jennifer bryan
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Consistent with the demographics of the larger Journal Square area, most Muslims I met
and interviewed were recent immigrants from Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco or Egyptian
Americans within the 18-65 year old range. Many men worked seventy to ninety hours per week
as taxi or bus drivers, restaurant and travel agency owners, or construction workers and electrical
engineers. Their goals were to support their families or to save money to start a family, as well
as to travel back to their home countries. Most women I met or interviewed were married with
more than two children and worked part-time as salon stylists, nursing assistants, or in
restaurants. Some were full time mothers who sold Islamic clothing and goods outside mosques.
Most of the non-working women were looking for jobs, but came up against discrimination
facing women who wore the hijab—a point I will return to below.
Living in Terror: The Impact of 9/11 on Muslims in Jersey City
FBI Investigations
Almost immediately following the attack on the World Trade Center, the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) began an unprecedented investigation
targeting Arab men for questioning. Under the rubric of “national security,” Attorney-General
John Ashcroft ordered the FBI to interview 5,000 Arab and/or Muslim men between the ages of
18-33 for information relating to terrorism. Given the history linking the planning of the 1993
World Trade Center bombing to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who prayed and spoke at Al Salam
Masjid in Journal Square in Jersey City, the FBI focused a good part of its investigation on
Jersey City and nearby Paterson and Bayonne. The post 9/11 investigation into Jersey City also
heated up after the arrest of two men, Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, who
lived in an apartment building in the Journal Square area. Khan and Azmath were detained on
September 12
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, while on board an Amtrak train in Texas after their flight from Newark to San
Antonio was diverted. At the time of their arrest, they were carrying $5,000 in cash, hair dye,
and boxcutters, which were weapons thought to be used by 9/11 terrorists (Kovaleski and Kunkle
2001). Though the two were later cleared of any wrong doing, in the immediate aftermath of
9/11, their arrests were enough to justify the subsequent arrests of five of their neighbors, as well
as raids of dozens of apartments in Jersey City.
At this time, it is difficult to determine just how many homes and businesses were
targeted in Jersey City because the FBI has not released this information; Muslim leaders place
the number of apartments and businesses raided in the hundreds. Whatever the exact number, as
Convention