On September 9th 2009 a historic event took place here in Washington. In the bowels of the legislative branch of the U.S. government, House Representatives, congressional staffers, religious leaders and community members met in the Rayburn office building to commemorate Ramadan. In the past few years, Iftar receptions have become a common occurrence in most of the major executive branch agencies across downtown Washington, but this one was different. Ironically it fell on the same evening as president Obama’s healthcare speech to a joint session of Congress. As I sat in the largest House of Representatives office building taking in the scene I couldn’t help but notice that although we were all Americans, the diversity of races, faiths, countries of origin and political persuasions could have only been matched by the UN general assembly.

For about the past 20 years diversity has become an inherent part of America’s brand all over the world as well as here at home. But eight years ago, on a fateful Tuesday morning when I was awakened by a startling phone call like so many other Americans, I doubted whether our nation would take a turn back to the darker chapters of our history. To be completely frank, we have in some ways, but the tragedy that befell our nation in 2001 has certainly not broken the spirit of our country. One thing that most Americans who don’t happen to be Muslim may not have realized is that 9/11 was a moment of truth for Muslim Americans. For too many of us 9/11 was a wakeup call to get out into our neighborhoods and tell our fellow Americans who we are what we believe. For those of us who were already prodding our fellow Muslims to vote, run for office, volunteer in our neighborhoods, reach out to other faith and ethnic communities to build bonds around common interests and concerns, it was time to go into 5th gear and reach out to our nation on every level.

But aside from diversity, the one thing that gave me the most pride at that Iftar on the Hill was to see the cadre of Muslim staffers who had organized the event. In 2001, it was unthinkable to see such a diverse and robust group of Muslims from every corner of the nation working on every major issue our country and Congress is now grappling with. These staffers are not in DC serving Muslim Americans alone, they are not all working on solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or some other far away foreign policy issue in a Muslim majority country. They are working on fixing health care, education, lowering the unemployment rate, improving the tax code and ensuring that their constituents’ local needs and concerns are being addressed. They are serving their nation.

Although we as Muslim Americans have so much more to do in getting our intra-faith house in order, all Americans should stop and reflect on the fact that so many of our community’s brightest have stepped up to serve our country.