mail Bob Allen at ballen@patuxent.com.
Published March 30, 2005, Towson Times
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