Area's Sunnis and Shiites Keep A Delicate Balance Across Divides

Hassan Toopet, left, Sadegh Nahidian and Sasan Mousavi after recess at the Muslim Community School in Montgomery County, where Sunnis and Shiites pray side by side. (By Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post)

In its modest way, the Muslim Community School in Montgomery County is a tiny bulwark against the hate-filled sectarian violence that has ripped Iraq apart, threatens to divide the Muslim world and has created tensions among Muslim immigrants in the United States.

Each weekday, 125 Shiite and Sunni children from 18 countries pray side by side, share lunches of chicken dogs and cantaloupe, and study under teachers from both sects. Girls are allowed to wear bright-colored headscarves as well as traditional black or white ones. On Fridays, the weekly sermon is given in English, Arabic and Persian.

"We do have a few differences, but at the end of the day, we share the same morals and values. We hate to see war and people dying. We are friends, and we trust each other," said Kadiatu Bah, 17, a senior and Sunni Muslim from Guinea who plans to attend Catholic University in the fall.

"When I go to greet another Muslim, I don't ask if the person is Sunni or Shia. These divisions are political, not religious," said Fatema Mohammadi, 16, a senior and a Shiite from Iran. "At our noon prayer, Sunnis pray behind Shias. At afternoon prayer, Shias pray behind Sunnis. For us, there is absolutely no difference."

Although the conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon have exacerbated tensions between Shiites and Sunnis in much of the Muslim world, the Washington region's Islamic immigrant community has largely resisted the trend.

There have been no reported incidents of harassment or hostile confrontations between Shiites and Sunnis in the region, as have occurred recently in Michigan and other states. Among the area's Muslim university students, a population in which sectarian passions often run strong, attitudes appear to be tolerant and open.

"Here, there is such diversity that we are used to the differences. Even if there is a problem, it does not go beyond words," said Anis Nordin, 33, an engineering student from Malaysia who wore a pink headscarf as she chatted in a coffee shop on the George Washington University campus with two other Muslim friends.

Nevertheless, area Muslim activists say that intrafaith relations tend to be formally polite at best, with little social mingling and most mosques or Islamic centers dominated by one sect or the other. They also say that the conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon have frayed nerves, even though they bring Muslims together in grief for the losses of life and civility.

"The issue of Iraq has opened a Pandora's box," said Haithem al Hassani, a consultant to the nonprofit Iraq Council in Washington. "I am a Shia, and my sister is married to a Sunni. There is still respect between families and colleagues. But there is also fear. Every day, people with neutral positions are lessening, and both sides are justifying wrong acts. We talk a lot about trying to bring people together, but feelings are still too raw."

It is impossible to definitively count the area's Muslim immigrants, but census figures show there are at least 106,000 foreign-born immigrants from the major Muslim countries, especially Pakistan and Iran, and 62,000 from India, which has a large Muslim populace. Adding U.S.-born children, Muslim leaders say, there are at least 200,000 in the community. There are also tens of thousands of indigenous U.S. Muslims, including converts from other religions, in the D.C. area.

Periodic bridge-building efforts have been made, such as a joint news conference held a year ago by area Sunni and Shiite clerics to condemn the suicide bombing of a historic Shiite shrine in Iraq, and an evening program last month to promote Sunni-Shiite understanding at American University. But sponsors of such events say that many Muslims are uneasy about participating.

"It is the elephant in the room that no one talks about," said Mohamed Hag-Magid, the Sudan-born Sunni imam at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling. "There were hidden and ignored feelings, and now they are coming to the surface because of the tensions in Iraq, especially on some university campuses," he said. "We don't want this to spread. We have to set an example of respect and tolerance, not just as a slogan."