My guess is, most of you don’t know there is an Islamic prayer center in Vero Beach.
And why would you?
Muslims in our community are so small in number that their entire congregation gathers for worship in an adjoining, two-unit suite – with one entrance for men, another for women – in a nondescript strip mall on Oslo Road.
They do almost nothing to call attention to themselves, with most opting to wear modern attire in public and dress in traditional Muslim garb only on holidays and for other religious occasions.
They go virtually unnoticed as we go through our day-to-day lives.
But do Vero Beach’s Muslims go unnoticed because they’re so small in number and do almost nothing to call attention to themselves? Or do they do almost nothing to call attention to themselves because they’re so small in number?
“The numbers make a difference,” said Dr. Taher Husainy, a local neurologist and president of the Indian River Islamic Center. “When you’re part of a larger group, you’re less likely to be taken advantage of. But there are only about 100 of us here.
“So in situations like this, it’s better to be cautious,” he added. “It’s easier to stay to yourself and avoid harassment.”
It was two Sundays ago at an Orlando nightclub that a 29-year-old Fort Pierce man – the New York-born son of Afghan immigrants – proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS and shot 100 people, killing 49 of them before police killed him.
And in the aftermath of that terrorist attack, many local Muslims fear undeserved retribution from people who blame all Muslims, or at least their religion, for Omar Mateen’s deadly rampage.
“Every time something like this happens, we get a black eye,” said Husainy, who moved to Vero Beach in 1982. “You watch the news on TV, you hear what people say about Muslims and you see the anger – not here, but around the country – and it makes us concerned. Just the way some people look at us can be intimidating.
“But we don’t condone the violence,” he added. “Contrary to what you might hear, Islam is a religion of peace, and there is no justification for murder. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation out there.”
Husainy said he was unaware of any harassment of – or threats made against – local Muslims in the wake of the Orlando shootings, and no threats or violence against Muslims have been reported to the Sheriff’s Office, according to Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Eric Flowers. However, there have been news reports of Muslims being verbally abused at Fort Pierce’s two mosques.
“In the tense days since the shooting, a few non-Muslim residents have started to yell obscenities at people going in and out of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce … where Mateen attended,” the Washington Post reported in Sunday’s editions.
Fort Pierce-area Muslims “worry about what might come next at a time when some of their neighbors support Donald Trump and applaud his call to ban travel into the United States for anyone of the Muslim faith,” the Post story said.
In 2014, federal officials identified Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who grew up in the Vero Beach area and attended Oslo Middle School and Sebastian River High School, as the first known American suicide bomber in the Syrian civil war.
Abu-Salha left the U.S. in 2013 to join a rebel group affiliated with al-Qaida, and was only 22 when he drove a truck filled with explosives into a restaurant full of people in the government-held city of Idlib.
According to news reports, the FBI in 2014 investigated the relationship between Abu-Salha and Mateen, who both prayed at the mosque in Fort Pierce and the musallah in Vero Beach. Mateen was interviewed twice, but agents were unable to verify the information he provided.
“I don’t have an answer,” Husainy said of questions raised by two American terrorists having attended the same small-town mosque and musallah. “It’s puzzling.”
It’s also alarming.
Local Muslims can’t help but worry that some of their neighbors might see the Islamic centers as breeding grounds for terrorists.
Husainy said two local Muslim women were victims of hostility in the months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One had her car window smashed. The other was shoved to the ground and verbally abused while shopping at Wal-Mart.
Both were wearing hijabs.
Since then, there have been no threats, no significant harassment, not even verbal abuse. And Husainy said Vero Beach’s Muslim community is hoping the Orlando massacre – which followed mass shootings by Muslim gunmen in San Bernadino, Calif., in December and Chattanooga, Tenn., a year ago – doesn’t stir up trouble for the innocent people with whom he worships.
“Most people who aren’t Muslims don’t know a lot about it, and too many of them get their information from the wrong sources,” Husainy said. “They get misinformation from people who magnify and sensationalize and use falsehoods to create a perception of good versus evil. Some people, because of what they’ve seen or heard, think Muslims want to destroy America. That’s not true at all.
“Muslims come to the U.S. to live, raise their families and enjoy life,” he added. “Those who don’t like it here have the option to go back.”
What’s especially troubling, Husainy said, is that some people believe American Muslims know who the terrorists are and know what they’re planning, but they don’t report what they know to the police.
“There’s a presumption that people who don’t know, should know,” Husainy said. “But how? These last few incidents, how would we know?”
“We hate when this happens,” said Rehman Azad Jkms, who moved to Vero Beach 20 years ago and owns the Shell gas station at the intersection of 14th Avenue and 16th Street. “Somebody lost a son or daughter, brother or sister, and we feel bad. It’s no good.
“Muslim or Christian or whatever, we need to live together,” he added. “There is one God for everybody.”
Many of the local Muslims immigrated to the U.S. decades ago, and their children are American-born. However, the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, along with the growing debate about banning Muslims from entering the country and Trump’s push for religious profiling, has left American Muslims feeling uneasy.
So how do Vero Beach’s Muslims, more than half of whom are under age 50, combat the negative perceptions held by some in our community and convince their neighbors that they, too, are Americans who abhor terrorism?
“That’s a tough job,” said Husainy, one of the few local Muslims who attended the vigil at the Community Church of Vero Beach two weeks ago. “When I get the chance to speak to different groups, I do it as often as I can, but there haven’t been a lot of opportunities.
“There needs to be more dialogue.”