U.S. media has exported on the opening of the controversial new mosque located in Mufreesboro, Tennessee. According to a New York Times report:
Tim Harris for The New York Times Published: August 10, 2012 MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The worshipers bowed low, their heads touching the freshly laid carpet, as the new mosque filled with echoes of exultation. ‘God, thank you for the ability to worship here today,’ said Remziya Suleyman, 27. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ After years of threats, attacks and court action, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro’s new mosque opened its doors Friday, allowing 300 people to mark the occasion on Islam’s day of weekly public prayer. After the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday and an arson attack on a mosque in Missouri on Monday, the opening went off without the protests or violence that some had feared. Muslims from across Tennessee gathered at the 12,000-square-foot center to begin the final week of Ramadan. The congregation’s former building was so small that members often spilled into the parking lot and car-pooled to save parking spaces. Here, they fit comfortably. ‘We’re all humbly enjoying the right to worship, an American tradition that a small minority tried to eliminate out of ignorance and misunderstanding,’ said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who flew here from Washington. For two years, the opposition in this city of 110,000 about 30 miles southeast of Nashville has been small but vocal. In 2010, vandals painted ‘not welcome’ on construction signs at the mosque and set fire to construction equipment. A Texas man was indicted in June on charges that he left messages threatening to detonate a bomb at the center on Sept. 11. In May, a county judge ruled that the construction plans had not received sufficient comment from the public and that an occupancy permit could not be granted. Federal prosecutors filed a discrimination lawsuit, and a federal judge ruled in the mosque’s favor last month. Only one opponent of the mosque came to voice his concerns at the opening. Dan J. Qualls, 50, a former auto plant worker, wearing an ‘I Love Jesus’ hat and a Ten Commandments shirt, said he understood that the First Amendment protected the right to worship freely but said he believed Islam represented violence. When he heard about the mosque’s opening on the local TV news, he decided to come out and ‘represent the Christians.’ ‘My honest opinion is, I wish this wasn’t here,’ he said.
Read the rest here.
A post from July reported that the Justice Department had filed a lawsuit seeking to force the county to act promptly on the mosque’s application for an occupancy permit. A post from January reported on the the start of construction of the new facility. An earlier post had reported that according to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, one of its officials met with the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM) board “to develop strategies for the community to overcome the challenges they currently face while building their mosque.” Another earlier post discussed the original plans for the facility and reported exclusively that the reading list of the ICM suggested ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood.
In June, Frontpage published a report titled “Is Hamas Building a 53,000 Square Foot Facility in America?” which examines the ICM, its proposed new mosque and community facility, and an ICM board member who posted pictures on the internet expressing his love for Hamas.