Posted on 09/12/2009 12:59:56 PM PDT by Steelfish
Giving Ramadan a Drumroll on Brooklyn Streets at 4 A.M.
KIRK SEMPLE September 12, 2009
A few hours before dawn, when most New Yorkers are fast asleep, a middle-aged man rolls out of bed in Brooklyn, dons a billowy red outfit and matching turban, climbs into his Lincoln Town Car, drives 15 minutes, pulls out a big drum and — there on the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood — starts to play.
Mohammad Boota has been drumming in Brooklyn to wake Muslim worshipers during Ramadan since 2002.
The man, Mohammad Boota, is a Ramadan drummer. Every morning during the holy month, which ends on Sept. 21, drummers stroll the streets of Muslim communities around the world, waking worshipers so they can eat a meal before the day’s fasting begins.
But New York City, renowned for welcoming all manner of cultural traditions, has limits to its hospitality. And so Mr. Boota, a Pakistani immigrant, has spent the past several years learning uncomfortable lessons about noise-complaint hot lines, American profanity and the particular crankiness of non-Muslims rousted from sleep at 3:30 a.m.
“Everywhere they complain,” he said. “People go, like, ‘What the hell? What you doing, man?’ They never know it’s Ramadan.”
Mr. Boota, 53, who immigrated in 1992 and earns his living as a limousine driver, began waking Brooklynites in 2002. At first he moved freely around the borough, picking a neighborhood to work each Ramadan morning.
Not everyone was thrilled, he said. People would throw open their windows and yell at him, or call the police, who, he said, advised him kindly to move along.
As the years went by, he and his barrel drum were effectively banned from one neighborhood after another. He now restricts himself to a short stretch of Coney Island Avenue where many Pakistanis live.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One of them, when driving my wife from work, said: "Soon all people in this country will be speaking Arabic."
Waking up the entire population for Ramadan is just a small first step. At the same time, it is illegal to bring a bible into Saudi Arabia, or to enter it by a Jew.
Can’t they set their alarm clocks instead? Sheesh!
He kinda looks like a shriner... only he’s missing his airplane.
Nothing wrong per se with a potpourri of cultures. That is common to big cities. This “ethnic” group, however, can’t keep to itself, it has to go bug everyone else in the middle of the night.
Coney Island Avenue thereabouts is a pretty noisy street at any hour. The other streets listed are residential and, in many places, Jewish and/or Italian. The guy’s a frickin’ moron.
I usually have a lot of tolerance for religious nuts of all stripes, but this guy needs a “boota” to the rear.
There has been a large Paki population off Coney Island Avenue and near Kings Highway since at least the 1980s, but they are far from a majority.
Coney Island Avenue Ping!
He would have get one shot at doing this in my neighborhood and then he would need a new drum set of testicles!
My aunt who was born and raised in Brooklyn and lived there her entire life had to flee to Florida. Her entire building on 4th Ave. was taken over by Muslims.
Hell I am just getting fluent in Spanish and now you want me to learn Arabic.
Please go back to sleep.
Perhaps he should move to Detroit.
OMG! Thanks for the pic post! says it all.
Ted Kennedy’s Legacy - millions of incompatible immigrant misfits
BTW: She made a mistake in fleeing to Florida. Said state has a crime rate considerably higher than any nabe along Fourth Avenue. Muslims don't commit much violent crime anyway in the US.
She’s in a gated, retirement community.
The Muslims may not be violent but they turned her apartment building into a sewer.
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