Good Samaritans, Good Muslims

All weekend my son and I have been watching streaming video of the RIS conference in Long Beach.

This takes me back to my first Islamic Convention experience.

The year was 1973. We were living in Pittsburgh PA at the time and the convention was in Ann Arbor MI. Driving along on the freeway, on a very hot afternoon, about 50 miles from Ann Arbour, our car broke down. My husband got down from the car and tried to get some help. Nobody would stop. I got down and opened the door for some air as we had two children under the age of 5 in the car.

After some time (perhaps half an hour or so), two young women pulled up and were very sympathetic to the fact that we had small children in the car. Seeing as everything was closed because it was the long weekend, we had nowhere to go. One of the young ladies said her cousin worked at a gas station and he could look at the car. So all four of us got into her car and went to her simple air-conditioned house. My husband then left with her cousin to get the car belt fixed.

One of the ladies left the house only to come back with a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken with all the trimmings! We were surprised at the hospitality (after all, KFC was quite the pricey meal back in those days). About 3 or 4 hrs later the car was fixed. We took the women's address and telephone number and thanked them when we were ready to leave. The lady who got the chicken and whose house it was gave us a greeting card wishing us a safe trip. As we were driving away I opened the card and inside a beautiful card was a 10 dollar bill!

The following Christmas, I sent her a large Christmas present for her son.

People like these have been here in America forever and they will always be here. Today, as I was watching the streaming RIS video and seeing all those American Muslims together, I want to remind all that being a good American is so close to being a good Muslim; good old-fashioned American values are no different than the values we are taught to observe as good Muslims.