Rohingya mosque in Dallas fosters community, strength among refugees who fled Myanmar

Imam Mufti Mohammad Ismail says he learned what oppression was when he was a Rohingya in Myanmar, but he didn’t know what freedom meant until he found safety in the US

Freedom means running a mosque that is the heart of a community of approximately 300 Rohingya families in northeast Dallas. Now, free from the fear of the anti-Muslim terror the Rohingya are facing in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, Ismail and others are building a future in the Dallas area.

“I am very happy to see the people who come in here and to see that they have managed to get out of the situation they were in,” Ismail said through an interpreter in Urdu whom he spoke to during his Studied at refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Many Rohingya in Dallas live within walking distance of the apartment complex where the mosque is located.

When he came to the US in 2013, Rohingya refugees attended prayers in another mosque nearby. But due to cultural differences and other challenges, including limited transportation, Ismail and other leaders wanted a new hangout for Rohingya families.

Mohammad Ismail, the imam or leader of the mosque, speaks at an apartment complex in Dallas before praying with Rohingya refugees on July 23. The mosque was built in a former laundry room for the residents.(Ben Torres / special article)

Ismail said that community members started praying in a one-room apartment but outgrew it in about a year. In 2016 they learned that they could rent an old laundry room in the apartment complex and convert it into a mosque.

Although the mosque limited its gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, Ismail said more than a hundred Rohingya children come throughout the day to study the Quran and do schoolwork.

The mosque has also attracted non-Rohingya Muslims, including refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan.

“When the community grows out of this complex and is ready to stand on its own two feet, then we hope to build a mosque elsewhere. But at the moment it is, “said Ismail.

Although the Rohingya community is small, it has formed strong ties near the Vickery Meadow neighborhood. Some who bought houses outside the complex still return to the mosque for prayer.

In October 2018, Mohammad Osman Abduljabbar, a member of Ismail’s mosque, opened a culturally appropriate grocery store – something he was not allowed to do in Myanmar.

About a five-minute walk from the mosque, the store sells items from Malaysia and Thailand, where many refugees from Myanmar stay while waiting for refugee status.

Abduljabbar said the store sells halal meat and other ingredients used in traditional Rohingya cuisine. It is also a symbol of the growth of the Dallas area church.

“It’s more of a community shop. Sometimes people come and we just give them things at cost because we want to make sure they’re okay, ”said Abduljabbar. “Often people come in here to chat.”

Shopkeeper Mohammad Osman Abduljabbar and his son Hassan Abduljabbar in the Burmese Asian grocery store serving Rohingya refugees.(Ben Torres / special article)

“Here, we are all Burmese”

Shaukat Salleh is part of Rohingya Muslim Relief, an organization founded by members of the Ismail Mosque that collects money to send to Rohingya villages in Myanmar.

Salleh said it was still unfamiliar to be able to practice one’s religion free from harassment.

“If we are more than 10 in Myanmar, the military will come and break it up,” he said.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar since the early 1990s. According to a UN report, the Myanmar military began burning Rohingya villages in 2017, killing and wounding thousands.

In addition to the hardships many refugee groups experience, the Rohingya face cultural barriers stemming from their treatment in Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and access to education and other services, Salleh said.

He said he knew Rohingya who are still in Myanmar, have been put in detention centers and are not allowed to travel freely.

Now US citizen, Salleh said he represents values ​​that promote equal treatment for all people.

“This is the first time that I can go to an election, my first time. I was very glad. I cried in my heart, ”he said.

The Rohingya have found acceptance by the wider Myanmar population in the Dallas area.

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, Dallas-Fort Worth has one of the largest populations in Myanmar in the United States.

According to the United Nations, the Southeast Asian country has been embroiled in several phases of political unrest since the 1960s

In February, Myanmar’s military junta toppled the country’s democratically elected government, causing thousands of people to take to the streets to reprimand the coup.

Despite blaming the military for the worst attacks against the Rohingya, Salleh said he was also ill-treated by compatriots in Rakhine state, Myanmar.

“When we try to do something like go to the football field, they say, ‘Go away, foreigner,'” he said.

Salleh said such attitudes are largely non-existent in Dallas between Rohingya and others in the Myanmar community, many of whom also came to the United States as refugees.

“My mechanic, for example, is Rakhine. He doesn’t think badly of me because I’m Rohingya, and I don’t think any different of him because he is Rakhine. We all go to him. Here we are all Burmese; we are all from Myanmar, ”he said.

He said Dallas-based organizations that work closely with the Burmese immigrant community often turn to him and other Rohingya for help, including COVID-19 vaccinations.

Than Kwai, who is from Rakhine, is not a Rohingya. But like Salleh, he came to the USA as a refugee.

Kwai said it was not easy in Myanmar to openly share his views, including his sympathies for the Rohingya.

“Rohingya are the ones who have been suppressed and imprisoned in this small area for a long time,” he said. “It is not the conflict that the Rakhine have with Rohingya, it is not that Buddhism is in conflict with Rohingya, it is a conflict that the government created to serve itself.”

In Myanmar, Kwai said he was a craftsman who specialized in jewelry. While waiting for refugee status in Malaysia, he made money doing carpentry work. Now he works as a craftsman and carries out maintenance work in an apartment building.

He believes the similar struggle shared by many refugees in the US regardless of their origin builds empathy among ethnic groups from Myanmar.

“We’re all in the same boat here,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether we are Buddhists, Christians or Muslims.”

Help from the other Muslims

Ismail and Salleh credit God for helping Rohingya families start new lives.

Much of that blessing, Ismail said, came in the form of helping other Muslims in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Khalid Ishaq, who lives in Plano, said he first encountered the Rohingya community when he volunteered at a pantry managed by the local Islamic Circle of North America branch.

Ishaq helped Ismail find a bigger place for the mosque. Several times a year he visits various mosques in the area with Salleh and the aid organization to help with fundraising.

Most recently, before Eid, an important holiday in Islam, Ishaq Salleh and Abduljabbar helped raise money to send to Rohingya families in Myanmar.

Mohammad Ismail, second from left, Mohammad Osman Abduljabbar, Muahmed Abdallah and Khalid Ishaq, far right, pray in a mosque in an apartment complex in Dallas.(Ben Torres / special article)

“They didn’t start with anything and are now where they are today,” he said.

Ishaq said he was inspired to help others after his family moved from Kuwait to the United States because of the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

He said it would be rewarding to see Rohingya families embrace their new freedoms and he hoped their community continues to grow.

“You really don’t get many opportunities like this to help people,” Ishaq said. “That keeps me going. Otherwise, it’s work, home, and taxes that you have to pay and the bills to take care of. If I didn’t have something like that, life would be much more mundane. “

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