After reading yesterday's post "Assault at a Brooklyn Mosque" on Atlas Shrugs you might think that Majid al-Taqwa is unique – that Muslims at other mosques in the New York area do not accost Jews and Christians who venture near their establishments – that they do not haul them away for interrogation by Islamists in Ninja suits – that they do not maintain constant security to safeguard against any unwelcome intrusion, let alone a small standing army headed by a convicted felon.
You might believe that what took place last Saturday when an Islamist stormed from the mosque at 1226 Bedford Street to assault a reporter for taking a picture in front of the establishment on a public sidewalk to be an extraordinary occurrence brought on by intentional provocation.
You may be convinced that the majority of the 800,000 Muslims who presently live and worship in New York do not behave in such an aggressive manner and that they welcome kafirs to the 130 mosques that have sprouted up like mushrooms within the five boroughs. You may be convinced that the New York Police Department neglected to respond to calls from the investigative team for help to be aberrant happenstance – an insignificant gaffe caused by a failure to make the correct connection. You might even believe that the account represents gross exaggeration – yellow journalism that smacks of sheer sensationalism.
But what occurred at the Brooklyn mosque, where "moderate" imam Siraj Wahaj holds forth, takes place at Islamic centers throughout Manhattan.
After leaving Majid al-Taqwa, the team of journalists ventured into the Masjid al-Farooq Mosque at 554 Atlantic Avenue where they were prohibited from entering the building and denied the right to walk past the sentry guards. Moreover, the Islamic watchdogs at the al-Farooq Mosque also forbade the taking of pictures and demanded to know the reason for the visit.
If you fancy that al-Farooq is a place of no consequence, consider these facts: the plan for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center was hatched here; this Brooklyn mosque housed a cell of al Qaeda and raised over $20 million for bin Laden; it has also been reported that the squalid place serves as an arsenal where members withdraw crates of weapons and boxes of ammunition and haul them to the Calverton Shooting Range on Long Island for practice in guerrilla warfare.
Read the rest here.