Source: The Washington Post
A car drives past the entrance to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Sterling, Virginia. The mosque won approval to build another location in Nokesville on Wednesday. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)
On one side, impassioned Prince William County residents dressed in green shirts argued that constructing a new house of worship would disrupt their quiet community, choke the roads with traffic and go against the zoning regulations meant to protect the rural enclave.
On the other side, their Muslim neighbors said that all they wanted was a place to pray in their own community — and that opposition to their plans to construct a mosque might arise out of not just technical arguments about land use but also bias against Islam.
After hours of heated testimony on Tuesday night, which included 170 speakers and went past 3 a.m., the Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted to approve the mosque.
“We were kind of biting our nails and all that. But in the end, I feel like I could go another 10 hours,” Mohammed Iqbal, a member of the Muslim congregation All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), said exultantly as he walked out of the meeting in the wee hours of the morning.
Categories: America, Mosque, The Muslim Times, USA