A clash of cultures
As mosques increase, Muslims are turning to courts to settle growing internal strife
mosques, the prayer space for Muslims, have doubled in number in the last 15 years, and the reasons might surprise you.
In 2000, the United Sates was home to 1,200 mosques. Now, there are 2,500 across the country serving the growing population of Muslims. One reason is the rising number of Muslim immigrants, children of those immigrants and converts. The number of American Muslims is disputed but ranges from 2.5 million to 7 million. Farid Senzai, a professor of political science at Santa Clara University who has written several studies on Muslim Americans, says 4.5 million may be the most accurate number. But Islam remains the fastestgrowing religion in the United States. More Muslims simply means more mosques, but that’s not all.
Integrating into mainstream
Muslims are becoming like Christians and Jews in the United States, taking their disputes to secular courts, or splitting up and building new prayer halls to serve various denominations and sects.
Mosques are integrating into mainstream America as an institution, as nonprofits that have to abide by rules of corporate governance and civil liberties. Oral traditions have become written. Women are fighting to join mosque boards, to pray side by side with the men instead of behind them. Muslim members of the LGBTQ community who are out are demanding entrance into these prayer halls. In Oakland, a Sufi imam has welcomed gays into the mosque. In Los Angeles, the first women-only American mosque opened in January. Many converts and the American-born children of immigrants want ethnically mixed mosques that serve the English language.
This is a tumultuous shift from mosques in most Islamic countries where elderly men or the state control the houses of worship. Saudi Arabia and Iran dictate and censor sermons and rules of the mosque. But the choices in the United States have sharpened tensions in Muslim communities.
“A cultural clash happens. Elders say this is how we do it, but the younger generation say this isn’t how it works in America,” Senzai said. “That has been an educational process. It’s the democratization of the mosque.”
Democracy entails debate and mosques are embroiled in arguments about sectarian beliefs, ideology, gender, ethnicity, homosexuality and language. The debates aren’t always resolved with civility. Violence can ensue but rarely. In one Sacramento mosque, a gun was brandished over a heated argument, Senzai said.
More common and indicative of anAmerican other change, Muslims who historically solved disputes inside their communities now drag each other to court. After six months of research, I found that civil lawsuits are a national trend in how mosques handle problems distinct to the American legal system. Millions of dollars of donor money have paid for these lawsuits in which Muslims are vying for power and control of mosques. Often, donors are unaware of how their money is spent. For example, Fremont’s Islamic Society of East Bay disbursed $150,000 on a two-year court battle. Ronni MacLaren, an Alameda Superior Court judge, earlier this month approved an arbitration ruling reinstating one board and kicking out another. Their argument was over membership and voting fraud.
Sometimes when one side loses the court case, it builds another prayer hall, adding to the number of American mosques. Those who avoid the courts divide into factions, gather their own congregation and open another mosque. Ordinarily when imams, Muslim preachers, and board members disagree, new mosques are on the horizon. Sadrullah Hamidi, who was the imam at the South San Francisco Fiji Jamaat-ul Islam of America, resigned recently mainly because the board was censoring his sermons, worshipers at the mosque said. Members who were his followers have left the mosque and are now praying with him in a public space until, or if, he opens his own mosque.
Colossal mistake over student
The Americanization of mosques — for better or worse — is an important reminder that Muslim communities are not foreign elements in the U.S. Hate crimes and violence against American Muslims have skyrocketed post-9/11 as the narrative that Muslims are harmful foreigners has gained unfortunate popularity in the U.S. Islamophobia has been on the rise, apparent earlier this month in how police arrested Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old in Texas, for bringing to school a clock he made, which law enforcement and school officials mistook for a bomb. Luckily, President Obama made up for the colossal mistake by inviting the young inventor to the White House.
Radicalization happens on the Internet and a few mosques — it is an urgent issue in the American Muslim community. More progressive Muslims are needed to stand up to the threat of Islamic extremism, and the schisms in mosques are a sign of a transitioning community fighting intolerance and extremism. It is essential for us Americans to accept each other with our differences and to understand that the growing Muslim population must go through its growing pains to find its place in secular America.