[Rooters] Just beyond the gated entrance to the tiny Catskills community of Holy Islamberg, population 200, cows graze and ducks glide on a tranquil pond. Modest houses of wood and cinder block sit along the hamlet's single thoroughfare, a rutted dirt road without traffic signs.
Islamberg sits about 150 miles northwest of New York City, but the small enclave of Muslim families living on shared land feels a world away from city life, which is what its founders intended 30 years ago, when they established the hamlet on 70 acres of pasture land and dense woods in upstate New York.
Last month, however, the community's serenity was disrupted by news that a Tennessee man had pleaded guilty to charges of plotting an attack on Islamberg and its residents.
Formed by a group of African-American Muslims from New York City, the community follows the teachings of Pakistani Sufi cleric Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, who during the 1980s urged his American acolytes to leave metropolitan areas and establish rural communities centered on religious life.
| Not exactly the peaceful family monastery/commune that sentence suggests. We've been following them for a decade. The FBI has for even longer, though the State Department, last I saw, has not declared the umbrella organization a foreign terror organization. Key names associated with the Islambergs (there are about twenty, as I recall) are Muslims of America and Jamaat ul Fuqra. They train actively for jihad, and regularly send off members to participate. |
Today, Islamberg is one of about a dozen Muslim enclaves formed in accordance with the cleric's ideas. It also serves as home to Muslims of America, a Gilani-founded organization.
"We're living the American dream," said Faruq Baqi, 39, who moved to Islamberg with his family as a child, and now works in telecommunications at a nearby hospital.
An array of far-right organizations see things very differently. Dozens of internet postings and a documentary film have characterized the community as a training camp for terrorists and its residents as Islamist warriors.
| A google search of Islamberg "Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani", using the terms in this Reuters article, yields illuminating results, including a clearly sanitized Wikipedia entry for the gentle cleric, and a not yet sanitized linked entry for Jamaat ul -Fuqra. The bylined Reuters journalist, however, dismisses all concerns. One wonders why. |
One blog on the Christian Action Network, for example, described the settlement as "America's first Islamic government," and warned that children are being raised to fight a holy war, that girls are denied an education and that rule breakers "are often tied to trees and whipped for disobeying."
Robert Doggart, a one-time congressional candidate from Tennessee, embraced that sort of overheated rhetoric as he plotted his attack on the Muslim enclave. |