This week’s article by Susan Slyomovics, delves into the the Muslim world emerging on New York City soil.
With the birth of the Muslim World Day Parade, Islamic followers living in New York City have a chance to express their religion to others. Similar to other ethnic related parades, such as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, people are given a taste of the Islamic culture through floats, banners, and the people marching in the parade. However, the Muslim World Day Parade is quite different from other parades. Instead of a celebration, the Muslim World Day Parade starts off with a mass prayer between Lexington Avenue and Thirty-third street, which acts as an outdoor mosque for the Islamic people. In addition, the banners don’t say advertisements, or “Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” but instead read out certain parts of the Qur’an to spread their religious views to others. One quote reads “The Qur’an is the guidance for all mankind,” which I would perceive as a sort of recruiting method to their faith. Also, you do not find women in exciting costumes, displayed on floats, or dancers of any sort, and it’s simply because their religion doesn’t condone these activities for the woman is sacred. Lastly, the floats are model replicas of famous mosques around the world. The Muslim perspective on the parade reveals a great deal about their culture.
If the parade doesn’t display the prominent Islamic communities found throughout New York City, then the newly emerging mosques will. First of all, mosques were not easy to find in the past because few to no Muslims ever lived in New York. So the urge to build mosques is understandable for Muslims because their religion calls for a place of worship to pray multiple times a day. The fascinating part though, is that Muslims are taking old storefronts and changing them in order to fit the needs of a mosque. Whether its through architectural changes, decorations, etc, old businesses of any kind are being transformed into these mosques. Even an old movie theater was transformed into a mosque. Not only do these mosques give Muslims a place to worship and pray, but it also strengthens the Muslim community.
The emergence of the Muslim people proves that the people that live in a neighborhood really make a difference. Immigrants before the Muslims had storefronts and businesses, but when Muslims arrived they turned these storefronts into houses of worship. The culture of the people living in the community have a huge effects on the the visuals, the food, the language, the businesses, and basically everything that makes up a neighborhood. Time will only tell to see if the next generation of immigrants will decide to the use the mosques as they were intended or for some other purpose.
