SHEIKH AHMED DEWIDAR traveled to New Jersey nearly a decade ago to lead a small Muslim community in their nightly tarawih prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. Only six years later, he stood shoulder to shoulder with US President George W. Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Anan at Ground Zero as imam of the Islamic Center in Mid-Manhattan to speak on behalf of the Muslim community to condemn the September 11 attacks.

Because of his moderate views and vigorous efforts to reach out to mainstream America, so necessary in today’s polarized atmosphere, he is regarded by many as being the face of the next generation of Muslims in America.

Dewidar was born and raised in Rashid (Rosetta), a port city on the Mediterranean Sea coast. By age 12, he had memorized the Qur’an with the help of his father, Sheikh Sayed Al-Tantawy Dewidar. He later studied law at the University of Alexandria, and completed his master’s degree in Shariah (Islamic law) in 1993. “At the time, I planned on becoming a good lawyer, but my dream was to recite the Qur’an in its seven different narration styles,” says Dewidar.

Women are out there in society now as professors and scientists and engineers; the days when women stayed home just to peel onions are already over.

By age 27, he had moved back to Rosetta to get married, and word of ‘a talented reciter of the Qur’an with an exquisite voice’ was spreading throughout Egypt’s countryside. After reciting at an event in Alexandria, he was approached by an Egyptian family visiting from the US. In admiration of his talent, they took one of his tapes back home and he soon received an invitation to lead the tarawih prayers in New Jersey. In the US, he relished having the opportunity to continue his education in comparative religion, the field in which he eventually earned his PhD.

What he had intended to be a short visit, turned into a move that would change the course of his entire life. His experiences abroad shaped him into the person he is today: a moderate religious scholar with a new philosophy on how to introduce people to the true meanings of Islam in a post-September 11th world. He encourages Muslims in the US to give back to their communities and become active members of society. More importantly, he calls on all Islamic scholars to preach the religion in a way that everyone can relate to.

Dewidar, an instructor at Manhattanville College, made New York his home and soon established the Islamic Center in mid-Manhattan. At first, the mosque set up in a basement with a capacity for 1,000 people, but he quickly had the pleasant dilemma of overcapacity prayer meetings. The mosque was able to collect enough money, mostly through donations, for a down payment on a small building on 55th Street near the UN building.

Last month, the 39-year-old Dewidar was back in Egypt to attend the annual conference of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs. The visit gave him an opportunity to relay his new philosophy to his home country through several Islamic-oriented programs on local and satellite television channels, including Dream TV, the Egyptian Satellite Channel, and Channel 1 on Egyptian television.

As Imam of the Islamic Center in an area that witnessed the worst terrorist attacks ever on American soil, Dewidar spoke on behalf of Muslims living in the US after September 11.

“I could not find a better message than the one Allah presented us with through the Qu’ran,” says Dewidar, as he recited verse 90 of surat Al-Nahl: “Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and giving to kith and kin, and He forbids all indecent deeds, and evil and rebellion: He instructs you, that ye may receive admonition.”

Long gone are the days of standing on the mimbar (pulpit) and preaching loudly to the people about how great Islam is, and how we’re all going to heaven just because we’re Muslim.

In the newscast shown around the world, he then went on to explain the meanings of the verse. “I spoke of justice by universal standards, and not only [the standards] of the society [in which] we live,” he says. “The difference between a noble man and a rich man is that a noble man knows he cannot enjoy his wealth if he is surrounded by poverty, because that will fuel the resentment of the people around him and he will never feel safe. We must be sensitive to those around us or there will never be room for prosperity and peace in the world Of course, I denounce any kind of aggression towards civilians and innocent people.”

For now, the task falls largely on the people who have made America their home. To accomplish this goal, Dewidar says the small Muslim communities have to become an active part of American society. They also need to educate themselves about their own religion so they can be prepared to answer the questions of the increasingly curious American public. For example, “we conduct an open dialogue with the local synagogue in an effort to explain our religion and answer any questions our listeners may have this helps build a kind of trust between us and the community we live in,” he says.

In addition Muslims in America should avoid isolating themselves from the rest of the neighborhood they live in, he says. Sometimes this is a result of language barriers, but at times it’s caused by fear of cultural differences on both sides of the fence. These are the kinds of precautions that build walls, not bridges, says Dewidar. “It’s important to open our homes to the rest of the community.”

