Farrakhan Promotes Anti-semetic books

Equality for Israeli Arabs Washington: ADL Addresses National Meeting of Attorneys General March is Women’s History Month Extremism at Home: Recent Trends KKK Report in the News Las Vegas: White Supremacy Gangs Step Up Recruitment Media Watch March 08, 2007 German Bishops Urged to Repudiate Holocaust Comparison Members of a delegation of German Bishops visiting Israel made remarks comparing the living conditions of West Bank Palestinians to those of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II. ADL called on the German Bishops’ Conference to publicly repudiate those remarks, which were made on the same day members of the delegation visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. More >> Anti-Semitism In The Arab World Cartoon of the Week Al-Gomhurriya, March 5, 2007 (Egypt) The “settlers” (left, presented as a stereotypical Jew with hooked nose) and the Israeli Occupation” (right) are about to fall over the cliff while carrying a bomb, labeled “provocation.” Click to Enlarge Equality for Israeli Arabs The importance of creating equality for Israeli Arabs while protecting Israel from assaults on its legitimacy from without and within was the subject of an op-ed by Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and Ken Jacobson, Deputy National Director, in the Jerusalem Post. The ADL leaders are members of the Executive Committee of the Interagency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues. More >> Washington: ADL Addresses National Meeting of Attorneys General ADL participated in a panel on “partnership opportunities” at a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C. ADL highlighted a wide array of cooperative efforts between ADL professionals and state Attorneys General in A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute and No Place for Hate® programs, hate crime counteraction and training initiatives, extremist group monitoring and investigation, and religious liberty issues. March is Women’s History Month To commemorate Women’s History Month ADL has developed a special “Classroom Resources” which brings stories of courageous and inspiring women like Rosa Parks and Shirley Chisholm to the forefront. More >> Extremism at Home: Recent Trends ADL highlighted certain key trends and developments in an overview of domestic extremist groups in the United States. More >> KKK Report in the News ADL’s Klu Klux Klan Report continues to generate widespread media coverage across the country and around the globe. The report has been the focus of numerous high-profile news stories and editorials, as well as television and radio reports since it was issued. In the News: Katie Couric's Notebook: The Ku Klux Klan (CBS News.com) 03/05/07 Supremacist Groups Use Immigration Issue to Recruit Members (NPR) 03/06/07 Las Vegas: White Supremacy Gangs Step Up Recruitment ADL raised concerns about white supremacy groups making a recruiting push in Las Vegas. In the News: KLAS-TV Media Watch KKK Resurgence Documented (LA Times) 02/28/07 Farrakhan Promotes Anti-Semitic Books (NY Times) 02/26/07 A Call to Candidates (Philadelphia Inquirer) 02/23/07 ©2007 Anti-Defamation League. All rights reserved. Donate | Change Your E-mail Address | Update your E-mail Preferences | Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy Unsubscribe shofar_7au@yahoo.com.aufrom this newsletter.

Prophecy News Update
March 9, 2007 St. Louis, MO Aurora, CO Topeka, KS March. 10 April 13 & 14 April 21 & 22 Omaha, NE South Bend, IN Des Moines, IA April 28 & 29 May 18 & 19 July 29 & 29		In This Issue Muslims converts face ostracism in France Record power for military laser Disabled newborns likely to face death 'Devastating response' if Iran nukes attacked Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike Olmert: Prepare for war with Syria New York: Targeted By Tehran? Post 9/11, Islam flourishes among blacks Anti-American feelings soar among Muslims, study finds U.S. could face another cold war with Russia Russia Discusses Its Coming War With America Texans fear US sovereignty will disappear down superhighway Christian belief a 'hate crime' under plan Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran Greenhouse effect is a myth, say scientists China to increase military spending Allegre's second thoughts Muslims enthusiastic, Christians apathetic about end times Lieberman party switch would give GOP control of Senate 9th Circuit endorses censoring Christians Homeland Security revives supersnoop Atomic Iran Gift of: $25 Item: D-AIR01 Freedom to Dictatorship Gift of: $25 Item: D-FTD01 About Us Become a Partaker Bookstore Contact Us Crusader Magazine Current Gift Offers Donations Lear Financial Media / Radio Meetings Radio Schedule
Muslims converts face ostracism in France Muslims are converting to Christianity in their thousands in France but face exclusion from their families and even death threats. Most Muslims hide their conversion and Protestant ministers do their utmost to protect new converts. It is estimated that every year in the world some six million Muslims convert to Christianity. The Muezzin call to prayer. But here in France it is no longer reaching all Muslim ears. Around 15,000 Muslims each year are converting to Christianity - around 10,000 to Catholicism and 5,000 to Protestantism. It is often a difficult and painful choice - one that can leave them excluded from their Muslim families and friends. Record power for military laser A laser developed for military use is a few steps away from hitting a power threshold thought necessary to turn it into a battlefield weapon. The Solid State Heat Capacity Laser (SSHCL) has achieved 67 kilowatts (kW) of average power in the laboratory. It could take only a further six to eight months to break the "magic" 100kW mark required for the battlefield, the project's chief scientist told the BBC. Potentially, lasers could destroy rockets, mortars or roadside bombs. Disabled newborns likely to face death The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a leading British medical college, has called on the health profession to debate openly the active euthanasia of seriously disabled newborns, and the Church of England supports it. The college believes the emotional and financial burden placed on parents of disabled children is a valid reason to consider the "mercy killings." "A very disabled child can mean a disabled family," stated a formal submission by the college. "If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome." 