Can’t help but wonder if on “Muslim Day” the theme park’s “six flags” will depict swords with the words “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” — you know, to better help foster a sense of Muslim community. “Muslim Day at Six Flags a time to relax and connect with others,” by Deborah Horan, for the Chicago Tribune, July 25:
On any other day, Sobia Ahmed would opt to forgo many of the snacks on offer at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee. To perform the Islamic prayers she recites five times a day, she likely would slip onto a secluded path at the amusement park or look for solace under a shady tree for a few furtive minutes.
“Furtive”? Thought “pious” better characterizes the minutes one spends praying?
This Saturday Ahmed and her family will eat and pray at their leisure in the park with hundreds of other Muslims from the Chicago area who plan to visit the sprawling entertainment center for a day catered especially to them.
For the fourth time since 2004, Six Flags in Gurnee is sponsoring Muslim Day, bringing in outside caterers to provide halal food and turning an amphitheater into a makeshift mosque to accommodate Muslims who observe dietary laws and strict prayer schedules. Muslims who plan to go say they appreciate the sense of community the event creates as well as the opportunity to talk about Islam with curious non-Muslims at the park.
“If you go on regular days, it’s kind of tough to find a place to pray,” said Ahmed, a stay-at-home mom from Bolingbrook who has attended previous Muslim Days at Six Flags with her husband and five children. “Usually we can’t eat the food, but now we can.”
Started in New Jersey by an interethnic Muslim organization called the Islamic Circle of North America
This, of course, is the same organization that is “listed in the infamous 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memo as participating in a ‘grand Jihad’ aimed at ‘eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.'” See here for more.
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For the Muslims’ prayer needs, the park chose an amphitheater near the restrooms so worshipers can perform ablutions beforehand. Two outside caterers will provide food that complies with Islamic standards of preparation.