That’s one of the keys in his philosophy of the new kind of daawa (preaching the faith): It has to be simple, clear, consistent and gradual. “Long gone are the days of standing on the mimbar (pulpit) and preaching loudly to the people about how great Islam is, and how we’re all going to heaven just because we’re Muslim,” explains Dewidar. “Our message has to be understandable and logical to everyone; both non-Muslims and Muslims should be able to relate.”

And according to Dewidar, the most important concept of daawa is tawhid (accepting that there is one God). “Just telling someone that the God they pray to is what we call Allah in Arabic is enough to start with because, surprisingly, some people think that Allah refers to a Middle Eastern god,” he says. “There are a lot of similarities between religions, and this is the most important one. But to talk about complicated terminology that even religious scholars have trouble understanding doesn’t make sense you’ll lose focus. Simplicity is the key.”

Known for his ability to break the basic concepts Islam down into terms easily understood by both Muslims and non-Muslims, Dewidar was recently asked to comment on Amina Abdel Wadud, the woman who recently led Friday prayers in the US. A panel of religious scholars was assembled and declared the controversial prayer to be invalid.

Abdel Wadud, a professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, based her actions on a hadith that was also proven to be invalid, Dewidar claims. “The validity of each hadith is judged by certain criteria that determine its level of accuracy. One of these levels is called gharib and another is called monkar. When a hadith is given either of these ratings, its value diminishes because the facts of the time do not correspond with the text of the hadith.

“In this case, Wadud was referring to a hadith where a woman supposedly ran up to the Prophet (PBUH) and said ‘Take me with you to fight in Badr,’” Dewidar says. “The facts of the time prove that when the Prophet (PBUH) went from Medina to Mecca, it was to accompany a caravan meant to compensate the village for the losses they suffered from the attacks carried out by Quraysh against Muslim caravaners. He left for eir (referring to caravans) and not nafir (a reference to the trumpet used to call troops to arms in battle).”

“If the Prophet (PBUH)’s intentions when he left were not for battle, then it is not possible this woman in the hadith [Omm Waraqa bint Nawfal] could have asked to go fight by his side,” he concludes. “Another point is that the Battle of Badr was not named until after the groups arrived at Mecca and then looked for a good source of water. They found the well of Badr and that is where they set up camp. That is why it became known throughout history as the Battle of Badr. Therefore, when the Prophet (PBUH) left Mecca, how could this woman have referred to the battle by its name when it was not named yet it was not even intended to be a battle.”

Commenting on Wadud, Dewidar said that she is a professor of Islamic studies, which does not mean she has enough knowledge to interpret the Qu’ran or verify hadiths. “The problem is when someone hears the title of professor, they give this person a lot of credibility when in actuality, her studies could have been very specialized in, for example, 13th century history,” he says.

Wadud and her supporters reportedly said they are tired of taking a back seat to men and that they want to be leaders in the Muslim world. Dewidar says they can accomplish their goals through different means.

“Islam gives women their full rights,” he says. “If some societies act in a way that is against women’s rights, this is not because of Islam, but as a result of bad practices in our culture. We have to differentiate between the religion of Islam and its followers.”

“Secondly, a great historical figure once said that if a woman’s only goal in life is to be equal to man, then she has really low ambitions. Why be equal when she can be better?” Dewidar asks. “I completely agree with this because Islam gave women rights that can make her better in society than men. Women are out there in society now as professors and scientists and engineers; the days when women stayed home just to peel onions are already over.”

Dewidar modestly sees himself as a person performing a civil duty just like a teacher or an engineer, and thinks that it’s a pleasure to serve people in this way. Religion is not a “career,” he says, because that “emphasizes the idea of kahanot, or holiness. I’m against the idea of being a ‘man of God’ because when we put people in that light, we connect the faith with this one person. The problem with making people sacred is that when these people make a mistake, they bring the religion down with them. But if the man and the religion are separated, then if he errs he will be treated like any normal human being.”

“I always prayed to God that he would open up a way for me to have the Qur’an as a greater part of my life,” Dewidar concludes. “ the Qur’an was not created just to be recited, it is supposed to be our constitution, our way of life.” et