'Devastating response' if Iran nukes attacked JERUSALEM – Iran is anticipating a U.S. or Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities and has been providing Palestinian terrorists and other regional allies with contingency plans for attacks against the Jewish state and American regional interests in the event of war, according to Palestinian terrorist leaders. A senior leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group, which Israel says is backed by Iran, told WND Tehran is expecting to be attacked, but he didn't provide a time frame in which Iran anticipates a strike. He claimed during any attack his organization has been directed by Iran to "wreak havoc" on Israel with suicide bombings, rocket attacks and "special surprises." He said rocket attacks would be launched from both the Gaza Strip and from the West Bank, which borders Jerusalem. He threatened his terror group will target American interests in the Middle East whether any purported strike against Tehran is carried out by Israel or the U.S. "The Zionists and the Americans are coordinated 100 percent. It doesn't matter who attacks Iran, we are planning to hit them both," said the Islamic Jihad leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the topic was "very sensitive." Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon. A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons. "We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named. Olmert: Prepare for war with Syria While chances for all-out war with Syria in 2007 are deemed low by Israel's top intelligence officials, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert instructed the defense establishment on Sunday to prepare for the possibility. The cabinet heard intelligence assessments from the Mossad, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Military Intelligence, the National Security Council and the Foreign Ministry. Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin opened the briefing and told the ministers that "Israel is surrounded by negative processes... that create more instability in the Middle East than in the past." # Analysis: What the annual intelligence assessment doesn't say Yadlin and Mossad head Meir Dagan agreed that the chances for war with Syria are low, but they differed concerning the sincerity of Damascus's calls for peace talks. New York: Targeted By Tehran? March 5, 2007 issue - Increasing tensions between Washington and Tehran have revived New York Police Department concerns that Iranian agents may already have targeted the city for terror attacks. Such attacks could be aimed at bridges and tunnels, Jewish organizations and Wall Street, NYPD briefers told security execs last fall, according to a person with access to the briefing materials who asked for anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter. NYPD officials have worried about possible Iranian-sponsored attacks since a series of incidents involving officials of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations. In November 2003, Ahmad Safari and Alireaza Safi, described as Iranian Mission "security" personnel, were detained by transit cops when they were seen videotaping subway tracks from Queens to Manhattan at 1:10 in the morning. The men later left New York. "We're concerned that Iranian agents were engaged in reconnaissance that might be used in an attack against New York City at some future date," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told NEWSWEEK. A spokesman for the Iranian Mission in New York said he was aware of the allegations but had no immediate comment. Post 9/11, Islam flourishes among blacks ATLANTA (Reuters) - Islam is growing fast among African Americans, who are undeterred by increased scrutiny of Muslims in the United States since the September 11 attacks, according to imams and experts. Converts within the black community say they are attracted to the disciplines of prayer, the emphasis within Islam on submission to God and the religion's affinity with people who are oppressed. Some blacks are also suspicious of U.S. government warnings about the emergence of new enemies since the 2001 attacks because of memories of how the establishment demonized civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. As a result, they are willing to view Islam as a legitimate alternative to Christianity, the majority religion among U.S. blacks. "It is one of the fastest-growing religions in America," said Lawrence Mamiya, professor of religion at Vassar College, speaking of Islam among black Americans. He said there were up to 2 million black U.S. Muslims but acknowledged there are no precise figures. Anti-American feelings soar among Muslims, study finds The War on Terror has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted. Seven per cent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”. In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US. Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised. The surveys were carried out in 2005 and 2006. Along with an earlier Gallup survey in nine other countries in 2001, they represent the views of more than 90 per cent of the world’s Muslims. A further 1,500 Muslims in London, Paris and Berlin are involved in a separate poll to be published in April. U.S. could face another cold war with Russia A former military attaché who once carried the nuclear missile codes for former President Bill Clinton say he fears the U.S. may be headed into another "Cold War" with the Russians. Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Buzz Patterson is basing his assessment on the recent announcement by the Russian defense minister that the Russian military is going to sharply increase the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to be deployed this year. Sergei Ivanov says the Russian military will deploy 17 new ICBMs this year, a drastic rise compared with an average of four deployed annually in recent years. The missile purchases are part of a $189-billion weapons modernization program for 2007-2015. Buzz Patterson says U.S.-Russian relations have not been so good the past few years. Russia Discusses Its Coming War With America March 1, 2007: Russia is preparing for war with the United States and NATO. In theory anyway, according to their new official doctrine. Russia has come up with a new military doctrine, to replace the one published in 2000. Doctrine lets military commanders know what they should be preparing for, if the nation gets involved in a war with what appears to be the most likely opponents. One thing that has not changed between 2000 and 2007 is the official bad guys; it's still America and NATO. Old habits die hard, and Russia still sees itself as under siege by the United States and NATO, and a target for domination by "the West" (America and NATO.) While this seems absurd to Westerners, it is taken very seriously in Russia. Part of it is the lingering influence of seven decades of communist paranoia regarding the West. While Russia is no longer planning to attack the West (Russia is much too weak for that), they do try and keep the West from expanding to Russias borders. Thus when East European nations began joining NATO and the European Union, the Russians got really upset. This was big news in the Russian media, and the Russian government sent numerous nastygrams westward. Western nations were perplexed by all this hostility, and try to calm the Russians down. This new doctrine shows that the peacemaking effort was not very successful. Texans fear US sovereignty will disappear down superhighway If it were built, the road would be one of the engineering wonders of the 21st century -a trade route a quarter of a mile wide, carving a path from Mexico through the heart of America to Canada. In its most radical form, it would allow lorry drivers to travel hundreds of miles from the Mexican border deep into the US before reaching customs and immigration controls in Kansas. Map of the proposed route Backers of the idea, labelled the "Nafta Superhighway", after the North American trade pact, say it would revolutionise patterns of commerce across the continent and enhance the economic prospects of millions. But its critics say it could spell the end of US sovereignty. In arguments akin to those deployed by critics of the European Union, opponents say that opening borders will hit businesses, create a terrorist threat and allow illegal immigrants and drugs to flood in. Opposition is strongest in Texas, where the state's plans for a vast road project, known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, are well advanced. Once complete, the corridor could become the first leg of a Nafta Superhighway, crossing the Mexican border at the Rio Grande, near Laredo, and then pushing north to Kansas. It would include a toll road with 10 lorry and car lanes, a high-speed railway, and oil, gas and water pipelines. Christian belief a 'hate crime' under plan Americans worried about new "hate crime" legislation that could be used to make criminals of those whose religious faith doesn't endorse homosexuality could be facing a two-pronged attack, according to groups that monitor those developments. The newest threat is being prepared by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, whose work is being called "The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007," according to the Rev. Ted Pike, of the National Prayer Network. He said a letter to other members of the House was intercepted by Focus on the Family and indicated that it "gives the federal government even more power to create a bias motivation justice system, turning America into a police state." Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America and Pike both had alerted their constituencies earlier to H.R. 254, or the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which could create "anti-hate" restrictions and penalties. Marcavage told WND that plan would invert American justice, and instead of requiring evidence it would leave it to someone who claims to be offended to determine whether a "crime" has been committed. "Truth is not allowed as evidence in hate crimes trials. … A homosexual can claim emotional damage from hearing Scripture that describes his lifestyle as an abomination. He can press charges against the pastor or broadcaster who merely reads the Bible in public. The 'hater' can be fined thousands of dollars and even imprisoned!" Marcavage said. So there immediately was a flood of calls to Congress with opposition to H.R. 254 and it appeared that the plan might not make it out of committee. In fact, records show it still is pending in the House Judiciary Committee Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran An American biodefense analyst living in Europe says if the U.S. invades Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions, Syria is ready to respond with weapons of mass destruction – specifically biological weapons. "Syria is positioned to launch a biological attack on Israel or Europe should the U.S. attack Iran," Jill Bellamy-Dekker told WND. "The Syrians are embedding their biological weapons program into their commercial pharmaceuticals business and their veterinary vaccine-research facilities. The intelligence service oversees Syria's 'bio-farm' program and the Ministry of Defense is well interfaced into the effort." Bellamy-Decker currently directs the Public Health Preparedness program for the European Homeland Security Association under the French High