December 2015


www.hamptonroadsmessenger.com


SBA Reopens Disaster Loan Filing Period for Superstorm Sandy Survivors


The Hampton Roads Messenger 5


Thinking Outside the Mosque: On Learning to be Muslim in America


BY ANNA CHALLET If the


WASHINGTON – The U.S.


Small Business Administration (SBA) announced it has reopened the filing period for survivors in all states affected by Superstorm Sandy on December 2, 2015 to apply for low-interest


disaster loans. “The additional time The


new filing deadline for physical damage and economic injury losses is December 1, 2016.


for


businesses, homeowners and renters to request federal disaster loans will go a long way in continuing to support the rebuilding efforts of the communities affected by Superstorm Sandy,” said SBA Administrator Maria Contreras- Sweet. “I want to thank the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Small Business Committes for their leadership on this issue. We look forward to working with them to make sure the needs


of Improvements small


businesses are met.” The recently approved Recovery


for Small Entities


(RISE) After Disaster Act of 2015 gives the SBA Administrator the authority to make disaster loans for Superstorm Sandy for a period of one year.


to revise the disaster deadline major Presidential


declarations


damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory, and other business assets.


agricultural


For small businesses, small cooperatives,


small


businesses engaged in aquaculture and most private non-profit organizations, the SBA offers Economic


Injury


Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster. Economic


Injury the


assistance is available regardless of whether


business suffered physical property damage. Disaster loans up to $200,000 are


available to homeowners to repair or replace disaster damaged or destroyed real estate.


are eligible up to $40,000 to repair or replace disaster damaged or destroyed personal property.


Interest rates are as low as 1.688


percent for homeowners and renters, 3 percent for non-profit organizations and 4 percent for businesses with terms up to 30 years.


Loan amounts


and terms are set by the SBA and are based on each applicant’s financial condition.


The bill authorizes SBA for for


Superstorm Sandy in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Additionally, SBA will be accepting applications under its


related agency declarations for


North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Virginia, West Virginia and certain counties in Maryland.


SBA will open disaster centers


across select counties in the affected areas and review activity levels on a continuous basis.


Businesses and private nonprofit


organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace disaster


Survivors may apply online


using the Electronic Loan Application (ELA) via SBA’s secure website at disasterloan.sba.gov/ela.


Additional locations Center details of recovery at centers


on the and


the loan application process can be obtained by calling the SBA Customer Service


800-659-2955


(800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard- of-hearing) or by sending an email to disastercustomerservice@sba.gov (link sends e-mail).


applications


The filing deadline to return for


physical SBA.GOV Tell us about your


Church programs Churches@hamptonroadsmessenger.com


property


damage is December 1, 2016. The deadline to return economic injury applications is December 1, 2016.


Homeowners and renters


Disaster Loan any


parents are from Rajasthan in northern India.


American Muslim


community has a tendency to isolate itself, to retreat from the rest of American society, Zaytuna College is where that insularity comes to die. At the only accredited Muslim college in the United States, students spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be American.


Zaytuna is located on ‘‘Holy


Hill’’ in Berkeley, just around the corner from the Graduate Theological Union, a consortium


of Christian


seminaries affiliated with University of California, Berkeley. The college emerged from the Zaytuna Institute, an Islamic educational


organization


founded in nearby Hayward in 1996. The college admitted its first class in 2010 and was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges earlier this year


The school has sixty students, split roughly equally between men and women. About half are from California, and the rest are from other parts of the United States. Students don’t take out loans and graduate debt-free,


although most of them


receive financial assistance from the school, which is supported by individual American Muslim donors.


Zaytuna offers only one


bachelor’s degree, in Islamic law and theology, but the curriculum combines Islamic


and Western teachings. If


students are going to be Muslims in the United States, Zaytuna believes they need to understand the country’s history and founding principles.


Religious study isn’t enough at


this college. Islam may be the world’s second-largest religion, but in the United States, it is the subject of much misunderstanding and even hatred, and its adherents are often maligned. At Zaytuna, young Muslims are asked to figure out the future of their faith in America.


Nirav Bhardwaj ‘‘I’m an American and I’m a


Muslim and those things can together,’’ says Nirav Bhardwaj,


go a


twenty-five-year-old sophomore at Zaytuna. ‘‘Unfortunately, people think being Muslim means hiding in a little pocket,’’ says Bhardwaj. ‘‘That’s not what it’s about.’’


Bhardwaj is a convert to Islam. He was raised Hindu. Both of his


Bhardwaj ‘‘Islamaphobic’’


says he in college.


was But


after graduating from University of California, Irvine, with a degree in business administration, Bhardwaj got what he describes as his ‘‘dream job,’’ working for a major league baseball team and


doing statistics player


development.


for scouting While


traveling with the team, he became disillusioned. ‘‘We had players who were married,’’ he says, ‘‘and that just went out the window when they were out at the clubs. It was all about seeking


immediate satisfaction. I


started asking myself, ‘What are you doing? What benefit does baseball provide society anyway? What is the purpose of life?’’’


Around that time, a Muslim


friend shared some Islamic lectures with Bhardwaj. ‘‘I opened a Koran and started reading it, and it worked,’’ he says. Bhardwaj decided to travel in the Muslim world and quit his job. He and his friend went to Egypt. It was there that Bhardwaj converted, while studying with a local sheik in 6th of October City outside Cairo.


There was tension when he


returned home. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve ever made my mom cry except for two times,’’ he says, ‘‘and one of those times was when I told her I converted.’’


Bhardwaj says his mother has


become supportive after seeing how he has found his place at Zaytuna. Bhardwaj was drawn to the college to study Islamic principles of economics and transactional law.


‘‘I think Muslims have a lot to


offer in the field of finance,’’ he says, especially given ‘‘the corruption on Wall Street.’’


Dawood Yasin Zaytuna’s coordinator of learning


outside the classroom, Dawood Yasin, says the college wants students ‘‘to think outside the masjid,’’ using the Arabic word for mosque. ‘‘How are we going to engage the broader community if we’re only


working within our own community?’’ he asks.


Yasin is also a convert. He was raised Catholic and is a fourth- generation


native of Nantucket,


Massachusetts. So it’s pretty ironic, he says, ‘‘when people give me the finger and say, ‘Go back to your country!’’’ MUSLIM IN AMERICA PAGE 11


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