CHICAGO — Prescribed by his Islamic faith to pray five times a day, Mazen Materieh often prostrates himself on one of the prayer rugs in the basement of his corner store. When he is done, he returns to his perch behind the counter, where he sells liquor, lottery tickets and pork skins - all forbidden by the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad.
“I’m not justifying what I’m doing. I know it’s wrong,” said Materieh, 52, of Orland Park, Ill. “I’m an honest person. I don’t like to be a man of two faces.”
Materieh’s conflict is common in corner stores across Chicago’s South Side. On onehand, store owners cannot make ends meet without selling what customers demand. On the other, consuming or profiting from products forbidden by their faith is considered sinful. What’s more, neighbors say the stores perpetuate violence, alcoholism, compulsive gambling and obesity in low-income neighborhoods.
Now, a coalition of Arab and black Muslims is offering Muslim merchants an opportunity to improve their reputations and renew their religious principles by selling fresh produce and wholesome foods, especially in neighborhoods without major groceries. Along the way, they hope, store owners will think twice about selling forbidden products. The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago has provided a grant that will serve as seed money for pioneers in the campaign.
“These stores became associated with a lot of the most negative and oppressive characteristics you would want to be associated with,” said Rami Nashashibi, executive director of the Inner City Muslim Action Network, which is working with stores to turn neighborhoods around. “It’s not necessarily a model they developed. It’s something they inherited and found themselves operating, of course, with great contradiction and tension because it’s antithetical to their religious convictions.”
Nashashibi and other activists are backing a bill to create an Illinois Fresh Food Fund, a proposed grant or loan program that would support grocers in neighborhoods that lack easy access to healthful foods. According to the bill, more than half a million Chicagoans - mostly blacks - live in neighborhoods that lack such stores.
The campaign offers a solution for a problem that has unfolded in urban neighborhoods across the country over the years. Arab Muslims in Chicago are only the latest wave of immigrants to break into business by acquiring real estate and liquor licenses.
Materieh and a partner opened Sharif Food & Liquor at 5659 S. Racine Ave. after arthritis prevented him fromworking in construction and a halal restaurant, one that adheres to dietary practices required by Islamic law, didn’t work out. “Sharif” is an Arabic word for “honorable.”
He doesn’t allow his children to help in the store, and he regularly argues with his wife, who doesn’t understand how he can rationalize selling alcohol. He admits a sense of shame came over him after taking religious education classes at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Ill., where his family worshipped.
“In our religion, God loves believers and repenters,” Materieh said. “If I have good trust in God, I should go and do the right thing and not feed my kids with this money. But we are human beings, andwe are weak. I pray to God to get me out of it.”
Sheik Kifah Moustapha, imam and associate director of the Bridgeview mosque, preaches against haram (forbidden) business practices regularly. He bases his sermons on a verse in the Koran that implores the faithful to avoid intoxicating temptations.
“Believers, wine and gambling, idols and divining arrows are abominations from the work of Satan,” the Koran instructs.
Though many Muslims defend their business practices by arguing that scripture forbids only consumption, not the sale, they are wrong, Moustapha said.
Religion, Pages 15 on 06/26/2010