Committee for Civil Defense. She anticipates a variation of smallpox is the biological agent Syria would utilize. Lieberman party switch would give GOP control of Senate Investigative journalist and author Jerome Corsi says if the Democrats do not tread carefully with Senator Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut lawmaker could bolt to the GOP, which would effectively return control of the Senate back to the Republicans. While Lieberman says he has no immediate plans to switch parties, some believe he might change his mind if the Democrats move to de-fund the war in Iraq. Corsi says the Democrats have already punished the Connecticut senator for his support of the war, when he was forced to run as an Independent in his re-election effort last year. "He was strongly opposed by the Democrats, even though he'd been the Democratic Party candidate for vice president with Al Gore in 2000," Corsi observes. "Basically," he says, "Lieberman's a very strong supporter of the U.S. military." But the Democrats do not want anyone opposing their anti-war platform now, Corsi points out. "The balancing act the Democrats have got to [do] is that while their presidential candidates are moving farther to the left opposing the war, Lieberman's now facing that same internal pressure in the Democratic Party," he says. Greenhouse effect is a myth, say scientists Research said to prove that greenhouse gases cause climate change has been condemned as a sham by scientists. A United Nations report earlier this year said humans are very likely to be to blame for global warming and there is "virtually no doubt" it is linked to man's use of fossil fuels. But other climate experts say there is little scientific evidence to support the theory. In fact global warming could be caused by increased solar activity such as a massive eruption. Their argument will be outlined on Channel 4 this Thursday in a programme called The Great Global Warming Swindle raising major questions about some of the evidence used for global warming. Ice core samples from Antarctica have been used as proof of how warming over the centuries has been accompanied by raised CO2 levels. China to increase military spending BEIJING - China will boost military spending by 17.8 percent this year, a spokesman for the national legislature said Sunday, continuing more than a decade of double-digit annual increases that have raised concerns among the United States and China's neighbors. John Negroponte, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, urged China to be more open about its military buildup. "We think it's important in our dialogue that we understand what China's plans and intentions are," said Negroponte, who was visiting Beijing on Sunday. Underscoring the concerns about China's military, the legislature's spokesman, Jiang Enzhu, also accused the president of Taiwan of manipulating political divisions there to steer it toward formal independence. China's military spending is largely oriented toward possible conflicts over Taiwan, which split with the mainland in 1949 and has refused Beijing's offers for peaceful reunification. Jiang said Taiwanese voters would abandon President Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence stance has drawn criticism from China. Allegre's second thoughts Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, for example, has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Dr. Allegre, a renowned geochemist, wrote 20 years ago in Cles pour la geologie.." Fifteen years ago, Dr. Allegre was among the 1500 prominent scientists who signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," a highly publicized letter stressing that global warming's "potential risks are very great" and demanding a new caring ethic that recognizes the globe's fragility in order to stave off "spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse." Muslims enthusiastic, Christians apathetic about end times Pro-Israel ministry leader Jan Markell says she is frustrated that many Christians are apathetic about the idea of the glorious return of Jesus Christ while Muslims, for the most part, demonstrate intense passion and fervor about their belief in the imminent return of their Islamic "messiah." She believes "seeker-sensitive" churches are partly to blame. Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, says Muslims around the world, particularly in Iran and Iraq, are causing death, violence, and destruction in attempts to hasten the return of the one they regard as the ultimate savior of mankind, their so-called twelfth Imam or Mahdi. 9th Circuit endorses censoring Christians A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers. The ruling came in a case being handled by the Pro-Family Law Center, which promised an appeal of the drastic result. "We are going to take this case right up the steps of the United States Supreme Court," said Richard D. Ackerman, who along with Scott Lively argued the case for the Pro-Family Law Center. Homeland Security revives supersnoop Homeland Security officials are testing a supersnoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations. The system uses the same data-mining process that was developed by the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that was banned by Congress in 2003 because of vast privacy violations. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation of the project called ADVISE -- Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement -- was requested by Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The investigation focuses on whether the program violates privacy laws, and the findings will be released after completion of the Iraq war supplemental spending bill, possibly as early as this week, a panel aide said. The ADVISE and TIA data-mining projects rely on personal data to track individual behavior and consumer transactions to develop computer algorithms that create a pattern that some behavioral scientists say can predict terrorist behavior.

