 
|
|||||||||||||||||
              
|
Family, Allah and USA: The Chaudharys are among 10,000 Muslims in the area
Sunday, September 12, 1999 By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Zahida Chaudhary pulls into the garage of the handsome brick house that sits amid the leafy hills of residential Monroeville. She is returning from an afternoon luncheon while a family friend and tutor has been watching her young sons, who are upstairs toying with the latest computer craze, Pokemon.
A few hours later, her husband, Safdar Chaudhary, arrives and she prepares fresh fruit and a rice dish, and warms up a spicy lamb stew for him and a visitor.
With their two-car garage and cul-de-sac comforts, the Chaudharys are easily part of the coziness of suburbia.
They also are part of a trend that is changing the fabric of America's religious life. As practicing Muslims, they are members of one of the world's oldest -- and the United States' fastest-growing -- religions. They've settled in America from their native Pakistan in pursuit of postgraduate training, joining a community of 6 million Muslims now in the States, a number that has grown tenfold since the early 1960s.
Recent immigrants such as the Chaudharys, as well as people who have converted to Islam and those who are re-identifying with their faith and coming back into the mosques, are behind the growth in numbers.
The Chaudharys, both trained as physicians in their native country, offer a snapshot of how an estimated 10,000 Muslims in the Pittsburgh area are quietly adjusting to life here while pursuing religious traditions that stretch back centuries.
He is a psychiatrist and serves as medical director of Community Care, an Uptown agency that's a behavioral health maintenance organization. She is a stay-at-home mom who structures her family's activities and, when her sons are in school, spends days studying for her credentials to practice medicine in America.
The couple married in Pakistan, and have been together in Pittsburgh for 10 years, although Safdar Chaudhary arrived here a few years earlier.
His journey began in Rahim yar Khan, the desert town in central Pakistan where he was raised.
His father, Badar-ud-din Chaudhary, managed a farming enterprise that grew cotton, wheat and sugar cane. The elder Chaudhary had big dreams for his six children, encouraging them all to attend college and seek advanced degrees. Safdar Chaudhary, the youngest, was unassuming but quick-witted. He did well in his air force boarding school before going to college and then to medical school.
An older sister, Shagufta Chowhan, now a psychiatrist in South Bend, Ind., noticed Safdar's intelligence and prodded him to cast his lot in America. Today, all but one of his siblings have made a lives for themselves in the States.
Safdar Chaudhary left his job as a doctor with a Pakistani electrical company and arrived fresh-faced but eager in Pittsburgh in 1984.
"You leave your country a physician and here you're a nobody," he chuckled, recalling the struggle to start over.
Braving the new culture, Safdar spun through several cities and medical programs before landing back in Pittsburgh. He completed his postgraduate training in psychiatry at St. Francis Medical Center. Shortly after, he became a U.S. citizen and an America booster.
It is here, he has written, that he was given a chance to flourish despite his brown color, accent, different religion and culture.
"America is a place that is politically solid," he said. "It allows people to build a foundation, and conflict here doesn't threaten the whole country. ... It is a good place to raise a family."
Zahida Chaudhary is the Catholic school-educated daughter of successful businessman Nawab Khan Chaudhary, who now lives in Islamabad, Pakistan. The surname Chaudhary, like Smith in America, is a common one in Pakistan. Zahida was raised in the cosmopolitan coastal city of Karachi and spent time in England while growing up. She earned a medical degree in Pakistan, and is inching toward her U.S. medical career one step at a time while balancing time with her sons -- soft-spoken Omair, 9, and chatty Ramiz, 6.
"I'm a crazy mother," she said, but one who finds that role very rewarding.
Coordinating her sons' sporting and educational activities is something Zahida feels she's "blessed" to do. There are other household tasks that are less rewarding.
She cooks for her family, but said cooking and "making groceries" don't give her great pleasure. She'd rather decorate the house.
It is Zahida Chaudhary's choice to guide the family life, and for those who know little about Islam, she said, it is easy to mistake the religion as one that sublimates women's goals to men's.
"God gives men and women different yet equal roles in order for them to fulfill their lives and create a strong family," which is the basis of Muslim society, she said.
No role is superior or inferior, she added. "Each is necessary and complementary."
The Chaudharys' sons attend a nearby private school that is run by the North American Martyrs Catholic Church. Zahida chose North American Martyrs Catholic School because of the small classes, academic discipline and nurturing environment, which allowed the Chaudharys to express their religious values and, on occasion, share their Pakistani culture.
In keeping with Islamic teachings of tolerance and respect for other religions, the Chaudharys felt such disciplined schooling could impart other lessons, as well.
For them it is important for the children to be steeped in Islam but also to recognize that God is expressed and worshipped in other faiths.
