Posted on 07/18/2005 5:55:10 PM PDT by gratefulwharffratt
CLEMMONS - Just off Business 40, past strip malls, gas stations and fast-food outlets, sits a former evangelical church turned mosque. Since January, the circular brick building has been known as the Annoor Center. "Annoor" means light in Arabic. With its parking lot full of SUVs and many of the worshippers dressed in polo shirts, the mosque conveys a distinctly suburban image. The people inside represent the success of Muslims in the American mainstream. Of the about 60 who come to the Friday services, most are professionals or business owners. Most of them were born overseas, said Habib Bendaas, the mosque's treasurer. The Muslim move to the suburbs often brings cultural and social issues to the fore: Worshippers at suburban mosques must define their relationship with both their new, typically Christian neighbors and with the older, urban mosques that many leave behind. It is not always an easy process. Forsyth County's only other mosque, the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem, is in a working-class neighborhood in southeastern Winston-Salem. It has a diverse following of about 150 people, many of them American-born blacks. Some of the worshippers in Clemmons said that Middle East-ern culture played a role in their decision to form their own mosque. They like hearing services in Arabic and the fellowship of people from their own background. Others said that they live nearby and that it is more convenient for them to attend services in Clemmons than at the Community Mosque on Waugh-town Street. For Sammy Zitawi, who grew up in Kuwait, the new mosque represents his roots. "It's like an identity," said Zitawi, who was trained as a mechanical engineer and is now a business owner. Sammy Elaasar, who worships at the Annoor Center, came to America from Egypt 30 years ago to attend the University of Maryland. He now teaches economics and statistics at Winston-Salem State University. For 20 years, Elaasar and his family drove two hours to The Islamic Center in Raleigh about twice a month. As a former research economist at N.C. State University, Elaasar said, he came to enjoy the Triangle, with its comparatively rich melting pot of cultures. He has sometimes felt isolated in Winston-Salem, he said. He recalled meeting another Egyptian at Wal-Mart several months ago when the man recognized Elaasar's accent. The two men exchanged phone num-bers and talk every so of-ten, he said. "I miss the number of Muslim people," Elaasar said of life in the Triad. "I also miss the Isla-mic activities, such as every cou-ple of months they have speeches about Islam interpretation." Both Zitawi and Elaasar have attended the Community Mosque and say that the two mosques maintain good relations. Khalid Griggs, the imam of the Community Mosque, said he was taken by surprise when a group broke away to attend the Annoor Center, although many of them continue to attend services and support both mosques. "It seems there's a trend with our Arab brothers of breaking away from the larger body of Muslims," he said. "It's not just a phenomenon in Winston-Sa-lem." He is troubled by the emphasis that the Arab group places on cultural identity, he said. "Islam provides a formula by which all of those things can be taken care of," he said, "without separating from each other in order to do that." Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, has studied the movement of Muslims from downtown areas to the suburbs for the Council on American Islamic Relations. "The pull of having their religion expressed in their own language is very strong," he said of Arab Muslims. "Religion is a very personal experience, and the full power and beauty of that religious experience is not captured in a foreign language. It's captured in the mother tongue." The Muslims who break off and head for the suburbs can, however, be sensitive about the subject, he said. "Muslims like to be seen as one," he said. "Social class shouldn't matter. The ideal that every Muslim will tell you is that the poorest of the poor will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the richest of the rich." Bagby, who used to live in Ra-leigh where he ran a leadership-training program for Muslim organizations, said he has attended services at the Community Mosque and knows Griggs. He said he hopes that people at the Annoor Center will not forget the social-justice issues that are important to Griggs. Bagby said he has seen how such moves sometimes play out in other communities. "The suburban mosques become very detached from the concerns of the downtown congregation," he said. "You can't cut yourself off," he said. "You have to share concerns." The Annoor Center is still de-fining its relationship with another group as well: its new neighbors in Clemmons. The center held a dinner in May for churches and community groups, but it conflicted with graduation ceremonies and was not as well attended as he would have liked, Bendaas said. The center would like to hold the dinner annually. He went door to door introducing himself to other neighbors along Lake Cottage Lane, Bendaas said. The main concern that people had about the center was typical for a fast-growing suburb - traffic. Ed Brewer, the mayor of Clemmons, said he read about the center but doesn't know much about it. "As the lord high mayor, I'm ashamed to tell you how ignorant I am," he said. Out of 1,200 mosques that Bagby studied, he said he found that 77 percent of those in the suburbs had congregations that grew by at least 10 percent from 1999-2000. Fifty-three percent of urban mosques had comparable growth. The Muslim move from old-er, downtown places of worship into affluent suburbs follows a pattern seen with major Christian and Jewish congregations. Charles Kimball, a religion professor at Wake Forest University, said that the new suburban mosques represent an answer to that age-old immigrants' dilemma: How to take the best of Ame--rica, with its promises of opportunity and freedom, without losing one's cultural heritage. "On the one hand, there is the great appreciation for the opportunities, and the desire to be American," he said. "But on the other hand, there is the desire to maintain their heritage, customs and history. This provides a religious and social environment for facilitating that." Like Elaasar, Zitawi said that transmitting culture to children is an important goal at the new mosque. People gather at the center for dinners at least once a month, Zitawi said. They celebrate personal events together. The children have a chance to play soccer. "That's how we get to know each other more and get the kids to know each other and practice our culture, too," he said. "It's easier to train your kids in your culture when you have a group." People at the mosque would like to build a freestanding school where they could also hold social activities, he said. "We already have the school now to teach Arabic and Islamic values," Elaasar said of the classrooms within the center, where children are instructed in Islam. Zitawi said that the Muslims are happy with their mosque in Clemmons. "It's like a dream come true for us," he said. "If someone asks, 'Who are you, where can I meet you?' you have a home to invite people to." • Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com
The battle is between real Islam and American Islam
I am going to hereby publicly wager that American mosques like the one described in this article will prove to have members which will do to us what nice middle class professional Muslims living in England did to the English.
Anybody have enough courage of your "multicultural beliefs" to bet against my position?
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Does this part of the article deepen your concerns???
From the article:
...Most of them were born overseas, said Habib Bendaas, the mosque's treasurer.
Khalid Griggs, the imam of the Community Mosque, said he was taken by surprise when a group broke away to attend the Annoor Center, although many of them continue to attend services and support both mosques.
"It seems there's a trend with our Arab brothers of breaking away from the larger body of Muslims," he said. "It's not just a phenomenon in Winston-Sa-lem."
It used to be that this was expressed this way,
How to take the best of one's cultural heritage without losing America, with its promises of opportunity and freedom.
Now everyone wants to take FROM America and not become
American.
I miss my culture and my nation, I miss them in my own homeland and you miss yours in my homeland.
What you see here is the two horns of the beast.
1. The quiet muslim who wants to blend in (i.e.- London).
2. The militant Black American muslim.
Bill Cosby, the actor, is paying the price for speaking out to all Black Americans that after 3-4-5 generations it is time to stop blaming white America and assume some responsibility for your actions. He is now trying to defend himself against several accusations of sexual misdeeds dating back 20yrs. He was not accussed until he spoke out.
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