{"id":673,"date":"2010-08-13T15:55:59","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T15:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/08\/inside-the-ground-zero-mosque.html"},"modified":"2010-08-13T15:55:59","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T15:55:59","slug":"inside-the-ground-zero-mosque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/08\/inside-the-ground-zero-mosque.html","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Ground Zero Mosque"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two American muslims, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq<\/a>, have begun a 30-day roadtrip across America, in a goal of visiting 30 mosques in 30 days in 30 states<\/a> during Ramadan. They just started since yesterday was day 1 of Ramadan for most muslim communities – beginning their journey in New York (here’s their road map<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And I congratulate them on choosing to visit the current, makeshift mosque at 51 Park Street<\/a> as part of their first day. They have taken what probably are the only public photos of the current prayer space inside the location of the old Burlington Coat Factory building that exist on the Internet. These are a must-see, and really underscore the need for a proper mosque facility to serve lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Go check out what they thought<\/a> about the dreaded Park51 mosque and if you are able, chip in a few bucks to them to help them finance their road trip. These guys deserve our support!<\/p>\n

(and yes, of course it isn’t the “Ground Zero Mosque”, it’s really the “makeshift prayer space two blocks from Ground Zero” – but it’s still the epicenter of the furious nationwide debate. And yet, like the eye of any hurricane, it’s so peaceful inside…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two American muslims, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq, have begun a 30-day roadtrip across America, in a goal of visiting 30 mosques in 30 days in 30 states during Ramadan. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}