"Love Thy Neighbor?"
When a Muslim doctor arrived in a rural Midwestern town, "it felt right." But that feeling began to change after the election of Donald Trump.
DAWSON, MINN. - The doctor was getting ready. Must look respectable, he told himself. Must be calm. He changed into a dark suit, blue shirt and tie and came down the wooden staircase of the stately Victorian house at Seventh and Pine that had always been occupied by the town's most prominent citizens.
That was him: prominent citizen, town doctor, 42-year-old father of three, and as far as anyone knew, the first Muslim to ever live in Dawson, a farming town of 1,400 people in the rural western part of the state.
"Does this look okay?" Ayaz Virji asked his wife, Musarrat, 36.
In two hours, he was supposed to give his third lecture on Islam, and he was sure it would be his last. A local Lutheran pastor had talked him into giving the first one in Dawson three months before, when people had asked questions such as whether Muslims who kill in the name of the prophet Muhammad are rewarded in death with virgins, which had bothered him a bit. Two months later, he gave a second talk in a neighboring town, which had ended with several men calling him the antichrist.
Now a librarian had asked him to speak in Granite Falls, a town half an hour away, and he wasn't sure at all what might happen. So many of the comforting certainties of his life had fallen away since the presidential election, when the people who had welcomed his family to Dawson had voted for Donald Trump, who had proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, toyed with the idea of a Muslim registry and said among other things, "Islam hates us."
Trump had won Lac qui Parle County, where Dawson was the second-largest town, with nearly 60 percent of the vote. He had won neighboring Yellow Medicine County, where Granite Falls was the county seat, with 64 percent. Nearly all of Minnesota outside the Twin Cities had voted for Trump, a surprising turn in a state known for producing some of the Democratic Party's most progressive leaders, including the nation's first Muslim congressman.
Now Trump was in the White House, and Dawson's first Muslim resident was sitting in his living room, strumming his fingers on the arm of a chair. The pastor had called to say two police officers would be there tonight, just in case. The late afternoon sun came in through the windows, beyond which was a lovely town of sprawling cottonwoods, green lawns and so many people the doctor felt he no longer knew or maybe even could trust. The doorbell rang.
"Hey there," Ayaz said, snapping out of his thoughts to greet his neighbor.
"Hiya," said the neighbor, who worked in security.
He had heard from his wife about the talk in Granite Falls and, wanting to be helpful, had offered to lend Ayaz his bulletproof vest for the evening, and here it was, in the duffle bag he was slinging through the ornate front door. He set it down on a chair in the doctor's study and pulled out the vest. Ayaz looked at it. He began taking off his suit jacket and tie to try it on.
This was Dawson six months after the election, which was how Ayaz most often thought of things these days - before and after.
He remembered his first visit three years before, driving with Musarrat on a narrow highway west into the prairie and passing one little farm town after another - Cosmos, Prinsburg, Bunde, and finally seeing the wooden sign, "Welcome to Dawson."
They arrived on a breezy fall day, and he remembered how it all seemed almost corny, from the park with little gnome figurines, to the wide streets named Oak and Maple, to the formidable Grace Lutheran church at the town center. The whole visit felt like one big welcoming parade.
Welcome to our hospital and clinic, where the two other doctors, the nurses and other staff members were lined up to greet them. Welcome to the school, where the principal showed them around. Welcome to the two-block downtown, where there was a butcher, and a bowling alley, and a diner named Wanda's, and as they walked along, Musarrat noticed something rare. She didn't feel people staring at her headscarf. They were saying hello and smiling.
How has that been happening for you?
