“O mankind! We created you from a single pair, a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may get to know each other (not for you to despise each other).” The Holy Quran, Surah al-Hujurat, 49:13.

Commenting on this verse, Agha Pooya and S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali write, “This verse deals with the natural brotherhood of man,” adding that it “renders null and void all distinctions based on race, color, caste and social position.”
In sharp contrast to Islam, the U.S. has a long history of virulent racism directed against Blacks and other minorities. The land was usurped from its inhabitants by systematic genocide, one of the most notorious examples being the slaughter of Native Peoples at Sand Creek in what later became the State of Colorado.
Having briefly written about the Sand Creek Massacre, I felt obligated to visit to the historic site located in southeastern Colorado near the small rural town of Eads about 180 kilometers east of the former steel mill center of Pueblo. As family matters required us to be in Pueblo, my wife suggested extending our trip since we would be relatively near by. Neither of us expected that our journey from Pueblo to Sand Creek would give us a startling glimpse of America in decay and a cursory encounter with its lingering racism.
Traveling east from Pueblo on U.S. Highway 50, we passed the old Pueblo Army Depot, now renamed “Pueblo Chemical Depot,” as if it contained useful products instead of 7% of the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons of mass destruction. Located 22 km east of Pueblo at North Avondale, this relic from World War II still stores over 2,000 tons of mustard gas projectiles whose leakage poses a constant threat, with the most recent incident having just occurred in June 2010.
From here, Colorado Highway 96 branches off onto the high plains and from 8 km east of Boone, the road parallels the old Missouri Pacific Railroad main line. Once a busy east-west rail corridor, the track now owned by the Union Pacific is used to store automobile transport railcars idled by the recession. Referred to by locals as the “Iron Curtain,” the almost unbroken line of parked railcars extends some 35 km from the Crowley County line to Sugar City. The sight of over 1,000 rusting autoracks in a row presented a strikingly dramatic visual indication of the dire state of the declining U.S. economy.
About 60 km east of Pueblo is Olney Springs, home to the area’s only growth industry, the Crowley County Correctional Facility. A privatized prison run by Corrections Corporation of America for the State of Colorado, this medium security detention center confines over 1700 inmates on a 9 hectare site and presumably provides employment for locals in this economically depressed rural area. In reality, the high-paying jobs are almost always filled by candidates recruited from outside the local community.
Arriving in late afternoon at the Travelers Lodge, the one and only place to stay in Eads, we were shocked by the squalid motel’s filthy and dilapidated condition. The debris-strewn vacant parking lot together with the paint peeling from doors and window trim emphasized the severity of America’s economic decline. Upon entering our room, we were confronted by an offensive pungent odor that perhaps was the lingering stench of the atrocities committed at nearby Sand Creek over a hundred years ago.
Taking a walk into town, we found it almost deserted except for an occasional car whose driver would stare at us suspiciously. Many storefronts still bearing American flags were boarded up and one building appeared to have collapsed, giving an overall impression of a sordid but patriotic community in an advanced state of decay. My wife inquired about a restaurant from passerby who reluctantly informed us that there was a pizzeria on the main highway, but it had already closed for the day.
Having found no alternatives, we grudgingly returned to eat at a diner next to the motel, which, like our room, exuded a strange odor. As Muslims, we are very careful about food, so decided it would be safest to have salad and fish. After dinner we returned to our room and since it was Thursday night, I went outside after sunset to read Dua’ Kumayl and thought to myself that perhaps this was the first time anyone had recited the beautiful supplication in Eads.
We eagerly left the motel early next morning, but before continuing on to Sand Creek, we stopped at a convenience store for a quick breakfast. Inside, a radio was blaring from behind the counter, tuned to a talk show whose host sounded like the local version of Rush Limbaugh. Seated around one of the grimy tables were four husky men, whom I assumed to be local residents. “Good morning,” I said with the friendliest greeting that I could muster. In response, I received the same suspicious stares as I had the day before.
I decided to buy a copy of the local newspaper as well as one from nearby Lamar. Searching feverishly for a bit of international news, I found absolutely none, but I did see this brief paragraph in the Kiowa County Press:
“Bill and Shirley Krum have heard from their grandson, Hunter Krum, that he has earned the rank of Lance Corporal. He is somewhere in the war zone. Let’s pray for our men and women, boys and girls in the military.”
Somewhere in the war zone? No mention of specifics, just a vague undefined locale half way around the world where men, women, boys and girls are fighting against whom and for what reason we are not told. It’s just “the war zone” for the good citizens of Eads.
