Muslim Prayer Room Was Part of Life at Twin Towers

With the big mouths at Fox News and other demagogues continuing the rant about the proposed construction of a Muslim community center with blocks of the former world trade center, today the New York Times belatedly has a story that shows the rank idiocy of the "mosque" opponents. It seems that for over a decade, a Muslim prayer room existed in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center - a prayer room that was destroyed by the 9-11 terrorists along with the lives of Muslims who died in the collapse of the Twin Towers along with others of varying religions and nationalities. Given this belated story, the anti-Muslim religious bigots appear even more ridiculous that before. I continue to believe more and more that a world devoid of religion might be a far better place. Here are some story highlights:
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“So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.
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He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.
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On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.
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Leaping down the stairs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he had been installing ceiling speakers for a reinsurance company on the 49th floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam had a brief, panicked thought. He didn’t see any of the Muslims he recognized from the prayer room. Where were they? Had they managed to evacuate?
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Somewhere in the smoking, burning mountain of rubble lay whatever remained of the prayer room, and also of some of the Muslims who had used it.
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Given the vitriolic opposition now to the proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks from ground zero, one might say something else has been destroyed: the realization that Muslim people and the Muslim religion were part of the life of the World Trade Center.
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Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition
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[T]he room’s existence is etched in the memories of participants like Mr. Abdus-Salaam and Mr. Sareshwala. Prof. John L. Esposito of Georgetown University, an expert in Islamic studies, briefly mentions the prayer room in his recent book “The Future of Islam.”
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Such memories have been overtaken, though, by others. Mr. Siby’s cousin and roommate, a chef named Abdoul-Karim Traoré, died at Windows on the World on Sept. 11, as did at least one other Muslim staff member, a banquet server named Shabir Ahmed from Bangladesh.
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Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter [at Windows on the World], attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died.
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I hope that facts, reason and the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom will prevail. Meanwhile, the anti-Muslim Christianists and Fox News demagogues are little better than the Islamic extremists they claim to condemn. Their share that same mind set of hate.