I arrived at Dupont Circle around 11:15 AM., hoping to participate in the annual Quds Day procession down Massachusetts Avenue (Embassy Row). The street was unusually quiet--no protestors, no Palestinian flags, in fact nary a Muslim. Disappointed, I walked down Embassy Row to the Islamic Center. Outside this well-known Washington landmark, a small but spirited group, including some of the organizers of the Quds Day event, regularly hold juma'a prayer, known to locals as the Sidewalk Juma'a. The juma'a is held outside--not inside--the mosque, for reasons to be discussed later.
The imam of the Sidewalk Juma'a, Syrian-born Muhammad Al-Asi, had not yet arrived. About a half dozen people milled about, waiting for the khutba to commence. I asked one of them, an Iranian named Yousaf, who seemed to be in charge, about the Quds Day protest. He explained that the procession was cancelled due to the lack of a permit. In my backpack, I carried a Palestinian flag, picturing Masjid Al-Aqsa in the center. Given to me by a dear friend who is a Palestinian artist, activist, and imam in North Carolina, it has special meaning. I expressed my regrets at the march's cancellation, and asked if it might be okay to display the flag as a gesture of solidarity. Yousaf said yes.
I looked around for someone to help me hold the flag. The only brother I knew rather well was busy talking to someone, so I thrust one end of the flag in the direction of two older Iranian gents, figuring one of them would hold it, considering it was the flag of our beloved Palestine, or at least give it to someone else to hold.
One of them took it, but seemed rather embarrassed to be doing so. Although significantly taller than me, he insisted on holding the Palestinian flag much lower than me (almost at waist level), as if hoping no one would notice us. Ah well.
Yousaf, on the other hand, seemed smitten by the flag, because a short time later, he asked if I had any more. I didn't. No one else had any placards or flags, other than a Caucasian brother, who'd brought a yellow Hizbollah flag, with the famous depiction of the kalima in the form of a machine gun.
A short while later, Imam Al-Asi arrived. The khutba was about to commence, and I realized I was at the back of the men's section (necessary to hold the flag with the poor gent I'd impressed into service). The men, predominantly Iranian, were very respectful of me, and no one asked me to move. But, I voluntarily relinquished my end of the flag to a brother, and moved over to the women's section, which, interestingly, flanked the men's section, rather than posterior to it, as is the case at many juma'a congregations.
Asi's khutba powerfully commemorated Quds Day. He quoted verses from the Qur'an naming the characteristics of the Bani Israel. Their nature, as delineated in the Qur'an, he said, was to wreck havoc not just in a single city, country, or even continent--but throughout the earth. The "Muslim" heads-of-state who recognized Israel were complicit in the subjugation of Palestine, said Asi. Imams who refused to speak out against such misguided rulers were "Scholars for Dollars," he said, gesturing towards the Islamic Center.
The grey-haired, bespectacled khateeb's excoriation of corrupt Arab/Muslim rulers partly explained why he was outside a multi-million dollar Islamic Center rather than inside it. It is clearly a role to which he is accustomed. The Sidewalk Juma'a began after Asi was ousted from his elected position as the Center's imam by the Saudi government with the help of U.S. authorities in 1983, and briefly jailed. I asked him what would happen if he attempted to enter the Center today. Asi said he'd variously been barred outright from the Center; been told he could enter but not talk to or interact with anyone; and banned from preaching there. I noted that such actions appeared to constitute particularly flagrant violations of Asi's First Amendment rights (his Islamic right to access the Islamic Center notwithstanding).
Worshippers emerging from the Islamic Center proper appeared stunned at Asi's powerful message, and several of them stopped in the middle of the street, gawking at the kaffiyeh-adorned Sidewalk imam. Notably, few other imams around the DC area commemorated Quds Day, although ostensibly the freedom of Jerusalem--second most holy site to Muslims--is an issue on which Muslims are in complete agreement.
