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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Planting Islam in America |
| 2007-01-21 |
| Out of the grass of a gated compound on the Upper East Side looms a stunning building at 96th Street and Third Avenue, the sun glinting off its white stone walls and copper-green dome. "Our parents wanted us to stay used to our culture, so we come here to learn," Adama Kabe says of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. Many of the seven male teenagers spend a lot of time at the mosque, attending Friday prayers and youth classes on Saturdays and Sunday. There are no benches or pews on either of the mosque's two floors. Instead, shoe-less worshippers line up in the direction of Mecca in straight rows on the carpet. Men and women are separated, to help maintain a strong focus on prayer. Often Imam Omar Saleem Abu-Namous reminds worshippers to stand "foot-to-foot" and "shoulder-to-shoulder," since according to Islamic tradition the devil can enter in these small gaps between individuals. About 1,500 worshipers gather to pray Jummah, or Friday prayer. A khutbah, or sermon, is offered before Jummah prayer by the imam. Around 250 "young people" regularly attend the mosque, Imam Abu-Namous says, where they're exposed to its "message of peace, message of mutual understanding." "We are doing our best to counter" negative stereotypes of Islam, the courtly, well-spoken imam says, teaching the teens to reject all forms of extremism and fundamentalism. The imam admits it can be frustrating trying to reach young Muslim Americans. "In the U.S., it's very hard" to stay Muslim. If it weren't for the active efforts of parents and the mosque, many teenagers might well choose American culture, which the imam calls "more joyful, more delightful". But ultimately, the imam thinks most teenagers will stay Muslim for the rest of their life. And he sees a "reciprocal effect" for the second and third generation of Muslims growing up in America. "They'll be affected by the American culture--and also the Americans will be affected by them." |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #5 O'REILLY had DAVID ASMAN[last name spelling?] on to promo David's sepcial on FOX >"HIZBOLLAH IN AMERICA", on how Hizzie = Iranian "sleeper cells" are already here and waiting to be ordered to strike. Don't worry, boyz, the Secular HAMAS POLITBURO will stop the Allah-loving Hizzies from attacking our sacred USSA. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-21 23:33 |
| #4 Friends of ours have an apartment that looks down on this misaligned monstrosity. The temptation to take along a slingshot and some balls of frozen bacon bits on a future visit is very great. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2007-01-21 13:27 |
| #3 "In the U.S., it's very hard" to stay Muslim. If it weren't for the active efforts of parents and the mosque, many teenagers might well choose American culture..." So it's a clear choice they must make. Islam or America. |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2007-01-21 11:49 |
| #2 Islamic Cultural Center of New York The remarks--posted on the Internet in Arabic Oct. 4 (2001) and translated to English week ago--were made by Sheik Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, according to an unofficial Web site of Egypt's Al-Azhar University. The sheik was the representative of the university in America as well the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center, a large mosque on Manhattan's Upper East Side built with money from Kuwait and several other Arab countries. ... "You see these people (i.e. the Jews) all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world. Now, they are riding on the back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that, they rode on the back of Germany. But Hitler annihilated them because they betrayed him and violated their contract with him." The imam then spelled out his Jewish-conspiracy theory about the Sept. 11 attack: "They used Arabs to carry it out." Proof? "All the signs indicate that the Jews have the most to gain from an explosion like that. They are the only ones capable of planning such acts. . . . Jews control decision making in the airports and sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon." America, he added, has presented "no proof incriminating Osama bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida." Yep. That's islamic culture. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-01-21 10:58 |
| #1 So when's someone going to sneak a camera or tape recorder into the Friday services and find out what's really being preached here? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-01-21 10:27 |