since I can't find out for myself via a quick and lazy googling, does anyone know if the (not at) Ground Zero (not a) mosque of so much debate is going to include an actual mosque, with an Imam and services, or if this just prayer space in an otherwise mixed use space cultural center? It's not an entirely loaded question, I remember reading that the mosques already in the area are small and overcrowded, so it would be serving an actual need by holding services, but I don't know if it's going to. If it is just providing prayer space to meet the call at the proper times that makes a building a mosque then suddenly there are mosques all over the city, and I can say with near certainty, which is to say without checking, that under our newly expanded definition the Towers themselves were mosques. The church at my boarding school was an unquestionable mosque, it housed services for the tiny number of Muslims attending.
I realize this is a very small part of the many layers of stupidity necessary to find issue with this planned project, but I still marvel and wonder at the idea that housing any kind of Islamic religious services in a building automatically makes it a mosque. I'd ask if roughly half our hospitals are now going to be considered churches by movement conservatives, but they'd just respond with that cringe inducing "I don't know if Islam really is a religion" crap as an excuse for this obvious indication of prejudice and outright fucking stupidity. I think I'm going to go to the planned protest on 9/11 and remind myself how ugly humanity can be. Plus I haven't seen Newt Gingrich speak downtown since the first NYC Tea Party. I have to practice scowling tho, they could smell me last time because I was smiling and laughing the whole time.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Random Open Question/Rant
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12 comments:
I heard somewhere from a reasonable source (No, I think it was Olbermann's special rant yesterday.) that the top two floors would be a prayer space. Didn't indicate anything about an imam. Or if would be two floors or a two-story "prayer space."
Dicks like Peter King and his ilk don't care whether or not there's a prayer space or a imam. If it was up to them, muslims would be deported back to muslim land and Ground Zero would be the place where all the true patriots go to jerk off to the thought of bombs being dropped on terrorist houses. They don't argue rationally.
There is certainly an Iman involved in the project.
(As an aside, given the influx of residents into the Battery Park area, one would expect that there would be increased demand.)
"I think I'm going to go to the planned protest on 9/11 and remind myself how ugly humanity can be."
Have fun. Consider that Pam Gellar is 51 years old.
Ken, I know one of the people at the top of the project who has been speaking in its defense is an Imam, but I'm not clear whether he'll be using the space as an outright house of worship. If there's an actual synagogue at the 92nd St Y, for example, I can't think of having seen it.
And I've seen Pammy, up close. She walked by me twice at the original tea party event, if I see her this time I'm asking if I can take my pic with her.
Mike Baaaaaanicle on MSNBC said that it was going to consist of male and female prayer rooms on the top floor. No ornate decoration. No Imam. No actual Sabbath services (and if there were, so fucking what?).
Oh, and did we mention that not a cent has been raised for the building's construction yet? So far, it was just a sale of a building from an American Muslim in Brooklyn to an existing group that has a community center a few blocks north in Tribeca.
The only difference is prayer space is actually quite common, and provision of it in no way equals mosque, particularly in a building that will likely have many Muslims in it at any one time and thus needs lots of it.
I would be in favor of there being a full on mosque there, but if it is only prayer space then it's not a community center with a mosque in it, it's just a community center. Clarity can only help to defang this issue, and the fact is a Muslim run community center would not bother the mouth breathers out there as much as a genuine mosque would, wrong as that is.
but if it is only prayer space then it's not a community center with a mosque in it
Um, brad, a mosque is not like a Catholich church that has to be consecrated and shit, it's just a building used for muslims to gather on Friday. Historically, mosques have been designed to look in a certain way, but the very first one was most likely an open space and the first Chinese or Bosnian mosque looked like the rest of the architecture.
So the difference between a prayer space and a mosque is essentially non-existent. The only real difference for us western folk (but meaningless from theological point of view) would be the minaret, but from what I've seen, the building is supposed to look very western.
In other words:
I still marvel and wonder at the idea that housing any kind of Islamic religious services in a building automatically makes it a mosque
Well, yeah, it does. Ain't nothing stupid about this idea, because that's how it works. If people gather there on Friday to pray and to hear the sermon, it's a mosque (masjid).
What do you think "a full on mosque" would be?
"the fact is a Muslim run community center would not bother the mouth breathers out there as much as a genuine mosque would"
Is it a building with muslims in it? People with beards going in and out during the days and evenings? Then they object, because deep in their hearts they know that American muslims are just waiting to blow some shit up, Osama style.
Ok bulbul, I'm obviously not claiming to be an expert on the definition. I was under the impression "mosque" meant more than simple provided prayer space. When I worked at Kaplan in midtown we would keep one room in the building free every day to use as prayer space, the fact that such a room would hardly be called a mosque is probably what's driving me here.
brad,
oh I see. Knowing the theory and some of the practice, I would define a mosque as follows: a place owned and controlled by the Muslim community where members thereof have agreed to 1.) come for the Friday prayer, 2.) abide by certain rules of conduct. That room at Kaplan wouldn't qualify, partly because basically anybody could come in there and do anything - not so much in terms of religion, it's just that you don't want just anybody messing with your holy stuff. The coat factory place, from what I've heard, could indeed be called a mosque, providing at least some part of it fullfils the conditions above. The fact that it's got a pool and what not certainly does not detract from the main purpose.
But again, much of it is custom and tradition differing according to schools of jurisprudence and often country, very little of it is set in stone.
If NYC gave zoning clearance to a pornographic movie theater in the same area that the proposed Islamic center will occupy, would we have heard about it?
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