Another innovation: weekly soccer matches. Imam Zia is an avid soccer fan. Every Tuesday, after the isha namaz, carpools from the mosque drive to a rented indoor soccer field, where he leads a training session, followed by a match. Imam Zia is thirty-eight, but he runs faster and dribbles more wickedly than those half his age. The soccer matches have attracted many Muslim men from Irvine and the surrounding towns. Ismail, too, has become a regular at them.

Imam Zia is keen to develop the grounds around the Islamic center for sports—a soccer field and volleyball and basketball courts—and to extend the center to include a gym with locker rooms and showers, to make the center a place where the youth can congregate, find community and Allah, while having clean fun at the same time. Imam Zia believes such a space is essential to ensure the youth don’t stray from their faith, and that they—including the girls—grow up strong and confident. A plan has been drawn, and Ismail is on the fundraising committee, spearheading its efforts, to culminate in the event planned for tomorrow, in less than twenty-four hours.

Ismail now considers himself Imam Zia’s right-hand man. He has worked hard the last few months, calling on Muslim businesses and wealthy members of the community to ask for donations and pushing the organizing committee to implement as many fundraising ideas as possible—securing sponsors for the event in exchange for publicity, a magazine to sell advertising space, a silent auction, etc.

The target is finally within reach. Ismail is no longer anxious about the fundraising itself. The logistics of the event are also under control. What perturbs him now is the potential for trouble. They’ve heard no reports of specific protests planned for tomorrow, but recent incidents in Manhattan, Murfreesboro, and Yorba Linda have been very disquieting.

Ismail believes that hatred of Obama is being exploited to revive the fear of Muslims and Islam that had appeared to fade slowly in the decade following 9/11. How else to explain the widespread belief that Obama is a Muslim or that Islam is taking over America? Though he’d been excited by Obama winning the presidency, even tantalized by the possibility that Obama’s win was a sign of Allah’s intentions for America, Ismail has since come to the conclusion that Obama’s background is not just a distraction but a setback for Muslims everywhere. Obama, though born to a Muslim and stepson to another, is no Muslim, and despite Obama’s many speeches regarding tolerance and respect, Ismail does not expect him to pursue any policy that would put American interests second, especially regarding the Middle East. America will always want more oil and will always support Israel. But what Obama’s presidency has done is to rally half the country against him, and the American right wing—hardcore Christians and Jews—has seized this opportunity to further its crusade against Islam.