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Prophecy News Update
March 16, 2007 St. Louis, MO Aurora, CO Topeka, KS March. 10 April 13 & 14 April 21 & 22 Omaha, NE South Bend, IN Des Moines, IA April 28 & 29 May 18 & 19 July 29 & 29		In This Issue Pentagon Concerned With Beijing's Strategic Nuclear-forces Build-up New Book Claims that America is 'Religiously Illiterate' Russia capable of hitting US missile shield: general Sunni and Shiite division has come to America Plans For Third Jewish Temple Developing Hundreds of Hamas terrorists training in Syria, Iran Israel training for war with Iran, Syria? Would Israel attack Iran? Depends who you ask Poll: More Americans pro-Israeli Islam could become Europe’s dominant religion Iran poised to strike in wealthy Gulf states Hello to less privacy Futuristic Uses for RFID Scripture-Affirming Creation Museum Set to Open in June Muslims enthusiastic, Christians apathetic about end times Average American owns three copies of the Bible, but doesn't read any of them BBC survey: Iran, Israel, U.S. have most negative image worldwide; Canada best Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran UFO science key to halting climate change: former Canadian defense minister Atomic Iran Gift of: $25 Item: D-AIR01 Freedom to Dictatorship Gift of: $25 Item: D-FTD01 About Us Become a Partaker Bookstore Contact Us Crusader Magazine Current Gift Offers Donations Lear Financial Media / Radio Meetings Radio Schedule
Pentagon Concerned With Beijing's Strategic Nuclear-forces Build-up China's military is engaged in a major buildup of submarines that includes five new strategic nuclear-missile boats and several advanced nuclear-powered attack submarines, according to the Office of Naval Intelligence. The new nuclear-powered missile submarines (SSBNs), identified as Type 094s, will be outfitted with new 5,000-mile range JL-2 missiles that "will provide China with a modern and robust sea-based nuclear deterrent force," the ONI stated in report made up of written answers to questions on the Chinese submarine buildup. The ONI report was first disclosed to Sea Power magazine, and a copy was obtained by The Washington Times. It was the first time the Pentagon has identified the number of new Chinese strategic submarines under construction. The five new missile submarines will "provide more redundancy and capacity for a near-continuous at-sea SSBN presence," the ONI said, which noted that sea trials for some of the submarines are under way and the first deployments could begin as early as next year. The buildup is raising new concerns among senior Pentagon planners already worried by Beijing's broader strategic nuclear-forces buildup, which also includes several new long-range land-based nuclear missiles and a land-attack cruise missile similar to the Tomahawk. New Book Claims that America is 'Religiously Illiterate' America is one of the most religious countries in the world, but shamefully one of the most religiously illiterate places, a Boston University professor claims. Stephen Prothero, writer of the new book Religious Literacy and chair of the Department of Religion at BU, notes that most Americans know little to nothing about religion, but states the importance of a basic knowledge in it. He feels that it is so essential that he even promotes the teaching of religion in school, a controversial statement against the separation of church and state. "We have a major civic problem on our hands,” explains the author on the Harper Collins website, the main company of the publisher of the book, HarperSanFrancisco. Russia capable of hitting US missile shield: general Russia's bomber force would have no trouble destroying planned US missile defense sites in Europe, its head said Monday as the country's security council warned of new policies to counter NATO. "Since the components of the anti-missile defence system are weakly protected, all types of our aircraft are capable of using electronic countermeasures against them and physically destroying them," Interfax news agency quoted Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov as saying. The Kremlin has fiercely protested US plans to install an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Washington insists it would not be aimed at Russia but designed to counter attacks from countries such as Iran and North Korea. Khvorov also said Russia is modernizing its fleet of Tu-160 strategic bombers, with two updated versions of the aircraft expected to be ready this year. Known as Blackjack to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Tu-160 is a highly manoeuvrable supersonic strategic bomber. Meanwhile the national security council said Russia is to adopt a new military doctrine in response to the "strengthening" of NATO forces, in the latest sign of worsening relations between the two sides. Sunni and Shiite division has come to America An author and expert on Islam says the burgeoning Muslim population in places like Dearborn, Michigan, has led to the same kind of Sunni-Shiite divisions that have characterized the Middle East. But despite the division, he says both groups consider the U.S. as "The Great Satan" and want to see it dominated by Islam. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He says in the past Sunnis and Shiites in America had to be together, usually in a mosque controlled by the larger Sunni population. But now Spencer says the two groups are separating and having the same kind of tensions that we see in the Middle East. The division has come about, he says, because so many Muslims have moved into the area. Plans For Third Jewish Temple Developing It's been nearly 2,000 years since Jews celebrated Passover at the Temple in Jerusalem, but that will change soon if a growing Orthodox Jewish movement in Israel has its way. "The present-day Sanhedrin Court decided Tuesday to purchase a herd of sheep for ritual sacrifice at the site of the Temple on the eve of Passover, conditions on the Temple Mount permitting," the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday. "The modern Sanhedrin was established several years ago and is headed by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. It claims to be renewing the ancient Jewish high court, which existed until roughly 1600 years ago, and meets once a week. Professor Hillel Weiss, a member of the Sanhedrin, told Haaretz on Tuesday that the action, even if merely