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Mostly Cloudy Mosque invites community to barbecue
Muslims in Valley Stream reflect on world events and their consequences
When the Valley Stream Religious Council met with members of the mosque in North Valley Stream in July to discuss reports of harassment of the mosque’s parishioners, an idea was floated: invite the community there for an event at which people could meet local Muslims and learn about their religion.
That event will take place on Saturday, when Masjid Hamza, at 200 Stuart Ave., will host a barbecue that is open to all, from 3 to 6 p.m.
Two of the mosque’s members, Trustee Karim Mozawalla, 39, and Sameer Baig, 20, talked with the Herald in March about harassment and their take on recent events in the news, from the murders of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, N.C., in February to the rise of the Islamic State and the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. As they sat in a local eatery, Mozawalla’s eyes occasionally darted to the March Madness basketball game on a TV mounted nearby as he listened to questions.
“I think now, more so than ever — even more so, perhaps, than after 9/11 — the animosity is a lot more than ever before in the history of America,” he said of public sentiments about Muslims. He listed some recent incidents at his mosque: emails with hateful messages, vulgar voicemails, letters showing negative depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, and a crossing guard helping parishioners get to and from Friday prayers being harassed by passing drivers on several occasions.
“I can see where that animosity comes from,” Baig said. “I can see that if you’re a person who has been closed off and doesn’t actually research Islam on your own — if your only basis for making judgments on Islam is media, then you’re most likely gonna go in the direction that says that Islam is bad.”
Baig said he has never experienced outright prejudice, but he sees it constantly in online outlets. “On Facebook, people say everything,” he said. “With Islam, the narrative of discrimination has left,” and prejudice is aired openly and not treated as offensive in the way that other hate speech is.
Perversions of faith
