New Mosque

An Islamic congregation in central Tennessee will not be able to move into a new mosque before Ramadan begins at sundown Thursday, despite winning a legal battle that cleared the way for occupancy. The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tenn., is awaiting inspections from additional agencies and congregants can't begin worshiping there until the inspections are complete, lawyers for the mosque said Thursday. That could take up to 10 days. “It's a matter of dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's,” Hannah Smith, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told the Los Angeles Times.

Muslims in central Tennessee moved into their newly built mosque Friday with a week left to go in the holy month of Ramadan, capping a multi-year struggle that included vandalism, threats and lawsuits from local residents. A temporary occupancy permit issued Tuesday put a stay - for the time being - to a legal dispute that began in 2010 . That's when the Islamic community broke ground on a 12,000-square-foot mosque, and local residents sued.   Moving in was a milestone for the Islamic community, but the day was tinged with worry over religious freedom, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a civil rights law firm have filed a joint complaint against the city of Lomita for denying the Islamic Center of South Bay's application to build a new mosque.‬ ‪The federal complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, contends that the city is discriminating against the center and that there is no evidence to back up neighbors' concerns about...

An Islamic congregation in central Tennessee will not be able to move into a new mosque before Ramadan begins at sundown Thursday, despite winning a legal battle that cleared the way for occupancy. The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tenn., is awaiting inspections from additional agencies and congregants can't begin worshiping there until the inspections are complete, lawyers for the mosque said Thursday. That could take up to 10 days. “It's a matter of dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's,” Hannah Smith, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told the Los Angeles Times.

Yugoslav Muslims have built one of the grandest mosques in Europe, at a cost of $4 million, but they cannot pray in it because of a wrangle with the Communist authorities. The White Mosque in the northern city of Zagreb is one of the biggest and costliest modern mosques outside the Islamic world, with Arab benefactors providing much of the money. Built, burned, and rebuilt, it has been bogged in controversy from the start, about 20 years ago.

From speakers mounted inside and outside the modest stucco house in Rancho Cucamonga, the intoning sound of the call to Friday prayer floated in the muggy summer air. Around 1 p.m., dozens of women in head scarves and flowing salwar kameezes streamed into the three women's prayer rooms, shucking off shoes and sandals at the door. Going into the building through a separate entrance, more than 50 men squeezed into the building's largest prayer room. Another 50 or so filed into a converted garage.

Re "A new mosque, just in time for Ramadan," Sept. 1 I would like to commend The Times for its coverage of the new mosque in Rancho Cucamonga. As an avid mosque-goer myself, I appreciate the acknowledgment of the importance of such facilities to members of the Muslim faith, especially while mosques in Milan and several other areas in Europe are being threatened with closure because of nearby residents' unwarranted fear of their occupants. Articles like these are refreshing.

A small group of protesters took over a patch of grass across from the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley on Friday for a vocal but relatively tame protest against a proposed mosque, though they were greatly outnumbered by supporters from area churches who were there to support the Islamic Center. The rally was held during the Islamic Center's Friday prayers and, at the urging of organizers, a few protesters brought their dogs, which many Muslims would consider an insult. "This is America.

Muslims in central Tennessee moved into their newly built mosque Friday with a week left to go in the holy month of Ramadan, capping a multi-year struggle that included vandalism, threats and lawsuits from local residents. A temporary occupancy permit issued Tuesday put a stay - for the time being - to a legal dispute that began in 2010 . That's when the Islamic community broke ground on a 12,000-square-foot mosque, and local residents sued.   Moving in was a milestone for the Islamic community, but the day was tinged with worry over religious freedom, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

In the American tradition of diversity and religious freedom, I too celebrate the opening of the King Fahd Mosque on the Westside, which adds to Southern California's architecture and enriches the spiritual lives of the Muslim faithful in the region (July 18). However, I censure the Islamic religious leaders in attendance for being apologists for Saudi Arabia's rulers, who practice absolute religious discrimination and prohibit any expression of non-Islamic faiths in their land. All too often, immigrant religious leaders in the U.S. unabashedly preach the superiority of Islam, promote community and religious exclusion and reinforce the less glorious traditions of Islamic religious practice through captive ethnic and religious forums, while self-servingly embracing the protections and guarantees of the Constitution.

The Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a civil rights law firm have filed a joint complaint against the city of Lomita for denying the Islamic Center of South Bay's application to build a new mosque.‬ ‪The federal complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, contends that the city is discriminating against the center and that there is no evidence to back up neighbors' concerns about...

Call it a case of dueling consulates. Almost every morning, crowds of visa-seekers flock to the sprawling Iranian diplomatic mission here, a prime center of gravity in this western Afghan city with deep Persian roots. Now, a new U.S. Consulate is poised to open as well, staking out a commanding hillside position in a landmark building that was once a luxury hotel. Diplomats being diplomats, neither the U.S. nor the Iranian side acknowledges any rivalry, or any wish to keep tabs on the other's activities.

Numerous civil rights and religious groups on Wednesday announced the creation of a coalition to voice support for a Muslim community center and mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in Manhattan. The move comes three days after hundreds of opponents of the center protested near the former site of the World Trade Center. The proposed Muslim community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan has sparked contentious national debate in recent weeks, with opponents saying the location is insensitive to the nearly 3,000 people who died in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The heated debate across America over construction of the so-called ground zero mosque is reverberating across the globe, with the potential of creating a worldwide black eye for the United States. Many Muslims abroad are miffed by the stateside debate, largely conducted by non-Muslims, that has grown so loud as to become a topic of discussion on talk shows and newspapers from Bali to Bahrain, from Baghdad to Berlin. The proposed Cordoba House has become a symbol of America's fraught relations with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.

A sign hanging in front of a hotel here reads: "Anyone who has passed healthcare reform, signed economic stimulus bills, recast America's global image … [and] won the Nobel Peace Prize … deserves a great vacation. " President Obama is certainly ready for one. He began a 10-day break on this tony island Thursday after a multistate fundraising blitz and an uproar over the right to build a mosque two blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center in New York.

As top Republicans including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich attack plans for an Islamic community center and mosque near the destroyed World Trade Center site, a larger schism is opening up in the GOP over the inflammatory issue. Some Republicans fear that pressing the issue carries risks, diverting attention from bread-and-butter issues and undercutting the party's efforts to broaden its base — just as it is losing ground among other ethnic minorities such as Latinos.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI ordered the construction of 20 mosques in poor areas of large cities in a move to counter radical Islamic preaching at illegal mosques. Twelve Islamic suicide bombers who killed 33 people in Casablanca last year came from shantytowns where, a government investigation charged, they had been brainwashed by radical clerics in makeshift mosques. Hundreds of similar mosques have proliferated in cities across the North African country over the last 20 years.

Sitting in the middle of the ruined homes of this northern Bosnia village is the shiny new Omerbegovaca mosque. Its white minaret reaches skyward, and a dedication plaque thanks its benefactors: Allah and Saudi Arabia. Mosques that were destroyed during a war that used religion to fuel hatred are being rebuilt in many Bosnian cities and towns, largely with money from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and other Islamic countries.

A small group of protesters took over a patch of grass across from the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley on Friday for a vocal but relatively tame protest against a proposed mosque, though they were greatly outnumbered by supporters from area churches who were there to support the Islamic Center. The rally was held during the Islamic Center's Friday prayers and, at the urging of organizers, a few protesters brought their dogs, which many Muslims would consider an insult. "This is America.

Re "A new mosque, just in time for Ramadan," Sept. 1 I would like to commend The Times for its coverage of the new mosque in Rancho Cucamonga. As an avid mosque-goer myself, I appreciate the acknowledgment of the importance of such facilities to members of the Muslim faith, especially while mosques in Milan and several other areas in Europe are being threatened with closure because of nearby residents' unwarranted fear of their occupants. Articles like these are refreshing.