The first witnesses at Rep. Peter King’s hearings on Muslims in America should be the family and comrades of Army Spec. Azhar Ali of Queens.
The witnesses could recount how Ali came to America from Pakistan when he was 14 and died at 27 serving his country in Iraq as a member of New Yorks famous Fighting 69th.
The father, Mubarak Ali, could repeat for the House Homeland Security Committee what he said as he stood beside his son’s plain wood coffin in the Islamic Burial funeral parlor in Queens that March day in 2005.
“When I heard he was going to Iraq for America, I was proud…He died for a great cause.”
The father could also recount how he and his wife were presented at the graveside with a folded flag of their son’s adopted country along with four medals, including a Bronze Star.
The presiding imam, Zameer Sattaur, could recite the prayer he offered, the words springing from the true heart of Islam.
“The purpose of life is to do good …”
The chaplain the Army sent to the funeral, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, a colonel in the reserves and prominent member of the Hassidic community in Crown Heights, could testify that the imam invited him to give a graveside prayer.
A host of comrades could testify to Ali’s courage and devotion to duty. Sgt. Adrian Melendez could speak of how Ali was among those who rescued him after an IED attack.
“He died a great soldier,” Melendez has said of Ali and would surely say so again.
Other witnesses could tell the committee of Army Special Forces Staff Sgt. Ayman Taha of Virginia, who was killed in Iraq in 2006 and of Army Cpl. Kareem Khan of New Jersey, who was killed there in 2007.
Both received the Bronze Star. Both have headstones with crescent stars rather than crosses at Arlington National Cemetery, with a good view of the Capitol and the Cannon House office building, where King will hold his hearing.
If Taha’s father were asked to testify, he would no doubt note anew that his son was a devout Muslim who embraced the same principle set forth by the imam’s prayer beside Ali’s coffin.
The father, Abdel-Rahman Taha, has said that his son felt Islam’s essential message was “to believe in God and do good deeds…
“He believed what he was doing there was the good deeds Islam is asking for.”
Khan’s father is on record saying of his son, “His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him.”
Feroze Khan added, “He looked at it that he’s American and he has a job to do.”
As recorded below the crescent star on his tombstone, Kareem Khan was born in 1987, which means he was just 14 on 9/11. He became and remained determined to demonstrate that only a tiny minority of Muslims are America-hating extremists.
Khan no sooner graduated high school in 2005 than he was taking his first plane ride, to begin basic training. He was in Iraq a year later and was to come home when his tour was extended. He voiced no complaint.
Let the committee record show that he was only 20 when he died, demonstrating that you can be a devout Muslim and give all anybody of any faith can give to America.
Let the committee take care how it proceeds, for to stoke prejudice against all Muslims is to dishonor the memory of Khan and Taha and Ali and the others of their faith who have made the supreme sacrifice in this long war.
To dishonor them is to dishonor the country King says he’s defending.
