Holder Banning Religious Profiling: Brooklyn's Neighborhood Mosques -- Conflicts Between Sunni & Shia

Last week I posted about Eric Holder's plan to ban religious profiling in counterterrorism efforts. With that story, I quoted Daniel Greenfield's (Sultan Knish) "A Bangladesh Grows in Brooklyn." He made some stirring points about the ethnicities living and worshipping side-by-side in Brooklyn neighborhoods, with the sole exception of Muslims, where in too many instances, basements are fertile with angry Muslim men and mosques "grow like mushrooms." Then I heard from Brooklyn resident, PUMABydesign001, at Viewpoints of a Sagittarian. Like Daniel, she is a great American and a fine blogger. She shares what she sees happening to her home town, but first, a pull-out quote from Sultan Knish:

Faizan-E-Madinah Islamic Center expansion on Coney Island Avenue, Flatbush, Brooklyn

For now first generation immigrants who look decades older than they are and their young children walk the streets. That generation will grow up being neither one thing nor the other, neither American nor Bangladeshi, ricocheting from American pop culture to the Koran, from parties with the infidels to mosque study sessions until they explode from the pressure of the contradictions the way that the Tsarnaevs who huffed pot and the Koran in equal proportions did. ~ Daniel Greenfield

While reading PUMABydesign001's experience below, put it all into the perspective of Holder's zero tolerance for religious profiling: police beginning to realize some of the neighborhoods will become 'no-go zones' for them as well as citizens, if not already so.

Take it from one who was born, raised and lives here in Brooklyn, the borough of Kings is not the same place it was prior to the 80’s (i) because of the Communists; (ii) immigrants (illegal and otherwise) and (iii) as referenced in this post, the emerging Muslim population that we all know is a threat.

In the above photograph taken on McDonald Avenue in the heart of Brooklyn sits the community often referred to as “Little Bangladesh.”

What is not in photograph?  Women, little girls, nor is there an American in sight, male, female, Black, White, Korean, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Protestant, only Muslims.

To be honest, I cannot tell you when Little Bangladesh came into existence because I have not traveled through that neighborhood in years but I can tell you that neighborhoods such as Little Bangladesh are popping up across Brooklyn and has been in the making for nearly two decades.

A few blocks over is Coney Island Avenue where from Church Avenue down to until the middle of the Coney Island Avenue between Avenue J and K is another Muslim neighborhood or an extension of Little Bangladesh, I suppose.  This community although Muslim is a Pakistani and I suspect Afghani community.

In the center of Coney Island Avenue between Avenues H and I is a movie theater.  Just a few doors past this theater, a transformation of the neighborhood begins almost as if someone drew an imaginary line Coney Island Avenue transforms from a Muslim community to Jewish.

On the Jewish side of town, in addition to the yeshivas, synagogues, delis, bakeries and other Jewish businesses, one can find every ethnicity traveling, working and socializing in the area.  However, as with Little Bangladesh, the “Muslim” side of Coney Island Avenue does not appear to be as neighborly.  Just saying....

Dueling Mosques, Another Culture Clash in the Making?

Several years ago, another mosque opened up on Atlantic Avenue on the opposite side the street.  So now, there are two mosques on Atlantic Avenue, one mosque Sunni and the other Shiite and yes, there exists an underlying conflict.

The Shiites who consist mostly of Black American converts to Islam are looked down upon and snubbed by the Sunnis.  Tidbit:  The Sunnis refer to them as infidels and don’t like the way they pray along with the fact that the Shiites think nothing of praying in a Sunni mosque.  Uh-oh! Read the entire story here, and don't miss what PUMABydesign001 observed on Super Bowl Sunday.

CAUTION: don't snap a photo of the Masjid At-Taqwa in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn

...unless you want to be hauled away by a group of angry Muslims in Islamic attire to the basement of the facility where a group of twenty "security guards" in karate suits will interrogate you.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook