Islam growing rapidly in U.S. suburbs

The Associated Press | 5/17/2003, 9:58 a.m. ET | WAYNE PARRY

[freeperfromnj]

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Just off one of the busiest highways in this rapidly growing suburb sits the new face of Islam in America.

The Islamic Society of Central Jersey's mosque is tucked in amid the pine trees and flowering pink dogwoods along the booming high-tech corridor leading into Princeton. Next door, huge concrete water main pipes lie on the side of the road, ready to be installed as part of a new housing development.

The mosque's expansive parking lots fill up with mini-vans and SUVs, disgorging parents and kids hurrying inside for worship between work and classes.

Scenes like this are playing out across the United States as Muslim communities spread out from the cities to the suburbs. Definitive statistics are hard to come by, but some Muslim leaders and sociologists, backed by anecdotal evidence, say the fastest growth of mosques is occurring in the suburbs. That was also the conclusion of a 2001 nationwide study of mosques by the Council on American Islamic Relations.

"This is more and more where Muslims are living," said Ishan Bagby, a professor at the University of Kentucky who conducted the study.

As was the case with waves of European, Asian and Latino immigrants in past decades, Muslim immigrants settled in the cities. As they established businesses and prospered, they, or more commonly, their children, moved to the suburbs.

"The Muslims are following the exact same pattern," Bagby said.

Out of 800 mosques surveyed, Bagby found that 77 percent of those in suburban locations saw their congregations grow by 10 percent or more from 1999 to 2000, the most recent statistics available, while only 53 percent of urban mosques saw similar growth over that same period. The Council plans a second study in 2005.

The suburban growth is not exclusive to Islam; major Christian and Jewish organizations also are growing in suburban areas as populations expand farther from the urban core. That's what is happening with the Islamic Society of Central Jersey, many of whose members are engineers, researchers or medical professionals who settled in the area in the 1970s and '80s to be close to well-paying jobs along the Route 1 corridor.

Now the $1.2 million mosque has about 500 families as active members, most of them recent immigrant professionals who chose the suburbs over more established Muslim communities in New Jersey like Paterson or Jersey City. Its highly sought-after school has more than 200 students and a long waiting list.

"Not everyone wished to live and educate his kids in Jersey City," said the center's imam, Hamad Ahmad Chebli. "They spread out to different areas. Suburban Muslim families knew each other and put their money together and started local mosques."

This urban-suburban contrast is beginning to draw the attention of religious scholars and academics studying the rapid growth of Islam in America. Professor Sulayman Nyang, chairman of African studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C., noted several principal differences between urban and suburban mosques.

He said the inner-city mosques tend to be predominantly African-American, more inward-looking and focused more intently on addressing neighborhood concerns like poverty, drug abuse and employment, while those in the suburbs are more likely to be populated by immigrant Muslims from the Middle East or south Asia, with a keener interest in world affairs, particularly conditions in their countries of origin.

This was evident in recent visits to two Washington-area mosques, one in inner-city D.C., and the other in suburban northern Virginia. Masjid Muhammad is a community mosque set amid the crowded rowhouses about two miles from the Capitol. Its well-kept exterior is a distinct contrast to the abandoned gas station across the street, where rusting metal storage tanks and dilapidated junker cars sit atop crumbling weed-strewn concrete.

"Like any inner-city church, we are trying to stabilize our community," said Imam Yusuf Saleem. The mosque sponsors a Boy Scout troop, has its own school, runs a 12-step substance abuse recovery program, and recently bought three buildings on a section of Fourth Street known locally as "Islamic Way" to be used as affordable housing for community members.

About 11 miles away in Falls Church, Va., the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque is set among the single-family homes in a quiet neighborhood ablaze in purple azalea bushes and scarlet-and-white magnolia trees. Its members are doctors, dentists, engineers and researchers who settled in the Washington suburbs, but still maintain strong ties to their homelands.

The mosque is solidly middle-class America. Sheikh Muhammed al-Hanouti, the Grand Mufti of Greater Washington, is the mosque's spiritual leader, and is constantly called upon by mosque members to issue fatwas, or religious decrees, on whether certain activities are permitted under Islam.

