freepers/RW lurkers, be educated about mosques versus Park51 (dial-up warning)

[steve2470]

Photos of actual mosques:







Now... here is Park51, which is an Islamic community center on Park Place in lower Manhattan:




See the difference ? Do you still think Park51 is a real mosque ?

[LARED]

1. Question

I'm not a freeper or RW lurker, but does the building make the Mosque, or is it defined some other way. For instance I have been to Christian churches that look like your typical church building, and I have been to Christian churches located in a strip mall. Both are churches.

To be considered a Mosque does the building have some meaning? Or can a Mosque exist in ... say.. a strip mall store front?

[steve2470]

2. I don't honestly know... anyone ? nt

[hlthe2b]

3. Mosques, like churches are public buldings for worship...

Mosques usually have a minaret.

Contrast this to a prayer room, which is inclusive of many Federal buildings (in areas with prominent Muslim populations), embassies, including US embassies, and other buildings.
Take this one at the Pentagon below:



Any building can include a prayer room. This is what is planned for the community center two blocks from the WTC site.

[aquart]

4. Park51? Whatever happened to the Cordoba House?

And please clarify whether this is a mosque or a cultural center or a community center. A community center usually requires a community. Please point out where a Muslim housewife can buy halal meat in downtown Manhattan. And I don't mean off a lunch truck. Those go back to Brooklyn and Queens every night just like the Muslim workers do. (And everybody else not gifted with a Kennedy-sized trust fund.)

Please clarify the swimming pool rules. Separate hours for men and women? Swimsuit restrictions? What kind? Will men and women share the cooking classes or will those also be sex segregated?

Where will the children come from for the childcare? Are women expected to drag their pre-schoolers in from Brooklyn on the rush hour trains? If childcare is a concern, why not build this center where Muslims LIVE?

This venture is a grandiose, ill-planned, ill-thought out mess. And while pundits and authorities weigh in on its rightness and wrongness, there isn't a peep from the Muslim families who are supposed to find a use for this. Oh, wait. It's really supposed to be used by Christians and Jews?

LMAO.

[steve2470]

6. websites for you...

Cordoba House initiative:

http://www.cordobainitiative.org/

Park51:

http://www.park51.org/vision.htm

[hlthe2b]

7. Perhaps you should ask these detailed plan questions of ...

the actual planners of the project, rather than your fellow DUers. Somehow WE are responsible for every aspect of the project? What is with you aquart? There are Muslims in and around the area of every socioeconomic stripe. I'm sure a demographic search would help you with that. But, you really have a bee in your bonnet on this. Whether you call it a cultural center or a community center... THAT is your issue?


Sorry, but you seem to have a real unpleasant edge to your questions, which seem more accusations than questions. A tone I had never seen from you before. I'm dismayed. But, I'll leave it to others to respond.

[LARED]

8. Park51 will house a Mosque

http://www.park51.org/programs.htm

Future plans for Park51 include a world-class facility which will house a mosque. Intended to operate as a separate 501(c)(3), the mosque will be a welcoming prayer space accessible to Park51 members as well as all New Yorkers, but will be independently run.

[Withywindle]

5. And airports and train and bus startions and other public hubs

O'Hare has a non-denomination chapel/prayer room that, oddly enough, is often used by Muslims. OH NO.

The Kuala Lumpur bus station has one that's actually really kind of depressing - it's right by the bathrooms and it has a carpet I wouldn't want to put my face near. But that's par for the course for facilities in bus stations everywhere.

Since Muslims pray five times a day at certain times, it makes sense to offer a convenient space for them to do so near wherever one is working, traveling, etcetera. It doesn't make it a mosque--I think a mosque is a building specifically dedicated to the purpose, where there are also sermons and things that function more like a church or temple.

The proposed space sounds more like a community center to me, and it's specifically NOT for Muslims only.