Muslims need a place to pray???
I believe Muslims should be provided with a place to pray as soon as they provide Christians, Jews and other denominations with a place to pray in predominantly Muslim countries; how’s that for logic? By the way, one minor detail; this place to pray for non-Muslims cannot be subjected to suicide bombers. Sensible people do not want their lives ended prematurely.
Personally, I couldn’t care less for prayer, which is about as worthless as tits on a bull (for those of you out there who might be confused, bulls don’t have mammary glands, therefore their tits don’t produce milk and are therefore basically useless – just like prayer).
Anyway, why is it that we, the United States, need to cater to the whole world; a world that basically poo-poos on us (to be polite)? Since when have Muslims become such upstanding citizens that this country owes them a place to pray??? TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Reuters
Photography: Associated Press
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Muslims in lower Manhattan who have prayed in a crowded basement or in the streets say they are not looking for confrontation with opponents of a new mosque. They simply need the space.
Some New Yorkers traumatized by the September 11, 2001 attacks have emotionally opposed a proposed Muslim community center and mosque two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. Republican politicians seeking to wrest control of Congress from Democrats in November elections have seized on the issue.
The controversy has sucked in President Barack Obama and stirred debate about the meaning of religious freedom in a nation founded in part on that principle. Competing rallies for and against the Muslim project are planned to mark this year’s ninth anniversary of the attacks.
Stuck in the middle are Muslims who work in downtown Manhattan and need a place for daily prayers.
“You know how many Muslims are in this area? On Friday the street used to be packed, and we had a pass from the police to block the streets,” said Saad Madaha, 32, a consultant originally from Ghana who prays at Masjid Manhattan in a narrow basement beneath a night club.
“I would like to see a mosque that looks more like a mosque. I would like to go and pray and have full concentration in my prayers and not have music bashing me in my head.”
The Masjid Manhattan, one of two mosques in the area, is four blocks from the World Trade Center but has gone largely unnoticed. A door with a modest sign “MASJID” — Arabic for mosque — leads from the sidewalk to the prayer space below.
The proposed Cordoba House, which has won local government approval, would not look like a traditional mosque either. The 13-story glass and steel tower would have straight lines, 90 degree angles and no crescent moon and star on the facade.
Modeled after a typical Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) facility, it would include an auditorium, swimming pool and meeting rooms in addition to a prayer space. Organizers say they oppose Islamist extremism.
“WE WANT TO PRAY PEACEFULLY”
Critics contend the center is insensitive to the families of the nearly 3,000 people who died on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda hijackers crashed planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
Some Muslims say they understand why people might be upset and support an attempt by Governor David Paterson to move the project to a less emotionally-charged location.
“We need mosques, but anywhere but Ground Zero. It’s going to be a problem all the time,” said Sheikh Hossein, 42, an immigrant from Bangladesh.
“We want to pray peacefully. I don’t want to pray and fight somebody else over the location. If this mosque is built here, every time there is terrorism, they are going to blame us,” he said.
Others like Madaha say relocation would be an insult. “If they move it, to me, it’s a slap on religion,” he said.
Peter Awn, a professor of Islamic religion at Columbia University, said a study he was part of found Muslims in New York rarely worshiped in their neighborhoods.
Downtown Manhattan suits their needs because it is well connected by public transportation and has a large concentration of jobs, for example, in the Wall Street area.
“The downtown place is perfect because it would be a hub for people in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and if you work downtown it’s a great place to pop in for noon prayers if you are observant,” Awn said.
(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Alan Elsner)
You ask, “…how’s that for logic…”
TGO, whadda hell? You sound like an ignorant red neck and for a man with your good looks, that isn’t a graceful think. What logic?
Granted, not all nation states have constitutions, though all such states have some sort of “law of the land” – some customary law, statutory law, religious doctrine, etc. – but our great US of A, the greatest nation in the known universe does have a Constitution and the Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
It’s right there in the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…
We don’t get to chose (unfortunately so, as in the case of the Church of Scientology) between who gets to have a Church, a Synagogue, or as in the case in point, a Mosque, or – if the structure does not break any building or zoning codes – where it is built.
And by the way, the media contrived this whole, “Ground Zero Mosque” aspect. After you asked me how I felt about this, as a native New Yorker, I did some research.
The “Ground Zero Mosque” is not at Ground Zero. You can’t see Ground Zero from the future site of the Cordoba House and you would need to go out of your way to have it offend you as it doesn’t lie between the construction site and any mass transit stations.
And finally – if you want to stick with logic – it’s not even a Mosque. By the same logical leap you can call the Cordoba Center, a multi-use cultural complex with a space set aside for prayer, a mosque, even though it will have no minarets, no muezzin calls to prayer blaring, a “mosque,” you can also call Ground Zero as it already exists a giant, open-air mosque. Muslim prayers are already taking place right on the edge of the construction site, and not for world domination. Families are going there to pray — for the souls of the dozens of innocent Muslim victims who died on 9/11.
The article even mentions a YMCA that it’s being modeled after. The 92nd Street Y as it is called by the locals has a whole host of Jewish events taking place inside of it, but no one calls it a synagogue.
TGO, either use logic or your own personal prejudices but please, call a spade a spade.
Dude, I get it. I know that this is the greatest country in the world. I realize that most others, with a few possible exceptions, don’t offer the freedoms and liberties to its citizens that the USA does to its citizens, and even to its non-citizens!
My point is that Muslims, especially those who are not citizens, should not DEMAND to have a place to pray, or EXPECT to have one. I’m almost certain that Americans traveling to and/or living in Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, etc. don’t make these kinds of demands on the people in those countries. Hell, one cannot even talk to a foreign woman or kiss their wife or girlfriend in public for fear of being arrested!
The bottom line is that there is always a double-standard when the USA is involved. Because this is the greatest country in the world, people come here and make demands as if we owe them; and we don’t owe anyone shit. Truth be told, I couldn’t care less about this mosque. In fact, they could build a mosque, a synagogue, A Catholic church, a Protestant church, a Mormon church and a Science Reading Room for the Scientology freaks; all in one building. It wouldn’t bother me one bit – it’s all bullshit.