There’s a few mosques in the Portland area.
The big one with all the modern conveniences gets the media attention. When they need a “spokesman for the Muslim community” the media go there. It’s smooth, slick and Saudi-funded. I’ve never heard of anyone preaching “Death to America”. They probably wouldn’t say anything like that to the White guy. According to friends who go there regularly one hears a lot of sermons from guys with really big beards about how if you shake hands with a woman it’s the same as committing adultery with her.
I never realized how much action I was getting. Goddam!
There’s a mosque down the street from me. It’s in a little cinder block building with fraying carpet. The guys who run it used to be Nation of Islam but shed their racism long ago. The sermons on the men’s side tend to be about charity, kindness and (as in all churches) how the roof needs fixing.
When Aisha - the younger sister I wish I’d had - goes to prayers it’s at the Somali masjid near her house. There’s a big tasbih on one wall. There’s tea and cookies after jumma prayer. The children touch her hair because they’ve never seen hair like that up close. Everyone is very friendly, and insofar as politics gets discussed it’s “Thank God we’re in America.”
The dergahs? If all of the local Sufi groups pooled their money they might be able to afford a rat hole. The only time I brought up something vaguely political at the meet-and-greet before a community zikr I got shushed. There’s a taboo across the board about that. Zikr is for prayer and Allah. That sort of thing is simply inappropriate.
Yes, the Saudis have poured a lot of money into mosques around the world. And some of the filth they have hissed into Muslims’ ears is pretty foul. You’re not going to stop it by trying to drive Muslims out of the mosques. In the immigrant communities particularly they serve vital social functions the way that “community centers” never can.
In the States you can’t do it through the purse. Only Evangelical Christian Churches get government funding. Excuse me. That’s “assistance in their charitable activities” through the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
If the government can show that a mosque was involved in sedition it could, of course, be shut down. But there’s a serious question of persecution and pro-Christian bias. The megachurches regularly spout things that are just as vile and violence-inciting. You’d have to close the Assemblies of God, the Missouri Synod Lutheran Churches and half the Southern Baptist Convention. That’s not going to happen. And stomping the Muslims into the ground while letting just as egregious if not worse stuff go on among the Christians is simple racism insofar as it’s based on fears of the Sinister Dark-Skinned Foreigners.
Germany is taking some positive steps. They’ve just started identifying the “teachers” who don’t have the requisite education or the state-mandated background to help immigrants integrate. I hope there’s the political will to decertify them.