"Just the other day, I got a call from a man who opened a supermarket who asked `Can I sell pork or lottery tickets?' These are the things of everyday life here." (The answer was no, as pork and gambling are prohibited in Islam.)

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, director of the mosque's outreach program, said the growth of the suburban Muslim population in America was greatly influenced by decisions by the U.S. State Department over the past three decades on who to accept as immigrants.

"They identified raw talent in the information technology industry, and quotas went out the window," he said. "As the Islamic experiment became successful, they wound up moving into the suburbs."

Abdul-Malik said the next logical step for the suburban Muslim community is one that has happened with other waves of immigrants — assimilation.

"America has become the crucible for Islam," he said. "The crucible is a container where you put an element, place it in the fire and heat it so that you burn away all but the pure element. The Pakistani and Sudanese and Somali and Afghan parts get burned off and you're left with American Muslims all standing in the same mosque, all praying together."

[Calpernia]

I am glad your wife is healthy. But none of us know the true intent of Islam. Otherwise, we wouldn't have these discussion threads.

I will tell you a story from a Middle Eastern.

"You are kept poor in your country (he was speaking of Egypt). If you have anything, your own brother will stab you for it. Boys are recruited at a young age. They are given food, clothes, beautiful wife training and education. You go and blend into American life (where he is now). Then, one day you receive a rose. If you respond, your family is taken care of for life. It is a good deal."

So YOU dispute the Middle Easterner's story.

[Alouette]

Definitive statistics are hard to come by, but some Muslim leaders and sociologists, backed by anecdotal evidence, say the fastest growth of mosques is occurring in the suburbs. That was also the conclusion of a 2001 nationwide study of mosques by the Council on American Islamic Relations.

It's just more CAIR disinformatziya. Nothing to see here, move on please.

[JimRed]

Here goes again: Like I've said since about 11 AM on 9/11/01, ALL non-citizen Muslims must be IMMEDIATELY deported to their country of origin or a destination of their choice outside of the western hemisphere. All citizen Muslims have to be kept under constant surveillance until their threat level, if any, is determined. The Mosques and schools must be infiltrated and monitored.

In other words, ENOUGH, ALREADY!

[JimRed]

Belial...I know I've heard that name before...

(In my best Dana Carvey "church lady" voice)
Could it be, just maybe, uhhh...SATAN??!!

[ladylib]

They're also opening schools in South America, cheaper than the local Catholic parochial schools so parents of course send their kids there.

We have a Muslim girls school in my county.

[GirlShortstop]

It's just more CAIR disinformatziya. Nothing to see here, move on please.

CAIR has to be the first "hit" on many journalists' PRNewswire Rolodex.  The amount of weight given to this organization's garbage is beyond me.  Their talking points are about as worthwhile as George Clooney's political science expertise.

Freeperfromnj, did this weekend kickoff NJ's Mohammaden Recognition Week or something?  My morning perusal of one of the local South Jersey papers is carrying a comparable story as well:   With six mosques in county, Islam rising rapidly.

Picayune point from this [bad news] article:

Ishan Bagby, a professor at the University of Kentucky who conducted the study.
"The Muslims are following the exact same pattern," Bagby said.

Clearly, proper use of the English language means very little to the study's author.  When I see this faux pas (from an "educated" individual, mind you) any further offering of information never gets beyond RAM.  :-)    FReegards.

[firewalk]

Good morning
bttt

[Ax]

Can't argue with that, Jim.

[freeperfromnj]

did this weekend kickoff NJ's Mohammaden Recognition Week or something?

I spotted the article on the NJ.com web site yesterday but it just hit the south jersey paper this morning. I'm not sure why this is gaining attention at this time. I now there is a big muslim rally coming up in DC. There definitely is a fast growing muslim population in the suburbs of central and south NJ and a huge multi-million dollar mosque in western monmouth county. They seem to be gaining more power and more territory here in the U.S. post-9/11 than they had before.

