An idea whose time has come...

The News, December 24, 2005
An American-Muslim hospital?
Mahjabeen Islam

Just as it is downright stupid for Iranian president Ahmedinejad to wish away Israel, it is fantasy to think that America's six to eight million Muslims will convert, simultaneously die or at the minimum, magically disappear. With a total of 1.5 billion across the world, one can understand how overwhelming and coming-out-of-the-woodwork we seem to the non-Muslim.

Muslims born in America have ingrained ties; even those of us who are first-generation immigrants have a sense of identity and a deep love for this land. The first wave of Muslim immigration came to America as slaves and soon lost their religious identity to that of their masters. The second wave brought blue-collar workers from the Arab world and Europe and the third wave brought the highly educated from South Asia. We are all done now with getting ourselves the good life, replete with wealth and status.

Mosques dot the American landscape from sea to shining sea. Travel down Interstate 75, from Ohio to Florida is like an architectural trek of mosques. The Turkish architecture of the Islamic Centre of Greater Toledo, which kids call its minarets "rockets" sits flush with the freeway. A few hours south, a bend on the highway and the stately Cincinnati mosque greets you. Many mosques have full-time Islamic schools and almost all have weekend schools.

Just as I was getting tired of seeing invariably non-Muslim donor names on doors, rooms and auditoriums of hospitals, we have the advent of Sara and Sohaib Abbasi who have donated five million dollars for an Islamic Chair at Stanford and for computer sciences at the University of Illinois.

But it was 2 am on Tuesday December 13 that I think my life changed. Though breakfast with the New York Times classifies as a major treat for me, I am also like Charlie Brown: I hate mornings. The treat can only happen on a weekend anyway. So late that night, sleepless post extra-brewed Earl Grey, a news item in the New York Times snagged my attention. Saudi prince and businessman, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, fifth on Forbes' 400 list of the wealthiest in the world, had donated $20 million to Harvard and Georgetown universities. The Harvard donation was for Islamic Studies and the Georgetown one for promoting Christian-Muslim understanding.

It suddenly occurred to me that the American-Muslim community needs to build hospitals across America. There are numerous Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Jewish hospitals. Not a single one is Muslim. Muslims cannot be part of the melting pot of America for our culture precludes formless integration. Being part of the American mosaic is the paradigm: distinct and yet part of the whole.

APPNA, or the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America has 3000 members, but there are about 8000 physicians of Pakistani descent in North America. I put the idea on the APPNA listserv and suddenly it is not the driftings of an insomniac anymore. The interest is overwhelming and plans have begun. A vote for the name seems to indicate that it will be called AIMC, or American-Islamic Medical Centre.

A very pertinent question showed up on the listserv: why an American Muslim hospital? To me this institution will underscore and in a sense ratify the Muslim presence in America. Muslims in America are a minority but they are 6-8 million strong and they are about everywhere: the on-call list of 15 doctors in my hospital had nine Muslim names. And yet (thank you Osama) we are the lepers that people wish would disintegrate somehow.

I wrote on the list: "for myself I will say that the idea is amazing to me because I want to prove to myself and America that Muslims are part and parcel of America, that we are intrinsic to it, not some alien transients. That this country runs not on Judeo-Christian but Judeo-Christian-Islamic values. I want us to give back to the community, to prove to ourselves and the world that we are not these wealthy self-absorbed people, that we do have philanthropy in us, in fact it is enshrined as zakat in our faith."

Obviously all patients will be treated, and all employed, regardless of race, religion or gender. For-profit or non-profit status will be decided by the Board of Trustees. The care of Muslim patients remains a bit of a mystery, even a challenge to the medical field in America. Perhaps the American Muslim hospital will have an ethics department that can be looked to for providing solutions and educating non-Muslim professionals in regard to this.

We plan a state-of-the-art facility not one run by volunteers. The idea is to get the creme de la creme in all areas, from architects to CEOs. Only the Board of Trustees would need to have a good representation of Muslims so that the mission of the hospital and its Muslim focus is continued. A certain percentage of care will be provided on a charitable basis, but the primary idea is a hospital administered by Muslims, with a keen eye on financial solvency.

Inshaallah with the success of one hospital, for instance the American-Islamic Medical Centre of Chicago, we would be in the position to clone it in other cities, after feasibility is determined. Eventually a medical school and nursing homes can be envisaged.

There is no intention to facilitate employment for Muslim physicians or potential residents or provide total charitable care. Being at the receiving end of xenophobia and persecution, we plan to operate on a totally integrated, race and religion-blind perspective. To ensure success, perhaps the model simply stated would be a hospital based on a strong spiritual and a sharp business basis.

Many Muslims, especially Muslim physicians and businessmen are in the highest income echelon in this land. We are the followers of a faith that teaches discipline and punctuality on a daily basis. Get a bird's-eye-view of prayer at any mosque -- the symmetry of the rows and the unison of motion make me proud to be part of this magnificent faith.

We must break the tradition that Muslims are the tardiest, for when it is necessary, we show up ahead of time! We have all the ingredients for the creation of an American Muslim hospital: the vision, the passion, the money, the diligence, the commitment and most of all we are practitioners of a faith that keeps good deeds as the passport for eternal bliss. For the religiously inclined donation or participation would be sadqa-e-jaria; a marvellous spiritual legacy that multiplies even after death.

The listserv is abuzz with ideas and plans. Some doctors say they are real excited about it and write the word with a capital E. One of them wrote "I have never been so excited since the Olympic hockey Gold Medal for Pakistan 1984 in LA."

The idea is so encompassing that it reminds me of being in love, it seems to be all that I can think about. The Ohio winter this year is already severe, but I don't seem to notice the snow. SADD, or seasonal affective depressive disorder gets me in the winter; I am strangely rather cheerful now. The office parking lot is a veritable skating rink, threatening a hip fracture in seconds; used to make me inwardly swear at the lazy landlord, but now I reflect on the euphemism of "black ice".

The building of an American-Muslim hospital may begin the start of an Islamic renaissance, even more interestingly, from the West. I know this can be labelled as grandiose ideation. Even more interestingly contempt and scepticism slide off, for my dream of building the hospital, I know, will come true. If it revives Islamic culture and civilisation, I will about die with joy.

The writer is a physician and freelance columnist in the US
Email: mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com