HAhmed.com

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press; New York Newsday; Philadelphia Inquirer; The Bergen Record; Asbury Park Press; Trenton Times
(c) 2004. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

SOMERSET, N.J. (AP) - Arif Rafiq dreams of becoming the first Muslim president of the United States.

The 23-year-old Georgetown University political science student is all cell phones and e-mail and Google searches and boundless optimism that, in this country, anything is possible.

“My administration would be rooted in traditional American values, particularly a sense of individual responsibility,” he says. “It would be open to the America of old, and also an America of new Americans from different parts of the world.”

Rafiq was one of about 120 young Muslims attending a forum this weekend aimed at developing new leaders for the Muslim community in America — a mission made more urgent by the aging of the immigrant generation that settled here decades ago, establishing businesses and mosques, and laying the groundwork for the next generation.

Call them Generation M: A group of 20 and 30-something doctors, lawyers, software engineers, sales executives and college students, all of whom happen to be Muslim and who want to more fully participate in their own American dreams.

“We’re focused on turning out a new generation of Muslims to face the challenges that they’ll encounter as leaders of the Muslim community after 9/11,” said Ibrahim Mansour, one of the organizers of Muslim Leaders, a Secaucus-based organization that has held similar conferences for the past six years.

Much of the emphasis is on outreach efforts to non-Muslims, and better integration with and participation in every aspect of American society.

“This is about us stepping up and joining the communities and using our skills to have an improvement on the job our parents started,” said Shireif Battat, 29, of Somerset.

The software designer’s parents both came to the United States from Egypt in 1970, settling in Brooklyn, where they both found work as accountants. They stressed education for their son, planning for him to do better than they had in America.

His generation speaks flawless English, knows how to network, is intensely interested in politics and cares deeply about how the rest of the world perceives them and their religion.

“We’re American, and we like the fact that we’re part of this system,” said Amber Malik Sheikh, 31, of Secaucus, one of the group’s founders. “It’s 2004; Muslims have been in America since the start of America. It’s time that they got involved in everything America is about.”

Seminar topics for the conference, which runs through Sunday, include “Curing the Social Illnesses in Our Communities;” “A Roadmap of American Political Maturity,” “The New Muslim Face in the Media,” and “Striving For Excellence: Muslims Against Mediocrity.”

“This transition is going to take place sometime soon,” said Mansour. “The older generation is aging, and the younger generation is getting out of college and starting their own families. There’s generally a lack of participation among the younger generation. Most of the seats on the boards of the mosques are still predominantly held by the immigrant generation.”

Battat sees himself as part of a natural transition from one generation of Muslim Leaders to another.

“Everyone here is first-generation American Muslims, and up to this point, we have not been representing ourselves,” he said. “Everyone works and educates themselves here. We have to understand the responsibility we have in assuming the role from our parents’ generation. We have to continue what they started.”