Eight years after 9/11,a play questions racial slants

On the other hand,the older son,who loves dating blondes and Jewish women,confronts his hijabi sister by calling her and her headscarf-wearing friends a “jihadi penguin squad”. He also says,“Why don’t I make costumes for you and your other radical pseudo-intellectual ninja sisters with a big ‘M’ smack dab in the middle of it? It’ll be kind of like Superman¿that way,you can stop the bombs in style”. 

Clearly,an attempt to bust the one-dimensional image of an immigrant Muslim for an American audience,The Domestic Crusaders has been referred to by The San Francisco Chronicle as “one of the first major plays about a Muslim American family”. Time magazine also recently featured on its website a video of Ali auditioning South Asian actors for the play. Dalia Mogahed,who is on US President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships,has said the play “encapsulates the struggles of a faith community of millions and a nation of hundreds of millions as they grapple with pluralism and principle during a ‘war on terror’.”  

But it’s been a long journey for Ali,who started writing the play in 2001 and completed it in 2003. At that time,he was a stand-up comedian (in school,Ali was mocked for his “alien” culture and adopted comedy to “charm enemies”) and a student of creative writing,who’d write short stories about “virgin mosquitoes and ogres”. When 9/11 happened,Ali disappeared from class for two weeks.

He was busy meeting the vice-chancellor to ensure there was no backlash against Muslims or Arabs,and inviting non-Muslims to attend the Friday prayers where they could listen to the khutba (religious speech) in which prayers for the victims of 9/11 were made. Some 1,100 students had attended. “When I saw the twin towers falling on TV,I knew things would change forever for Muslims,” he says. When he returned to class,his teacher,novelist and “genius grant” recipient Ishmaeel Reed asked him to write a play about being a Muslim in post-9/11 America. That was the beginning of The Domestic Crusaders.

In 2002,as Ali was about to graduate,his parents were rounded up in what the FBI called a computer piracy ring and were imprisoned for nine months,even though no charge of piracy was made against them. “They were involved in a separate case against Microsoft but lazy reporters clubbed them with the piracy sting operation. They appeared on front pages of papers possibly because they were brown and Muslims so their stories would look sexier. In court,the district attorney pointed that they found Arabic literature in our home and as he uttered the word ‘al Qaeda’,his tirade was thankfully overturned by the judge,” says Ali. At one point in the ordeal,Ali had just $10 in his pocket and 3 cents in his account but he gained “20 years worth of life experience.” 

After the trauma,when he returned to complete the play,he had gained more “depth” to make it better. In July 2005,the play—produced by Reed and directed by his wife,Carla Banks—was staged at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in UC-Berkley. “It was an independent production,with no money. My mother’s food fed the cast; our home furniture was used as the set; Reed’s backyard was our rehearsal theatre; I helped make chai,” says Ali.

Despite a “standing ovation of a multi-ethnic audience” and local press coverage,the play was staged only twice after that. “In the era of Bush’s ‘war on terror’,there was fear to produce a Muslim play. Every director who read the play told me they loved it but asked me to write another play,” says Ali.

With Obama as head of state,Ali feels The Domestic Crusaders has another chance. And eight years after 9/11,the play is still relevant,he says. “I haven’t had to change a single dialogue. The same geopolitical issues still exist. We are back in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iraq is still a mess. Muslims are still stereotyped. But it’s only now,with Obama’s presidency and a growing realisation that we need to have dialogue with one another,that the play has a chance,” he says.

And so,for the past one year,Ali has been travelling across the US and using his blog and Facebook to raise funds for the play. In the last 10 months,he’s been able to raise $25,000,including $1,000 from actress Emma Thompson,$6 from a jobless Mexican friend,$200 from a Chinese American woman and $250 from a White woman who saw the play at Berkeley Rep Theatre.

“America is changing. And so are Muslims,” says Ali.