[cardinal4]

Good plan. While there may be one or two decent Muslims, until Im told with Divine assurance that Islam is Peace, I will treat them with suspicion. I guess that makes me intolerant of Islam. But Mohammed Atta and his merry band were pretty intolerant of me.

[Mamzelle]

"War is deception"--Mohammed.

That's means it's OK to lie to the kafir.

[Cvengr]

It is interesting to see how many of those developers are "small, minority, disadvantaged businesses who are favored government contractors as 8A businesses.

[Cachelot]

I guess the muslim doctor who helped saved my wife's life was part of some sinister plot?

Actually, looking at your posting history it wouldn't surprise me if you are part of a sinister plot :)).

We seem to have a fresh infestation of "lifers", the pro-terroristic, antisemitic lifeform occupying that premier NeoNazi site "Libertyforum".

"WalkingMan" (HarvardMan <-> Skunk?), "John Beresford Tipton", even ol' Hoplophile under an old backup nick.

And as always they're making the house antisemites restless (Belial and bribriagain seem positively electrified, which would in some circumstances not be a bad thing).

Could you boys please go back to that place, and close the door quietly? The pro-islamic racket is getting annoying. Thanks.

[VOA]

Which was that is un-American to advocate the suppression of non-PC religions.
We've have this thing called "freedom of religion", which is one of the founding
principles of this country.

From what I've been able to discern, if Islam is practiced faithfully,
there is no separation of "mosque and state".
In other words, many Islamics don't really have the concept of their religion
being a different entity from their government.

While some Muslims seem to have evolved their political philosophy beyond this concept
and are experimenting with democracy...I just have very great apprehension about
how well the mainstream "moderate" Muslim will go with the tradional approach to
"church and state" here in the USA. Especially seeing how good the "moderates"
are at keeping their radical co-congregants in line.

If Islam in the USA eventually works in the way Communism tried in subverting
the USA, then I'd say all bets are off about that freedom of religion concept...
at that point I'd say Islam was a sham religion meant to hide an "-ism"
no less dangerous than Communism.

I think our government has already made this assessement on a limited basis.
A Saudi Arabian consulate official (who was also imam/prayer leader at a huge
mosque in Culver City, CA) got a suprise a few weeks ago when he tried to re-enter
the USA at Los Angeles Int. Airport. He found out his passport had been revoked,
he was held two days, then shoved back onto a plane to Saudi Arabia (or at least out of the
USA).

Of course all his buddies here in Los Angeles say he was totally a-political.
But it appears the US government had sniffed him out as the top-dog of Wahhabism
for the west coast of the USA.

I love the stories of McCarthy being floated in the press recently...it's got to
be for the benefit of Garafalo, SArandon, Robbins, Penn...and more than a
few fellow-travelers of Osama that hope to build public sympathy in case they get
arrested or seized for deportation.

As even liberal media sources like PBS (in their NOVA series) admit: Joe McCarthy
was wrong when pointing the fingers at individuals -- he was right to say there
were a lot of Communist agents and sympathizers in the government.
I hope Ashcroft and his associates have learned those lessons and are able
to surgically remove the bad guys before they create havoc in the USA.

[veronica]

We seem to have a fresh infestation of "lifers", the pro-terroristic, antisemitic lifeform occupying that premier NeoNazi site "Libertyforum"...

BTTT...many times banned swampthings sneaking back onto FR to spread their sick swill? Color me not surprised.

[optik_b]

Btw the Islamic doctor was from Indonesia not the middle east.

[Calpernia]

You implying that Indonesia isn't part of the Islamic recruiting networks????

[bribriagain]

"And as always they're making the house antisemites restless (Belial and bribriagain seem positively electrified, which would in some circumstances not be a bad thing)."

LOL!!

Very good Cach! You're well on your way to becoming a true wit! In fact, you may be half-way there!

[IFly4Him]

Over the intercom at the new supermarket...

Price check, Aisle 4, homicide explosives belt.....

[optik_b]

"You implying that Indonesia isn't part of the Islamic recruiting networks????"

Nope never implied that. The other poster was implying that all islamic people are from the middle east. There is a huge cultural difference between Kuala Lumpur and Beirut.