Is America Islamophobical?

TO EXPERIENCE WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE a Muslim in America today, walk in the shoes of Dr. Mansoor Mirza of Sheboygan

County, Wisconsin. It's a February evening, and you're at a meeting of the planning commission ofWilson (pop. 3,200), which is considering your application to open a mosque in the nearby village of Oostburg. You're not expecting much opposition: you already own the property, and having worked in the nearby Manitowoe hospital for the past five years, you're hardly a stranger to the town. Indeed, some of the people at the meetings are like most of your patients—white Americans who don't seem to care about their doctors' race or creed when they talk to them about their illnesses.

But when the floor is opened to discuson you hear things they would never say to you even in the privacy of an examination room. One after another, they pour scorn and hostility on your proposal, and most of the objections have nothing to do with zoning regulations. It's about your faith Islam is a reiigion of hate, they say, Muslims are out to wipe aut Christianity. 

There are so jidahji training camps hidden across rural America, bust even now pro duting the next wave of terrorists Muslim murder their children. Christian kids have enough problems with drugs. alcohol and pornography and should not have to worry about Islam too. "I don't want it in my backyard.' says one. Another savs. "I just think it's not America.'"

Muslims and mosques in the west / Batıda Müslümanlar ve cami sayıları

Looking back. Mirza recalls that a coupie of speakers tried to steer the conversation into calmer territory. "I don't think that we should be making broad, sweeping generalizations," said one, according to minutes of the meeting obtained by TIME. 

But such words barely gave pause to the blunt expressions of suspicion and hostility toward Islam and Muslims. When

it came Mirza's turn to speak, his shock and hıırt were palpable. "If we are praying there, we don't stink. We don't make noise. 

We just come, pray and leave," he said. He kept calm when a commissioner asked if there would be any weapons or military training at the mosque. But afterward, Pakistani-born Mirza, 38, was shaken. "I never expected that the same people who came to me at the hospital and treated me with respect would talk to me like this." 

I lis lawyer had to take him to a nearby cafe to help him calm down. 

Some of Mirza's roughly 100 fellow 

Muslims in Sheboygan County would say he was naive. The majority are Bosnians and Albanians who fled to the U.S. to escape persecution by Serbs after the collapse of Yugoslavia. Scarred by their experiences back home, some chose to keep their faith under wraps. They feared that plans to build a mosque would draw too much attention to their community.

They were not entirely wrong. AfterThe meeting, pastors in Oostburg began" campaign against the project. "The political objective of Islam is to dominaîe/ world with its teachings and to domination of all other'religions militarily said the Rev. Wayne DeVrou at the First ReformedChurch in Oostburg.

A protest against to mosques in New York City / New York'ta cami karşıtı bir gösteri

The battle in Wilson received little national attention until this month, when a much larger and noisier uproar erupted in New York City over plans to build a Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. Park5i, as the project is called, is the brainchild of imam Feisal Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan, American Muslims well known for promoting interfaith dialogue. Their plan has been approved 

by city authorities and has the backing of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but it has ignited a nationwide firestorm of protest. 

Some opponents are genuinely concerned that an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero would offend the families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attack on the World Trade Center. Paul Walier.'a Buffalo, N.Y, lawyer whose sister Margaret died in the towers, acknowledges that Rauf and Khan are with in their constitutional  rights but adds, "I just dont think it's the appropriate thing to do". You dont have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as many Americans do, that the area around Ground Zero is sacred. But sadly, in an election season, such sentiments have been stoken into a voliate political issue by Republician Leaders like Newt Ginrich and Sarah Palin.