Local groups take aim at Islamophobia

Local groups take aim at Islamophobia

Gazette Column
Breaking through the noise of the 24-hour news cycle, where participants are more likely to yell than offer thoughtful discussion, isn't easy. But a dozen local churches, religious organizations and academics still are going to try. The stakes surrounding Islamophobia, they say, are too high - even in the city that is home to the Mother Mosque of America - to leave it to the talking heads. "I recently read a novel by Louis de Bernieres, ‘Birds Without Wings,'” said Charles Crawley, president of the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County. The book, set in Turkey in the early 20th century, documents how international events tore apart Christians and Muslims who lived together peaceably for centuries. "If we aren't proactive, the same thing could happen here, with national and international events…
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An opportunity this weekend to stand with your neighbors

An opportunity this weekend to stand with your neighbors

Gazette Blog
Area residents should meet at noon on May's Island Four teenage boys — Moussa, Abbas, Yousef and Ali Habhab — arrived in Cedar Rapids in the 1880s. They were the first of many Muslims to settle in the community, many following Christians known from their homeland into Iowa. Like so many immigrants, they found pride and promise in their new home and wanted to fold their own traditions into the existing culture. On a cold February in 1934, the community opened its first official house of worship — a small mosque, which would also serve as a community center. It is now the oldest standing building originally built as a mosque in our nation. The community grew. They fell in love, married and worked hard. They bore children, choosing to…
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No room for hate in our state

No room for hate in our state

Gazette Column
This may be what happens when history is hidden or allowed to fall into the trap of selective memory. Cedar Rapids police believe Tigani Mohamaoud could be the victim of a hate crime. The Iowa City resident has been working since 2013 to refurbish a flood-damaged home in Cedar Rapids as for his family. His latest setback to that goal arrived in the form of vandalism and graffiti death threats. “You will be killed here,” reads the text, scrawled with spray paint on interior walls. Someone doesn’t want Mohamaoud, a 2007 Muslim immigrant from Sudan, to feel welcome. The irony is the area, now known as Time Check, is also home to the oldest standing mosque in North America. Within walking distance of Mohamaoud’s property stands what’s now referred to…
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