Busy as ever, Mr. Chaudry has been inviting non-Muslims to visit the Islamic Center, and after the service, in an adjoining room, Chaudry and the Center’s imam took their questions: Why were the women and men separated for prayers? Does the Qur’an prohibit women from driving? What’s the deal with sharia, and is it practiced […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Mosque At Basking Ridge: A Morality Tale? (Part 6)
The Guardian report continued: To some people in Basking Ridge, Chaudry’s struggle looked less noble. They saw his battle with the town government as a local political feud, which dated back to his tenure as an elected official, long before he ever proposed the mosque. Chaudry had first run for a seat on the town […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Mosque At Basking Ridge: A Morality Tale? (Part 5)
In Basking Ridge, New Jersey, the planning board several years ago rejected the local lslamic Society’s building plan for a new mosque. Among the objections were that the mosque’s visitors had been undercounted by 50%, that the parking lot attached to the mosque was too small for those visitors, that the mosque would be in the middle of […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Mosque At Basking Ridge: A Morality Tale? (Part 4)
The Guardian report continued: Around the time the hearings began, some residents received an anonymous piece of mail. Inside was a letter entitled “Meet Your New Neighbor”, and a CD containing a recording of a radio interview in which Chaudry had offered some mildly nuanced opinions on Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah. “Here in Basking Ridge, […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Mosque At Basking Ridge: A Morality Tale? (Part 3)
The Guardian report continues: How did a small-town property dispute turn into a religious war, with legal and symbolic implications for all of America? Part of the answer has to do with the country’s labyrinthine land-use laws, which leave most control to state and local governments, which are in turn vulnerable to the furies of […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Mosque At Basking Ridge: A Morality Tale? (Part 2)
The Guardian again: Basking Ridge is governed by a five-person elected committee, which meets in a repurposed Tudor-style mansion. (It previously belonged to John Jacob Astor VI, an American aristocrat whose father perished on the Titanic.) One evening last year, I attended a meeting – the first of many – at the town hall, where […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Mosque At Basking Ridge: A Morality Tale? (Part 1)
Here’s a story that earlier this year was being presented as a morality tale, where a good-hearted Muslim, Mr. Mohammad Ali Chaudry, wanted nothing more than to play by the rules in applying for permission to build a mosque, and was opposed by a town full of anti-Muslim bigots. But Good triumphed in the end, […]