NEW YORK – As world Muslims anticipate `Eid Al-Adha, the fact one of their most important holidays could coincidentally fall on Sept. 11 is fretting many American Muslims, who have been experiencing increasing hate recently.

“Some people might want to make something out of that,” Habeeb Ahmed, who was recently elected president of the Islamic Center of Long Island, told New York Times on Monday, August 29.

Ahmed added that he could easily foresee how some might misunderstand the festivities, and say, “Look at these Muslims, they are celebrating 9/11.”

`Eid Al-Adha, or “Feast of Sacrifice”, is one of the two most important Islamic celebrations, together with `Eid Al-Fitr.

According to astronomical calculations, `Eid Al-Adha is expected to start on Sunday, September 11, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of 9/11 attacks.

Tensions have been already high in New York in the wake of the murder of an imam and his assistant in Queens this month.

The possibility of the holiday falling on Sept. 11 has resurfaced memories of the backlash and the police surveillance directed at Muslims in the years after the attacks.

“Our community is like, ‘What are we supposed to do?’” Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, said.

“I should not have to think about that,” Sarsour said. “What am I supposed to tell my kids?”

In the past, another major Muslim holiday, Eid al-Fitr, has fallen near Sept. 11, but neither holiday has yet to actually coincide with the date.

“It’s on the minds of every Muslim leader in the country right now,” Robert McCaw, the director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said.

“We grieved like everyone else,” he added, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We remember this day not because we’re Muslim, but because we’re American.”

Shifting Plans

Tahir Kukiqi, the imam at the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center on Staten Island

Anticipating the holiday, national Muslim officials have urged imams and other leaders to talk to the authorities to ensure that security is in place for the holiday.

In a bid to calm tensions, Masjid Hamza in Valley Stream, NY, on Long Island, decided to move their prayer services inside to avoid congregating in a public place.

Karim Mozawalla, a trustee at Masjid Hamza, said they canceled park prayer service, replacing it with multiple smaller prayer services which will be held inside the mosque.

Tahir Kukiqi, the imam at the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center on Staten Island, said the concerns about a potential backlash around the holiday resonated on a personal level.

In June, a man entered Kukiqi’s mosque shouting expletives and yelling, “I am going to kill you” and “You are here to conquer us.”

The man grabbed a pipe from the wall and threatened the imam. As Kukiqi called 911, the man dropped the pipe and ran away. A suspect was later arrested and faced hate crime charges.

“There is a lot of hate out there,” Mr. Kukiqi said. “And there is a lot of ignorance as well.”

This year’s Eid al-Adha sermon, he said, will be more somber than in previous years.

“We will be praying for their souls,” he said, referring to the Sept. 11 victims. “We will be praying for the well-being of our country.”

In Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the country’s largest concentrations of Arab-Americans, `Eid celebration will take place normally, including attending prayer services, donating meat or money to the poor and sharing a meal with family and friends.

“We need to be mindful of it, but at the same time not be overburdened to the degree that it paralyzes the community,” Ibrahim Kazerooni, the imam at the Islamic Center of America, said referring to the date of the holiday.

Shamsi Ali, the imam at the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, said his congregation still intended to host its outdoor prayer service, which is expected to attract 20,000 people, one of the largest gatherings in New York City.

Ali said he plans, along with several other imams in the city, to invite non-Muslim neighbors and religious leaders to attend services and learn about the significance of the holiday, while also praying for the Sept. 11 victims.

“If people are trying to build walls, we are building bridges,” Ali said.

“That’s really what New York is all about.”