Source: THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

By Meris Lutz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Masjid Al-Mu’minun, a mosque on Hank Aaron Drive in south Atlanta, is one of the few that play the call to prayer over external speakers, letting the sound drift through the neighborhood. Ahmed Najee-ullah, a leader in the congregation, joked that local residents set their watches by it.

“We are in those parts of the African American community where a lot of people wouldn’t venture and the communities that we’re in appreciate us being there,” he said. “They have this perception that we represent the best in them.”

Najee-ullah is one of many black Americans who converted to Islam during the height of the Civil Rights movement in the sixties and seventies. He said mosques are welcomed as beacons of stability in many black neighborhoods.

Things have changed in the decades since Masjid Al-Mu’minun opened in the early eighties. As the Muslim population of the United States grows, communities are seeking to establish Islamic institutions such as mosques, schools and cemeteries in otherwise homogenous suburban and rural areas.

These efforts can be met with hostility, with opponents citing everything from insufficient parking to suspicions of refugee-terrorist plots to take over America, starting with Main Street.

In Newton County, hundreds turned out in opposition to a proposed mosque during a heated town hall meeting in August.

“[Muslims] carry hate and it is known in their faith that all infidels will die if you don’t believe like they believe,” one woman said to applause. “I don’t want to see our town destroyed.”

Her sentiments were echoed by dozens of speakers.

Versions of this have played out across the United States and Georgia in recent years, including in Lilburn and Kennesaw. A series of high profile controversies over Muslim worship centers appears to coincide with a surge in anti-Muslim rhetoric and activity.

A recent study by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at the University of California, San Bernardino, found hate crimes against Muslims increased 78 percent in 2015. The Council on American-Islamic Relations haswarned that 2016 is on track to surpass that figure. Over the summer, a Muslim woman was set on fire on a New York City street and a Florida mosque was torched. In October, three Kansas men were arrested and charged over a bomb plot targeting Somali Muslims.

While the government does not collect information about religious affiliation on the census, the Pew Research Center estimated there were 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States in 2015. A large portion—about 1.7 million, according to Pew—immigrated between 1992 and 2012. The Muslim population is expected to reach 8.1 million by 2050, or 2.1 percent of the total population.

The metro Atlanta area, like many cities, is home to a large, diverse Muslim community, although there are no numbers available.

Conversations with Muslim residents and community leaders who call Georgia home reveal a split in opinion on how to respond to anti-Muslim animosity.

Based on these interviews, American-born children of immigrants and African American Muslims, whose own history of activism is often overlooked in the broader conversation about Islam in America, tend toward a less apologetic approach. Older, immigrant Muslims may tread more cautiously, eschewing lawsuits and official complaints in favor of working behind the scenes to assuage the fears of non-Muslims, even when faced with threats of violence.

When opponents of the proposed Newton County mosque called it a terrorist training ground, Imam Mohammad Islam counseled his congregation, which bought the property to use primarily as a cemetery, to be patient.

Several weeks later, a local militia shot a menacing video at the site in which a man calling himself General Blood Agent disparaged Muslims as followers of the Antichrist. The imam did not reach out to law enforcement, although the county deemed the video threatening enough to cancel a scheduled meeting to address the mosque.

“We’re not going to go and take shelter in the law,” said Imam Islam, who emigrated from Bangladesh over 20 years ago and now ministers to a congregation in Doraville. “I believe if we are patient, we are tolerant, we depend on God almighty.”

Meanwhile, against the imam’s wishes, the Georgia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reached out to the Department of Justice and led the charge to publicly shame the county for its handling of the case.

As the plan for a mosque became common knowledge, sparking outrage locally, the county commission issued a temporary moratorium on all new places of worship, an act CAIR branded as discriminatory.

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