A call for community action punctuated a traditional day of prayer and family gathering at Washington's largest annual assembly of Muslims yesterday, as thousands of worshipers from the District, Maryland and Virginia filled the D.C. Armory to celebrate the close of hajj, the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca. 

In between booths stocked with Islamic calligraphy, ornamental clothes and bottles of perfumed oils, volunteers for Muslim organizations registered new voters. In addition to annual blood and food drives, organizers allowed representatives for Democratic presidential candidates to address the crowds of people who sat and knelt shoeless for morning prayers over a 30,000-square-foot floor. 

Organizers said the heightened political awareness is part of an assertive election-year appeal by American Muslims to the U.S. public, almost three years after the September 2001 attacks. With each new day seeming to bring reports of new terror threats, suicide bombings by Iraqi insurgents and federal investigations into alleged al Qaeda sympathizers, ordinary Muslims say they want to tell their neighbors the truth about their faith and defend their community from misunderstandings spawned by radical fundamentalism. 

"It is a complicated time for all Americans. Every community has faced challenges, and today Muslims have their time of challenge," said Rizwan Jaka, 31, a systems engineer who is president of the Adams Center mosque in Sterling and an event coordinator. 

"We've got to get that message out so people understand who we are and don't get confused with information from the wrong people," he said. "We have to stand up for justice, human rights and democracy. Otherwise, things will get worse." 

Yesterday's prayers marked the beginning of the Eid-al-Adha festival of sacrifice, the holiest Muslim religious observance, which commemorates the prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command. Organizers said they expected 12,000 to 20,000 people to attend from the region's growing Muslim community. Yesterday, as many as 3,000 worshipers prayed at a time, men and boys separated from women and girls by a low divider in the vast hall. 

Souheil Ghannouchi, president of the Muslim American Society, said in a sermon that the true calling of Islam is brotherhood. 

"This is the prescription of Islam: for the world, peace; social justice; harmony and unity," he said. 

Families filled the armory, many of them posing for photographs, browsing through stalls of jewelry or special alarm clocks timed to ring in observance of five daily prayers, and gathering around giant children's moon bounce rides with names like "Playtona Speedway" and "Avalanche Mountain." 

Basil Abutaa, a 14-year-old from Sterling who raced from stall to stall with brothers and cousins from Arlington and North Carolina, said the day was "about being with family." 

But while the children played games, some of the adults spoke of their frustration with what they said was the erosion of the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, the violation of due process in anti-terror criminal investigations, media coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and, above all, Bush administration policies in the Middle East. 

"Most people who aren't natives fear their rights are being taken away. They fear being discriminated against," said Ayesha Abdulrahman, 26, of Alexandria, who strolled with her sister from Colorado and two friends from Morocco. "I think sending soldiers to attack other countries is almost terrorism, the Bush administration is almost terrorism." 

Young women in brightly colored headscarves handed out red-white-and-blue buttons and pamphlets advertising a Muslim Student Association protest this week against a controversial French government policy to ban head coverings at schools. 

Hadia Mubarak, 21, a Georgetown University graduate student and local association leader, said, "The direction American Muslims are moving in generally is to increase our political participation to lead our communities and to secure our rights as citizens." 

Source: Washington Post