A Tale of Two Mosques

At a time in which the Ground Zero mosque project in New York has stalled as those who support it and oppose it lay out their arguments, Canada has completed what will become the world’s northernmost mosque. The first mosque in the history of the frozen city of Inuvik, located in the Northwest Territories of Canada, was recently constructed in the city of Winnipeg due to the harsh conditions in the Northwest Territories making it difficult to build there. The mosque is being transported a distance of 4,000 km by both land and water so that it can be placed on its designated plot of land where the Muslims of Inuvik will finally be able to pray and worship in their city that lies at the edge of the earth.

This is the story of two mosques located on the same continent. The first is still a controversial issue building up a huge storm in American public opinion. A sand storm to be more specific, as it is sand storms that lead to a lack of visibility, particularly when the winds of the media and politics kick up more and more dust and sand every day. This is how the Americans have become, blind and unable to read their own Declaration of Independence in a sound manner, allowing them to remember the foundation of religious freedom built by the hands of Jefferson. Just as they were unable to read the sentiments of the world around them after the events of September 11 in order to differentiate between Islam the religion and Islam the political ideology. Many Muslims have remained in this state as well; they have not come to understand the complexity of American politics and the manner in which legislative decisions are made. As is usual for them, they embrace the conspiracy theories and the idea of war against Islam along with the other convictions, which Muslims hold on to in order to give them consolation when dealing with the challenges faced by their civilization today.

The second mosque, in contrast, has passed by as if no one has heard of it — despite the fact that it deserves to be included in the Guinness Book of World Records on many grounds, including the title of the northernmost mosque and for the longest distance traveled by a completed mosque from its location of construction to its final location. What is also surprising is that all of this effort was made to serve the Muslims of Inuvik despite the fact that they number no more than 100 individuals and make up less than 3 percent of the city’s population. There was no sand storm in this case, rather it was an ice storm that froze the media and placed it in a state of hibernation, as it has not interacted with the Inuvik mosque with the exception of a few small and scattered news pieces by some sources celebrating this unique accomplishment.

Certainly Canada has not suffered from the aftermath of September 11 to the extent the U.S. has, which tends to lessen the importance the media places on the building of a mosque there. However, these coinciding stories of two mosques give us a wider context in which to examine the condition of Muslims in North America generally. Frequently, the conditions of Muslims in North America are judged in a generalized manner by infrequent symbolic issues and events. Judgments and opinions become deficient and narrow-minded, which leads those following the events while living outside the continent to believe that Muslims face this kind of vicious opposition every time they build a mosque in America. Or, that they are blessed with this kind of support every time they build a mosque in Canada. Observe how the Ground Zero mosque issue has turned the story of Muslims there into one calling for pessimism. This happens all while the Inuvik mosque story gives us an optimistic and comforting picture. The truth of the matter is that the conditions of Muslims in large countries like the U.S. and Canada cannot be reduced to one story or controversy. The temporal conditions and circumstances facing any mosque project are too complex for us to reduce to a battle between the good guys and the bad guys or to blame racism or Islamophobia.

The stories of these two mosques bear witness to how many of us fall into the trap of shortsightedness. There are more than 1,000 mosques spread out all over the U.S. in which the five daily prayers are held every day and night. However, these facts seem to disappear from the collective minds of both sides when it comes to the issue of building a mosque in a sensitive area like New York City. Thus, when Muslims face legislative difficulties in building a mosque they seem to forget all of the other mosques already standing, most of them built with government money, and they talk as if they have been victims from time immemorial. On the other hand, when those in opposition are surprised to find out that a mosque is being built in a historically sensitive area, they forget that Muslim mosques are spread out everywhere already: near cemeteries, military bases, churches and historical locations, even in the heart of the Pentagon itself.

The first mosque built in America was built over 100 years ago at the same time that France was bombing mosques in Algeria. Not only that, but the largest mosque in America was built after the events of September 11, in Michigan in the year 2005. That same year witnessed a large number of terrorist attacks by Muslims in places like Bali, London, Sharam al-shaikh and Manila. However, this long history of mosques in America has become useless in the formation of public opinion in the Muslim world toward the U.S. and its tolerance, due to the controversy over one mosque.

Similarly, the peaceful history of Muslims in America for three centuries has not helped to change American public opinion in light of the modern accusations of terrorism. Here lies the danger in these symbolic issues and controversies like the Ground Zero mosque. They possess the ability to narrow the horizon, stimulate prejudice, alter the context and blur the entire picture. What is even more dangerous is the ease with which those with ideological agendas can take up these kinds of causes any time they like. It starts with Muslims proposing an Islamic center near Ground Zero, which then raises the curiosity of the media who describe it as no more than something interesting. Then those with agendas come along to see how they can take advantage of the issue to their benefit. The Zionist lobby, for example, took advantage of the mosque proposal as a means to attach the events of September 11 to Islam as a whole rather than an extreme and deviant group of Muslims, while the extreme evangelical right took advantage of it in order to assert that Muslims don’t have the right to build their mosques on any piece of American land they wish — as it is not a right granted to them by citizenship, but is rather a right granted to them in the interest of tolerance, and which can be taken away at any moment. It also allowed the extremist Muslims to add the controversy to their list of justifications for the use of violence and force, gave them reason to dismiss those calling for religious dialogue and gave them a means by which to discourage American Muslims from integrating in a positive manner with their fellow citizens who live with them under one flag.