"Every religion teaches good things," said Zahida Chaudhary.
Islam is a religion with values similar to Christianity and Judaism, having been born in the same part of the world as the other two faiths. According to Islamic belief, the prophet Mohammed began to receive revelations from Allah in 610 A.D., carried through the archangel Gabriel.
The message was similar to the Ten Commandments delivered to Moses and to the teachings of Jesus, in that it set down laws for living, including instructions on charity and social taboos.
There are five pillars of Islam: Shahada, a declaration of faith; Salat, obligatory prayers done five times a day; Zakat, obligatory charity; Sawm, fasting during the holy month of Ramadan; and Hajj, making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
To keep her children connected to their religious heritage, Chaudhary teaches them Arabic and gives them daily lessons from the Koran, the Muslim holy book. The family also uses a tutor to instruct the boys three or four times a week, and they attend weekly religion classes at the mosque in Monroeville, where their mother teaches 9- and 10-year-olds.
In America, she said, this formal instruction becomes more important because practicing Islam is not built into the culture. In Pakistan and other Muslim countries, an adhan (call for prayer) signifies worship time, and businesses and schools are never far from mosques.
Here, she said, she and her husband must be models and convey every little thing for their sons "because once we left Pakistan it is no longer automatic."
They try to renew their sons' connection to Allah in the family's private prayers and in the communal prayer on Friday at the mosque -- which reinforces the tradition of waddu, or cleansing before prayer.
There are not a lot of symbols in the home that identify them as a Muslim family, said Zahida Chaudhary, because, "Allah never appeared in physical form and is recognized by his attributes, and one can feel his presence everywhere."
A holy Koran and Arabic study books crowded on the end of the dining table and a large picture of the Ka'aba (house of Allah in Mecca) in the breakfast nook are reminders of their religious heritage. Other ties to their homeland include ornamental rugs purchased in Pakistan and wedding photos of the couple dressed in traditional clothing.
Some evenings they relax in a similar wardrobe. For Safdar Chaudhary, that means wearing the kamiz, or long shirt, and shalwar, or pants. His wife wears the same, but adds a matching shawl.
The Muslim community in Pittsburgh is an ethnically diverse one. Middle Easterners, Asians, Africans and American-born worshippers are welcome in the area's six mosques, with most attending the center closest to their home or workplace. The largest congregation is at the Islamic Center of Oakland.
Twenty years ago, the Muslim community here consisted mostly of students and a few professionals. Almost 80 worshippers strong, they would meet for Friday prayers in a room at the University of Pittsburgh. A mosque on Wylie Avenue in the Hill District was the only neighborhood worship center.
The Chaudharys worship at the Monroeville mosque and community center, which is at the end of a small road not far from a strip mall off Route 22. It is a two-story building with praying and social halls, and rooms for classes.
Muslim families in Monroeville pay a $300 annual membership fee, but the Chaudharys stress that Islam makes no priority over rich or poor. All are welcome to attend. The fee helps pay for the mosque's upkeep and is a symbolic show of support for the association.
As Safdar Chaudhary attends an evening worship, he removes his shoes and socks to make waddu and takes his place with the other worshippers behind the Imam, or prayer leader.
During the devotion there are several cycles of prayers, which culminate in bowing with the forehead touching the floor.
In a society not very familiar with their faith, Muslims have almost daily opportunities to educate people about their beliefs. For instance, Safdar Chaudhary recalls that an acquaintance's offer of birthday cake was a chance to share that he was fasting, and the role this observance played in his faith.
The Chaudharys say they have felt no direct antagonism because of their beliefs, but do feel Muslims are too often tainted by radical Middle Eastern politics and the misunderstandings those politics engender in Americans.
The ignorance about their faith, said Zahida Chaudhary, caused much of the media to brand all Muslims terrorists in their coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing and the World Trade Center attack in New York City.
"I'm pretty low-key," Safdar Chaudhary said. But in the face of such misperceptions, "even a sleepy guy like me has to wake up."
In an effort to confront the anti-Islamic stereotypes and prejudice, he has been president of the Islamic Council of Pittsburgh and president of the Monroeville Islamic Center, and is treasurer of the Pakistani Association of Pittsburgh.
When he was president of the Monroeville mosque, Safdar began a newsletter that focused on issues and debates within the community, and his wife occasionally contributed articles.
He also writes editorials for the Allegheny County Medical Society's "Bulletin," where he's talked about everything from depression to burnout.
The Chaudharys support public radio, the bike trail society and interfaith dialogue, and enjoy chatting with neighbors, traveling and playing tennis. Their many friends and responsibilities have rooted them to life here.
As they returned to Pittsburgh after a visit to Pakistan this summer, they felt more than ever as if they were coming home.
|
||||||||||||||||
