One year ago today, the local chapter of a national Muslim organization found itself thrust into the spotlight.
The shooting at San Bernardino’s Inland Regional Center, which left 14 dead and 22 seriously injured, hit close to home for the Anaheim-based Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last month.
Hussam Ayloush, CAIR-LA’s executive director, recalled the minutes and hours after the Dec. 2, 2015, shooting perpetrated by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, both of whom were killed in a shootout with police the same day.
Farook was an American-born U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, and his wife was a Pakistan-born permanent resident of the United States.
“We realized this would be used by anti-Muslim groups to blame Islam for such a heinous crime,” Ayloush said. “So we called on allies from the interfaith community to let everyone know that we’re united.”
No one asks to be in a position to defend an entire community that is left to answer for the acts of a few terrorists, Ayloush said.
“But, it was a time when we had to lead and do so in difficult moments,” he said.
Since the San Bernardino attacks, CAIR-LA has advocated for Muslims’ rights and responded to reports of anti-Muslim hate crimes and hate incidents. An FBI report last month showed that hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 increased by 67 percent compared with the previous year.
The organization has seen significant growth in the two decades since a small group met for the first time in a classroom at the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove.
From having no office or bank account, it now operates with an annual budget of $2 million and employs 15 full-time staffers who occupy a building on Brookhurst Street, said Ayloush, the organization’s executive director since 1998.
CAIR-LA also has started an Immigrant Rights Center with a full-time staff to help immigrants and asylum seekers with paperwork and applications, he said.
Southern California has about a half-million Muslims and more than 80 mosques. Orange County, which had only two mosques 20 years ago, now has 12 and is home to about 200,000 Muslims.
But the organization has faced criticism – from detractors who have accused CAIR members of aiding terrorist groups to those who challenge its unwillingness to cooperate with government efforts to counter violent extremism.
“The more moderate, progressive Muslims don’t agree with some of CAIR’s ideas, such as not cooperating with FBI or law enforcement,” said Irvine resident Anila Ali, who founded the American Muslim Women’s Empowerment Council. “I don’t believe CAIR represents all Muslims equally.”
Ayloush and other CAIR leaders have repeatedly denied any involvement with terrorist groups.
CAIR does not support the federal Countering Violent Extremism program because its leaders, including Ayloush, believe the program unfairly targets the Muslim community.
“The program is based on the false premise that American Muslims are more susceptible to violent extremism than other communities,” Ayloush said. “It also gives Muslims a poor self-image when it comes to their own community, a feeling that there’s something wrong with their community.”
But the Muslim community has evolved over the past two decades, and CAIR’s work reflects that, he said.
“As a community, it used to be that we saw the world through a narrow prism of rigid religious interpretations,” he said. “Muslims opposed same-sex marriage, alcohol and marijuana.”
But as the community matured politically, its members began to value the pluralistic society in which they lived, Ayloush said.
“We realized that the issues are not all black and white,” he said. “The people who might share our religious values are the same people who lead the effort to demonize Muslims.”
So, CAIR has found its allies in unlikely places, including the LGBT and atheist communities.
“We’ve understood that when one group loses its rights, we’re next,” Ayloush said. “This type of thinking has allowed us to learn about diversity and equality and find common ground in human values.”
This evolution has not gone unnoticed. The Council on American-Islamic Relations represents “the best of what it is to be an American citizen,” said the Rev. Peggy Price, a Huntington Beach pastor who serves as ambassador to the Parliament of World’s Religions. “Many of them are immigrants who really want to uphold American values.”
Despite the growth, CAIR-LA still has a long way to go, particularly when it comes to changing perceptions and correcting assumptions, Ayloush said.
He recalled a CAIR-LA news conference after the San Bernardino shooting, when Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan, addressed the public.
“He spoke unscripted and from the heart about how pained he was that a family member brought this misery on innocent victims,” Ayloush said.
But his office was flooded with “hate mail” the next day because of people who mistakenly viewed Khan’s inclusion as support for terrorists.
With the election of Donald Trump, which has stoked fear and uncertainty in the Muslim community, Ayloush says CAIR-LA’s goals for the next few years are pretty clear: “Protect civil rights and counter Islamophobia.”