Last month’s flooding continues to attract out-of-state groups who are part of the more than 17,000 volunteers who’ve participated in the clean-up. Many are affiliated with churches and religious organizations, including one Muslim relief group.
Middle Tennessee has been a particularly unfriendly place for Muslims in recent weeks. The debate over a 52,000-square-foot mosque proposed in Rutherford County has led public figures to suggest the U.S. shouldn’t have to open its society to Muslims.
That’s the climate in which the Islamic Circle of North America, or ICNA, has sent 80 young Muslims to clean up flood damaged homes and begin the rebuilding process. ICNA’s Abdulrauf Khan says he hopes their presence could calm fears about Muslim extremists.
“What they hear, we want to show them that’s not what we are. We care like anybody else and we want to establish a relationship like anybody else does.”
Khan says, so far, his workers have been welcomed everywhere they’ve been.
ICNA representatives met with FEMA officials on their most recent visit to see the flood recovery progress. While in Nashville, the Muslim volunteers are living and working alongside volunteers with Lutheran and Jewish relief agencies.
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