Muslim Scholar and Civil Rights Leader Notes Changes in America

October 13, 2001

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On October 13, 2001, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Agha Saeed has received a tremendous number of invitations to speak on Islam since the terrorist attacks of September 11. "As a professor at the University of California at Berkeley...he teaches a full load of courses...; as the head of the American Muslim Alliance, Saeed runs a civil rights organization that has 7,000 members and 95 chapters...Born and raised in Pakistan, Saeed says he has seen two examples of U.S. character in the month since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: The continuing harassment of American Muslims and Arab Americans and the simultaneous embrace of American Muslims and Arab Americans." Invited to Washington by President Bush, "Saeed sat in the National Cathedral...and witnessed what he calls 'an evolution...When the formal prayers began, the first prayers were from the Koran -- that could not have happened in this country five years ago.'"