25 years of reporting on the state of American Muslims

(RNS) — About a week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 — four days of which I stayed in our Midtown Manhattan apartment being too scared to go outside, unable to leave the island to go to my parents’ place in Maryland because the bridges and tunnels in and out of the borough were shut down — I got on the subway and headed downtown as close as I could safely get to Ground Zero to begin reporting.

One of the first stories I reported was how Muslim students at New York University were dealing with the aftermath. Six dorms housing about 2,000 students in a 20-block radius of Ground Zero had been evacuated. Students were scared, with one young Muslim woman sharing her fears she would be pushed onto subway tracks.

I’ve thought about those students at times throughout my career — they were barely a few years younger than me. Some of the students I interviewed that day have gone on to become prominent imams, authors, commentators and other public-facing “career Muslims.”

I can’t think of a more defining way to start one’s career. I was a few years out of journalism school and hired (one month before 9/11) as an arts and culture reporter for a…