symbolic, is designed to demonstrate in a way that is obvious to all that the expectation of Temple rituals will resume is real, and not just talk. Several years ago, a number of members of the various Temple movements performed a symbolic sacrifice on Givat Hananya, which overlooks the Temple Mount from Jerusalem's Abu Tur neighborhood. During the ceremony, participants sacrificed a young goat that was donated by a resident of Tekoa. The participants also built a special two-meter tall oven, in accordance with halakha (Jewish law).The Passover sacrifice is considered a simple ceremony, relative to other works performed in the Temple." Hundreds of Hamas terrorists training in Syria, Iran Hundreds of Hamas members are being smuggled across the Rafah border terminal to Egypt to attend advanced terror training camps in Syria and Iran, senior defense officials told Ynet. In recent days Israel has filed a complaint with the European Union, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt claiming that the European inspectors at Rafah do not maintain tight enough supervision at the crossing, and fail to stop the stream of terrorists and money used to fund terror in and out of Gaza. Top Israeli defense officials expressed great concern over the increased use of the Rafah crossing for terror purposes. If the EU inspectors don’t clamp down on money smuggling and the passage of terrorists, Israel may consider not renewing the agreements on Rafah crossing supervision when they expire in two months, the officials warned. Israel training for war with Iran, Syria? Israel this week conducted military training exercises in a Palestinian city for a possible war scenario against Syria or Iran, top Palestinian intelligence officials claimed to WND. The Israel Defense Forces today completed a week-long, large-scale operation in Nablus, the largest West Bank Arab city. The operation, codenamed "Hot Winter," utilized four IDF battalions, reservists and border police guards and purportedly was aimed at arresting top wanted terror leaders in the city. Nablus is a stronghold of several major Palestinian terror organizations, most notably the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party. The Brigades and Islamic Jihad are responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel the past two years. During the large operation, the IDF did not arrest any top terror suspects, but the army said it found three weapons factories as well as an arms cache. One top Palestinian intelligence official said he found the operation "unusual" in that it involved a rotation of Israeli forces and "didn't achieve anything militarily as far as fighting terrorism." Would Israel attack Iran? Depends who you ask Israel has long been the wild card in debates on the Iranian nuclear program -- a country that while formally outside negotiations, has lobbying clout given its strategic fears and penchant for pre-emptive strikes. But Israeli officials, once quick to project military menace in the face of what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called an "existential threat", are increasingly taking a softer public line on how to meet Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment. It appears that many Israelis have grudgingly decided that Iran is too tough an enemy for their armed forces to take on alone -- and that the international community senses this too. "The last thing Israel is interested in is an escalation or some military action against Iran," said Avigdor Lieberman, the usually ultra-hawkish Israeli strategic affairs minister. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who suggested a year ago that Israel consider attacking Iran in a mission akin to its 1981 air strike on Iraq's atomic reactor, is now redirecting his rhetoric to calls for crippling Western sanctions on Tehran. "There's no question that if stiffer measures are needed, it's better that the United States lead the way," Netanyahu told foreign reporters last month. Poll: More Americans pro-Israeli Americans are more pro-Israeli in their views today than they were 10 and 20 years ago, but they are also more polarized, according to a recent Gallup poll. Sympathy for Israelis has increased substantially, and sympathy for Palestinians has increased slightly. The percentage of Americans who are impartial regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute - either favoring both sides, favoring neither side or having no opinion - has decreased. A combined 78 percent of Americans favor either the Israelis or Palestinians, while 22% are impartial. Two years ago, 30% of Americans said they were impartial, while 14 years ago 43% said they were. The random poll of 1,007 adults was carried out on February 4-7 and has a 3% margin of error. The figures have varied slightly from year to year, but averaging all polls conducted from 1993-1999 and comparing these with all polls conducted since 2000, Gallup trends show that the average level of sympathy for Israelis rose from 41% to 53%, while the average sympathy for Palestinians rose from 13% to 16%. Islam could become Europe’s dominant religion As the Anglican Communion continues to fight over homosexuality and as church attendance plummets, experts say that Islam is well on its way to becoming the most dominant religion in Europe, according to an article posted on CNSNews.com. Meeting in London this week in their General Synod, leaders of the Church of England continued to debate the role of gay and lesbian priests. This follows another meeting in Tanzania in which Anglican bishops issued an official warning over the matter to the Episcopal Church – the American wing of the communion. Meanwhile, research studies show that church attendance in Britain is dropping precipitously, as well as across the whole of Western Europe. According to Christian Research, a British think tank, only 6.3 percent of the British population in 2005 attended Christian services on a weekly basis. But while church attendance on the continent reportedly shows a similar decline, the Muslim population has exploded, said the CNSNews.com article. It quoted experts as saying that in recent years, young European Muslims had been returning to the faith which their parents observed only sporadically, becoming much more devout. Christian Research said that in 35 years, there would be twice as many Muslims in mosques on Friday as there are Christians in