Tariq Shahid acts as the spokesperson of the Malcom X Mosque in Harlem. He is in charge of public relations but he doesn’t want titles and prefers to be seen as a friendly member of the Mosque. After September 11, he said, “I joined the Red Cross at Ground Zero, assisting firemen and rescuers in their shifts. I was there for months, once a week. People stood in shock when they found body parts, and we did our best to console them, to give them our support. We didn’t see them as Christians, Jews or Muslims. We were simply helping human beings, people, families.”
Tariq Shahid welcomed me barefooted in the prayer hall of Harlem’s Malcom X mosque. With friendly and kind words he asked me to leave my shoes in the corridor and walk with him on the carpet-covered floor. Green is the predominant colour on the columns, walls and windows, where Arabic quotations from the Koran celebrate the attributes of God. The traffic noise reminded me that we’re in New York, not in the Middle East, and this first meeting with Tariq ushered in a dialogue on what remains an open wound for the Islamic African-American community: September 11. He started by explaining the role of Imam Izak-EL M. Pasha, religious leader of the mosque, and apologized for his absence. He acts as spokesperson, and is in charge of public relations, but he refuses titles and prefers to describe himself as a friendly member of the mosque. He informed me that the Imam gave a radio interview on the eve of September 11, he mentioned his speech at the Yankee stadium on September 23 2001, when world leaders were invited to join in a common prayer, since the victims of the Twin Towers’ attack were faithful of world religions from world countries.

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