At City Hall, a Welcome Mat for Id al-Fitr

At City Hall, a Welcome Mat for Id al-Fitr

By Anne Barnard

The Bosnian Folk Dance Troupe performed last week at the Id al-Fitr celebration at City Hall, which brings together the diversity of New York City’s Muslims. (Photo: Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)

Girls with blond braids circled boys in jewel-colored Slavic costumes in a Bosnian folk dance. A man from the Ivory Coast, in a blue robe and skullcap, sang a haunting melody. An Egyptian dancer whirled in circles, his upper body serene, his bright red skirt wafting outward as he spun, his feet tapping madly beneath it.

All were Muslim New Yorkers, performing the other night at the annual celebration of the Muslim holiday Id al-Fitr at the City Council chamber in New York’s City Hall. Above them, time-darkened ceiling panels spelled out ideals of American government: “Equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion — Jefferson.”

Across the hall, an overflow crowd was still giving City Hall a piece of its mind over the mayor’s proposal to change the election law to let him run for a third term.

“This is your room,” said City Councilman John Liu, of Queens, who, along with his colleague Robert Jackson of Manhattan, the Council’s lone Muslim, sponsors the event, which marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast, give to charity and focus on the suffering of others.

The aim of the event, last Friday night, was to let Muslims — many of them new immigrants who felt besieged after Sept. 11, 2001 — know that they are welcome in City Hall.

“In the context of New York City politics, that’s controversial,” said John Choe, Mr. Liu’s chief of staff. Although the program is nothing if not patriotic — this year four children from the Sadanang Worldwide Music Center, which teaches Indian classical music in Sunnyside, Queens, sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” — he said it always attracted hate mail.

But for the audience — and the Pakistani television reporter who said was covering it to show his country that “Americans love Muslims” — it was a time to learn about other Muslims’ languages and traditions, and to love New York, Muslim and otherwise.

Malik Sakhawat Hussein, a Pakistani-born imam in a white turban, boomed out a staccato Valentine to the city: “New York is the most tolerant, the most patient! I am proud to be a New Yorker, and I feel more compassion and more warmth in New York City!”