After breakfast, we headed east on Highway 96, followed the signs on the well-marked route to County Road 54, turned north for a few kilometers on this dirt road then east again on Road W, finally arriving at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. We were greeted by a national park summer employee, Bruce Hallman, a science teacher at Eads High School in the off-season, who gave us brochures and a brief history of the site.
The massacre in which at least 165 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered took place on 29 November 1864 under the command of an ordained Christian minister, Colonel John Chivington. One gallant officer, Captain Silas Soule, refused to allow his troops to participate in the bloodbath. “I refused to fire and swore that none but a coward would, for by this time hundreds of women and children were coming towards us and getting on their knees for mercy,” he later wrote. Despite death threats, Captain Soule testified at the congressional investigation that the military operation was indeed a massacre and for his honorable conduct, he was assassinated in Denver in 1865.
We hiked up the trail in the stifling 35° C heat to a bluff overlooking the dry riverbed of Sand Creek where the massacre actually took place. The only sound in the silent heat was that of the mourning doves, whose dolorous call sounded like the voices of Native Indians. At the top of the ridge, we quietly offered a brief prayer asking for Allah’s mercy on the innocent souls who were slaughtered there and that justice is done for them.
I had scarcely finished, when I caught a glimpse of someone walking towards me and had a bizarre feeling of discomfort as if Col. Chivington himself had returned from the grave.
“Do you know much about this place?” asked the stranger who was dressed in jeans, a western shirt, high-heeled boots and cowboy hat.
My wife has studied the history of the Sand Creek Massacre extensively, but sensing a hidden agenda, I guardedly responded, “No, not much. Do you?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve read a lot about it and you know, there really wasn’t a massacre here,” he said, callously contradicting Captain Soule’s testimony.
“But at least 165 innocent people were killed here!” I protested.
“Look, these savages used to raid each other’s tribes. It was a way of life for them. The elders knew the white man was superior and would prevail, but the young warriors rebelled and attacked white settlers and did awful things to them,” he explained.
“So, in your opinion what took place here was justified?” I asked.
“What happened here was just like what happened after the Civil War. When Lincoln freed the slaves, they ran amok attacking and killing whites, so the Ku Klux Klan killed a few and strung ‘em up as a warning,” he answered, fully exposing his racist agenda.
“Oh, so then you must empathize with the people of Fallujah who hung the dead bodies of 4 Blackwater mercenaries from a bridge as a warning,” I countered.
“Fallujah?” he asked with an expression of sublime ignorance on his face.
“Yes, Fallujah...west of Baghdad in Iraq, you know, don’t you? The U.S. launched a massive bloody attack there in 2004,” I said.
“No, I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that,” he admitted with prideful indifference.
“You should know because the United States illegally invaded Iraq in 2003 and your tax dollars go to help finance the ongoing occupation,” I clarified.
“Listen, man has always conquered man. That’s the way of the world. As a Christian, I don’t go along with it, but who listens in Obama’s socialist government?” he retorted.
“As a Muslim, I am obligated to fight against injustice, so I often write my representatives and senators to express my views. By the way, Bush started the war in Iraq not Obama,” I responded.
“A Muslim? You sound like a liberal to me. Yeah, I bet you’re a foreigner, too. Why don’t you go back where you came from?” he snorted as he left in a xenophobic huff.
“Buy me a ticket, I’ll be happy to go to Iran,” I shouted back.
After our encounter with small-town America and its redneck culture of ignorance, my wife and I headed back to the relatively cosmopolitan atmosphere of Denver, stopping only for early and late afternoon prayers at a public park in Hugo, Colorado. Now and then in Denver, a Muslim brother can be seen doing his Salaat on the sidewalk beside his taxi without notice by passersby. In Hugo however, our Salaat attracted a few curious onlookers and gave them perhaps their first direct exposure to Islam and Muslims.
Contrary to the views of the local citizenry of Eads, the real war zone encompasses the entire U.S. from rural towns to its large cities. Every day, Muslims striving for the truth must do jihad against the ignorance, prejudice and racism of narrow-minded people, like the one we encountered at Sand Creek, who choose to remain oblivious of the truth about their country and its violent history. This is Islamic jihad in America.
As Ayatullah Seyyed Mahmoud Taleqani explains, “This is the Islamic jihad. This is the meaning of ‘jihad.’ ‘Jihad’ means ‘striving for the truth’; it is not similar to war and murder.”
Photo: Entrance to Sand Creek massacre site