New Yorkers fight three new mosques

Arish Sahani puts on an American-flag tie as Linda Rivera stands in opposition to the ground zero-area mosque at a community board meeting in New York on Tuesday. Community members both for and against the plan spoke during the meeting. (Associated Press)

Story Topics

• Religion_Belief
• Lana Safah
• Joan Moriello
• Muslim American Society
• Muslim Brotherhood

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Holy wars are breaking out all over New York.

Three separate plans to build Muslim worship centers in New York City have proved more difficult and contentious than expected, igniting protests by local residents and anti-jihad activists and prompting charges of “Islamophobia” and bigotry.

The three projects raise different sets of issues, are set in three different boroughs and are still in the planning stages.

But together, they show that building a mosque in New York is not like building a pizza parlor — whether it’s logistical concerns about neighborhood traffic and changing demographics, the sanctity of the World Trade Center site, or backyard politics.

New Yorkers have not been shy about their opposition, and a recent poll on the most contentious of the three projects — involving a Muslim center just two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack — shows residents stoutly opposed.

“This is about radical Islam wanting to colonize the world,” said Joan Moriello, a community activist fighting one of the other projects. “They pretend to be tolerant, they pretend to be loving but they aren’t. It’s just starting to come bubbling up to the surface.”

However, those kinds of reactions cause Muslim groups to cry “foul” and say objections about zoning and noise are mere covers for religious intolerance.

The Muslim American Society, a Washington-based nonprofit group, is determined to build mosques in Brooklyn and Staten Island. A separate organization called the Cordoba Initiative, which seeks to improve relations between Islam and the West, plans to build an Islamic center just a few minutes’ walk from the site of the Sept. 11 attack.

“The Staten Island issue and the Brooklyn issue are kind of bifold,” said Lana Safah, a spokeswoman for the Muslim American Society. “On the one side, you have a community that is concerned with logistical issues such as traffic and noise, and those are concerns we absolutely acknowledge. On the other hand, there is a lot of outside influences. There are things that are planting seeds of doubt.”

The property of the proposed mosque on Staten Island was owned by St. Margaret Catholic Church until the Rev. Keith Fennessy decided to sell the vacant convent to the Muslim American Society in May. The group wants to use the property on Fridays for a community center and prayer hall.

The sale, however, is in the hands of the parish’s board of trustees, which includes the pastor, two lay members of the congregation, the archdiocese’s vicar general and the archbishop.

The decision to sell the convent was met with overwhelming opposition, which led Father Fennessy to write a letter in June to Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan withdrawing the pastor’s support of the sale.

The parish’s board of trustees has not set a meeting date to discuss the future of the property.

While the community awaits the meeting, Staten Islanders have rallied against the proposed mosque, carrying signs of protest near the property.

“This is all very shocking,” said Ms. Moriello, who pointed out that Staten Island already has five mosques. “I really don’t know who was thinking this was a positive move. People have been so disenchanted.”

Story Continues →

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