Muslims In America

Meet Muslim comedian Azhar Usman.

"People are in shock," Usman says of his experiences on airplanes. "They're in the middle of conversation: 'So where are you from? Oh. I'm gonna die! Honey, I love you.'"

Usman and fellow comedian Preacher Moss are part of what they call the "Allah Made Me Funny" Official Muslim Comedy Tour.

If comedy comes from tragedy and a little time -- four years after September 11th -- they're hoping their time has come. There are at least six million Muslims in America, and if you didn't know that, these two joke that it's because many of them are hiding, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.

"People give me dirty looks. Imagine what it feels like? C'mon. Walking down the street looking at me like I was responsible for 9/11. 7-11 maybe, but not 9/11," Usman quips.

Moss jokes that his religion and ethnicity double the dirty looks he receives.

"I'm not only African American. I'm West Indian. I'm also Muslim. African American and Muslim. Do you know what that means? That means when police pull me over, I get two tickets," Moss cracks during a recent performance at Rochelle Township High School in rural Illinois.

Usman points out that Moss's comedy is quite educational.

"Preacher likes to say something in his act which is that you know, Muslims, you got to get over this '9/11-itis.' You know, if you didn't do anything, act like you didn't do anything," Usman says.

"I think part of the problem has been that Muslims feel psychologically burdened by, you know, the sins of another, you know? We don't believe in that. Those guys are whackos. They're crazy. They're -- they're murderers. They're barbarians. They have nothing to do with me. And I have nothing to do with them," Usman says emphatically.

That's what Sumer Al-Jabari, a junior at Rochelle High, has been telling her classmates for years.

Imagine what it must be like: wearing a head scarf, when everyone else is in Abercrombie and Fitch. At first, Al-Jabari says, she was taunted.

"In middle school, in my lunch hour, they threw food at me -- tomatoes and their spoons -- and told me to go back to my country," Al-Jabari recalls.

But over time, the taunting has turned to curiosity. Classmates want to know about her life, what she believes in and what she can and can't do. Stuff that at 16 years old she's just trying to figure out herself.

Asked what restrictions she must adhere to, Al-Jabari says she cannot wear shorts so volleyball in gym class is out.

"A lot of times I get very tired of explaining. But at the same time, I really like it because I'm telling people something about me that they would understand me more and respect me for what I'm doing," Al-Jabari says.

Her struggle is not unique.

Like millions of others Al-Jabari's trying to figure out what being Muslim-American means, and trying not to be defined by September 11th or stereotypes.

But every day, they're up against a constant stream of images as well as public opinion. A CBS News poll last month found that 36 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Muslims. About the same number of people, 39 percent, think Islam encourages violence more than other religions.

Which helps explain what happened to Mostafa Khalifa last fall.

He and a group of Muslim friends were in New Jersey at a New York Giants game. The crowd was fired up and in the third quarter a group of State Troopers started inching toward their section.

"So I kinda looked at them and thought, 'Hmm, OK maybe they're just making sure nobody else gets outta hand.' And then a few minutes later," Khalifa says, "Meadowlands security comes up and says 'OK, you five come with us.'"

Khalifa says the security guards then clutched their arms and ushered them out. No one would tell them what was going on.

"Then they started asking us what mosques do you attend? How regularly do you go?," Khalifa remembers.

Later, FBI agents told Khalifa that they were reacting to a tip: that someone saw the men crouching near an air vent at the stadium. He admitted they were on their knees to pray.

"You know we've prayed in front of people before and it was never a problem. So we didn't think about it twice. It something we do everyday, five times a day, everyday. Anywhere we are," Khalifa says.

George Zoffinger is president of the complex where the Giants play. He says his staff handled the situation correctly and is sensitive to cultural diversity.

But, he adds, "Any time that we receive any kind of indication from our patrons or from our security staff that they're concerned about something we make sure that we look into it."

After all, the New York City skyline, a constant reminder of 9/11, is in plain view of Giants Stadium. Security is never far from anyone's mind.

"I know that in our everyday lives, you and I and everybody else, we are so cognizant of the fact that if you do see something unusual that you should report it. And I think that has been so ingrained into all of our thought processes," Zoffinger explains.

But does "praying while Muslim" qualify as unusual?

"One person actually looked me in the eye and said, 'You know, now I feel safe.' I'm like, 'From what? Just watchin' a football game,'" Khalifa says with a laugh.

Many Muslims say they're used to getting the evil eye. In one survey of young Muslims, 70 percent said they noticed significant hostility toward Muslims in the general American public.

And there are those who believe it's not unwarranted.

Daniel Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum, and makes no apologies for taking a hard line. "I think there should be a focus on Muslims," Pipes says.

Pipes points out all 19 hijackers on September 11th were Muslims. And four years later we're still debating whether protecting the country or protecting civil liberties is more important.

"There has to be a balance between the two. It's important to focus in on the real threat. It does no one any good to pretend that threat is other than what it really is," Pipes says.

And he says the "real" threat to the United States is radical Islamic terrorism.

"Are we going to protect ourselves from this or not?" Pipes asks. "The people who are going to do this who will in the future engage in violence against Americans, who carry with them an Islamic or Islamist ideology, are Muslims.

"What is the point of looking at Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Hindus --there's no point," Pipes says. "They're not going to be engaged in this type of violence."

Yet the situation is hardly as black and white as Pipes believes.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City we didn't see the FBI or the government coming down on every Catholic asking questions about their hatred of the U.S. or potentially harboring ill feelings toward this country," retorts Aref Assaf.

Assaf grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp. He came to the United States more than 30 years ago, started a family and a series of successful businesses. Assaf is a Muslim-American but hates that label.

I like to be known as an American because that's what defines me. I made a conscious choice to become an American citizen. And for me, that's 100 percent of myself that's committed to this country," Assaf says.

Yet Assaf couldn't believe it when FBI agents came to his house, to ask him if he knew any terrorists, not once, but three times.

"The terrorists who committed the crimes were not American citizens, so why are we harassing 5-6 million Muslims when the root lies somewhere else," Assaf wonders.

He believes Muslims need to take on that kind of scrutiny as a challenge.

"9/11 and the taking away of our civil rights and the castigation of our community, our culture and our heritage forced many of us in the community to lead efforts to expose its good side to engage our politicians," Assaf says.

To Osama Siblani, it's just the latest twist on a classically American experience: the immigrant, struggling to fit in. Siblani publishes the Arab American News in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with the largest proportion of Muslims of any in this country.

The Italians, the Jews, Japanese, Germans, every single community, African Americans, every community comes in, they have to go through this torture gate. And then tested. And then they become Americans and become accepted," Siblani believes.

"We're the new kid and we are being tested," he adds.

It's a test without any easy answers. And Azhar Usman will be the first to tell you, if you're the new kid, having a sense of humor always helps.

"I'm just waiting for a real honest passenger at the end of the flight," Usman says during his standup set at the high school.

"You know, 'Excuse me sir, thought you were going to kill us. Sorry about that. Remember when you got up to go to the bathroom. I was going to stab you.' Thank you guys, God bless you Rochelle. Peace."