Outside the Baitur-Rahman Mosque in Silver Spring is an American flag and a sign that reads "Love for all, hatred for none." Inside, hundreds of Muslims pray for lives that were lost Sept. 11 and for lives that have been disrupted -- including their own.

Aatifa Khan, 18, leaves time for prayer, and time for more worldly actions. She says she’s never been as busy as she is now at the mosque, where she teaches Sunday school classes for children and acts as "propagation secretary," in charge of improving public understanding of Islam.

“I used to look at my work as a duty, an obligation to be filled,” Khan says. Now she finds herself pulling together pamphlets, organizing events and looking for ways in her own life to foster understanding between Muslims and other Americans. 

If there’s anything she’s learned since Sept. 11, it’s that “tolerance isn’t enough,” Khan says. “You have to learn about other religions, and to understand them.”

Although her parents emigrated to the United States from Pakistan 30 years ago, Khan was born and raised here. She studies physiology and neurobiology at the University of Maryland, College Park, in preparation for a career as a dentist.  

What separates her physical appearance from her peers is the hejjab, the Muslim covering of her hair, which she began wearing when she was 14.

Khan says the recent terrorist attacks, and their implications for Arab and Muslim Americans, have her mother worried. “My mother is really cautious now,” Khan says. “She tells me to come home right after class, not to talk on the Internet about what happened. She’s worried about my safety.”

And she has a right to be worried, Khan says. Many of her friends and relatives have been confronted and even assaulted since the attacks.

One of her friends, who wears the hejjab, was pushed to the ground at a Metro station in Washington the week following Sept. 11 by someone who screamed out that she was a murderer. 

About two weeks after the attacks, someone shouted, "You’re all terrorists" to her cousin, while he shopped at a Walmart in Norfolk, Va. 

Khan says other friends and relatives have had to deal with countless similar verbal attacks.  

She herself has been lucky, she says, because she spends most of her time on campus, where that sort of behavior is not tolerated. 

“On campus, I’ve felt really safe, and no one has confronted me, but out on the street, people can do or say whatever they want,” she says.

(A spokeswoman for the nearby Montgomery County Police Department says officers have seen an increase in "hate crimes directed to members of the Islamic community" in that jurisdiction since the Sept. 11 attacks. Between that date and Oct. 17, 22 possible hate crimes were reported in the county, compared to five in an average month, says spokeswoman Lucille Baur. Most of the 22 were against Muslims or Jews, she says. But a spokeswoman for the Prince George's County Police Department says officers have not seen an increase in hate crime reports there.)

Khan says she is making a conscious effort not to change her habits as a result of the attacks, but adds they have had an effect on her, particularly on her awareness of others' possible perceptions of her.  

“It’s affected how other people might view me, but also how I feel they might view me,” she says.

Khan’s family has an American flag up on the main window of their house in Laurel, Md., and one on each car. “Everyone knows we’re different,” she says, “and they need to know this is our country, and we’re not terrorists trying to bomb this country. ...

“We’re actually very patriotic,” Khan says. “[People] may think we’re doing it for safety reasons, but our religion teaches us to be loyal to our country. If we’re not loyal to our country, we’re not obeying our religion.”           

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Published 12/12/01; last updated: 12/13/01 02:12 PM