Mosque in America....Part IV... by Jamil Shawwa

A Muslim American friend who happened to be an African American told me once that the real Islam is not in the Muslim world or the Arab countries but it is here, the real on, in America. She continued to say that she toured many Islamic, Arab and European countries but never felt the freedom or the security to practice her religion, Islam, or to feel like an independent Muslim woman except here in the Unites States of America. Actually her feelings and her sentiments are shared by most Muslims in America, they are , as any faith and in particular the three divine religions free to practice, free to build their mosques, churches and synagogues. America lives to its example and it lives to its constitution and it lives to its secular way of governing. America does not have any problem with the head cover or even Elniqab, the veil that covers the face altogether. You see completely veiled women in the most fashionable places and hotels in Washington DC, people might look politely but no one interferes. America is big enough, strong enough, and confident enough, to be very tolerant and very forgiving, but above all, very pragmatic. America is smart and America is unique and within its wings, those big comforting wings, it can protect and embrace all kinds of people. As a matter of fact, America is the world, and that is why maybe nothing in America is strange. Yet though it has every human being from every part of the world, it is still the distinctive country, it created what I like to call and describe as the Americanism; the pure juice that oozes through the veins from being the melting pot and from being the blender and the mixer. Many people from all faiths who never practiced any religion or never practiced their religion in their original countries, started to practice even if occasionally once they arrived or shortly after to America. People whom never gave to charity, whom never thought of the community feeling or the community bondage, started to do it and feel it here in America. In defending those that for a religion, or ethnic reason are not considered part of the majority or part of the trend, America defends it's existence, America knows that to continue to be the most powerful nation on earth, it must embrace every human being, every American, regardless of his or her religion, background, color, ethnic group, This is the United States of America and this is the story of Mosque in America.