churches on Sunday. Iran poised to strike in wealthy Gulf states Iran has trained secret networks of agents across the Gulf states to attack Western interests and incite civil unrest in the event of a military strike against its nuclear programme, a former Iranian diplomat has told The Sunday Telegraph. Spies working as teachers, doctors and nurses at Iranian-owned schools and hospitals have formed sleeper cells ready to be "unleashed" at the first sign of any serious threat to Teheran, it is claimed. Trained by Iranian intelligence services, they are also said to be recruiting fellow Shias in the region, whose communities have traditionally been marginalised by the Gulf's ruling Sunni Arab clans. Were America or Israel to attack Iran, such cells would be instructed to foment long-dormant sectarian grievances and attack the ex-tensive American and European business interests in wealthy states such as Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Such a scenario would bring chaos to the Gulf, one of the few areas of the Middle East that remains prosperous and has largely pro-Western governments. The claims have been made by Adel Assadinia, a former career diplomat who was Iran's consul-general in Dubai and an adviser to the Iranian foreign ministry. They came as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, made a formal visit to Saudi Arabia yesterday in what was widely seen as an attempt to defuse growing Sunni-Shia tensions in the Middle East. Hello to less privacy Oh, for the good old days when all we worried about was Big Brother government watching us. Too late: Now we have Little Brother to contend with, too — and he has a camera phone. Little Brother could be a fed-up straphanger on a subway, a sneaky student in class, maybe a ticked-off guy in the audience. Or a vengeful ex-lover or jealous friends looking to embarrass an American Idol contestant. Here in YouTube world, whether you're a celebrity or a nobody, privacy can be a disappearing luxury, thanks to the technology in every pocket. While you're fretting about whether the government is listening to your phone calls, your neighbor is sneaking pictures of you on his cellphone or his digital camera — and sharing them with the world. "Pandora's out of the box," says Susannah Stern, a University of San Diego professor who studies modern communications. "If the government is tracking calls, most people aren't going to feel the repercussions. They're more affected if a compromising photo gets on the Internet — that's a personal invasion they can see." In the old days, kids would go on spring break, get drunk, take off their clothes, and few people would know. Now those kinds of pictures flicker 24/7 on the Internet, which means anyone on the planet can see them, including the college admissions officer or the potential employer. Futuristic Uses for RFID Wal-Mart swears by it, CASPIAN thinks it’s the devil in disguise, the government hopes to profit from it, and the common man is confused by all the hype surrounding it – love it or hate it, there’s no turning back the clock on RFID folks, this is one technology that’s here to stay and go places. It’s being used in numerous applications, from tracking items along the supply chain to monitoring the whereabouts of kids and the elderly. It’s been kicking up a storm of privacy issues, and the FDA approval for VeriChip to implant human beings in the name of medical advances hasn’t done anything to settle the dust. Even as the controversies rage on about the lack of unifying frequency standards, the high cost of supporting infrastructure and the perceived threat to individual privacy, RFID is making rapid inroads into each of our lives, visibly or stealthily. Stealing a march on the technology, we look a few years ahead, and unveil for you a list of some applications, some of which are in pilot phases, a few that are just brilliant ideas, and others that are actually in the RFID pipeline. 1. The Road Beacon System: A system where the tags are embedded on roads or along the pavement with readers being fitted on the bodies of automobiles. Drivers will be provided with speed limit and position information besides being warned of possible accidents. Word on the street is that this technology will cause a significant drain in the government exchequer, so this is one application that will take time to gain popularity. 2. Electronic car security: Thieves will think twice about breaking into your car with this application in which car keys are connected wirelessly to the onboard management device that controls all aspects of the engine. On an unauthenticated entry, the complete system shuts down. Afraid the crooks will get hold of your keys? Then imitate this couple – they got themselves implanted with RFID tags that act as keys to their cars, houses and computers. 3. Replacement for the postage stamp: The humble postage stamp is all set to get a facelift; it will contain a transponder that postal officials can use to rout it to its destination and cancel after it’s been used. Scripture-Affirming Creation Museum Set to Open in June A state-of-the-art museum dedicated to the biblical account of creation will open this spring in northern Kentucky. The 50,000-square-foot Creation Museum, which is located in the Greater Cincinnati area, is scheduled to open its doors on Memorial Day. The Creation Museum is a project of Answers in Genesis (AiG), an apologetics ministry based in Kentucky. The new attraction will feature many educational displays, including life-size dinosaur models, fossil and mineral collections, and other live exhibits designed to teach and to proclaim the authority of biblical scripture. Dr. Ken Ham, president of AiG, says the $27-million project will be more than just entertaining. "It's as good as anything Disneyland or Universal Studios could do, but it's not entertainment; it's 'edutainment,'" he insists. "It's education, using these exhibits." As interesting as the museum itself promises to be, Ham believes it will be just as interesting to watch how it is received. "I believe it's going to make not just an impact in the Creation world and not just an impact in North America," he says, "but an impact in Christendom. I believe it's going to be a significant event in Christendom when this museum is open." Muslims enthusiastic, Christians apathetic about end times Pro-Israel ministry leader Jan Markell says she is frustrated that many Christians are apathetic about the idea of the glorious return of Jesus Christ while Muslims, for the most part, demonstrate intense passion and fervor about their belief in the imminent return of their Islamic "messiah." She believes "seeker-sensitive" churches are partly to blame. Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, says Muslims around the world, particularly in Iran and Iraq, are causing death, violence, and destruction in attempts to hasten the return of the one they regard as the ultimate savior of mankind, their so-called twelfth Imam or Mahdi. "When I look at the enthusiasm that some of the Islamic people are perpetrating for this Islamic Mahdi to return, they are absolutely adamant that there's a great day coming," the ministry spokeswoman says, "and that the Islamic messiah ... is going to transform the Earth." Unfortunately, she notes, she does not see the same kind of enthusiasm among Christians for the prophesied return of the biblical Messiah. "Part of this is because the church has dropped this issue of Jesus Christ's Second Coming so that the church can be more seeker sensitive and not be divisive," Markell asserts. The contemporary church has set this topic aside, she says, "and therefore, the congregation isn't by nature apathetic -- they don't know anything." Average American owns three copies of the Bible, but doesn't read any of them Woodrow Kroll of Back to the Bible says a new survey shows biblical illiteracy is one of the biggest problems facing the Church in America. According to the Christian ministry president, research shows that the average American owns three copies of the Bible, but doesn't read any of them. Back to the Bible surveyed 12,000 people in an effort to learn about the Bible-reading habits of Christians. Kroll, commenting on the issue of Bible illiteracy during an interview on Mission Network News, noted that an increase of modern translations of the Bible appears not to have resulted in more people reading God's Word, as Bible translators had hoped would happen. "When I was growing up, we blamed Bible illiteracy on King James," the ministry spokesman says. "Well, now we have 35 or so modern translation Bibles. We're dumber now than we were back then. One of the things we've already learned from our survey is this -- there is a direct correlation between how much time a person spends in the Word and how easy they believe it is to understand." Christians who do not read God's Word are stagnant in their spiritual walk, Kroll contends. "In the area of morality, we rob ourselves of a moral position if we don't know the Word of God," he says. "I think we also rob ourselves of the ability to move on toward spiritual maturity. We get stuck in spiritual infancy, and that's a clear detriment that comes from not reading the Bible." BBC survey: Iran, Israel, U.S. have most negative image worldwide; Canada best Israel, Iran and the United States are the countries with the most negative image in a globe-spanning survey of attitudes toward 12 major countries. Canada and Japan came out best in the poll, released Tuesday. The survey for the British Broadcasting Corp.'s World Service asked more than 28,000 people to rate 12 countries - Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the United States and Venezuela - as having a positive or negative influence on the world. Israel was viewed negatively by 56 per cent of respondents and positively by 17 per cent; for Iran, the figures were 54 per cent and 18 per cent. The United States had the third-highest negative ranking, with 51 per cent citing it as a bad influence and 30 per cent as a good one. Next was North Korea, which was viewed negatively by 48 per cent and positively by 19 per cent. Canada had the most positive rating in the survey of 28,389 people in 27 countries, with 54 per cent viewing it positively and 14 per cent negatively. It was followed by Japan and France. Respondents were also asked their views of the 25-member European Union; 53 per cent saw it as positive and 19 per cent as negative. Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran An American biodefense analyst living in Europe says if the U.S. invades Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions, Syria is ready to respond with weapons of mass destruction – specifically biological weapons. "Syria is positioned to launch a biological attack on Israel or Europe should the U.S. attack Iran," Jill Bellamy-Dekker told WND. "The Syrians are embedding their biological weapons program into their commercial pharmaceuticals business and their veterinary vaccine-research facilities. The intelligence service oversees Syria's 'bio-farm' program and the Ministry of Defense is well interfaced into the effort." Bellamy-Decker currently directs the Public Health Preparedness program for the European Homeland Security Association under the French High Committee for Civil Defense. She anticipates a variation of smallpox is the biological agent Syria would utilize. "The Syrians are also working on orthopox viruses that are related to smallpox," Bellamy-Decker said, "and it's a good way to get around international treaties against offensive biological weapons development. They work on camelpox as a cover for smallpox." According to the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, camelpox is a virus closely related to smallpox, that causes a "severe and economically important disease in camels," but rarely, if ever, causes the disease in humans. UFO science key to halting climate change: former Canadian defense minister A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday. "I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet," Paul Hellyer, 83, told the Ottawa Citizen. Alien spacecrafts would have traveled vast distances to reach Earth, and so must be equipped with advanced propulsion systems or used exceptional fuels, he told the newspaper. Such alien technologies could offer humanity alternatives to fossil fuels, he said, pointing to the enigmatic 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico -- which has become a shrine for UFO believers -- as an example of alien contact. "We need to persuade governments to come clean on what they know. Some of us suspect they know quite a lot, and it might be enough to save our planet if applied quickly enough," he said. Hellyer became defense minister in former prime minister Lester Pearson's cabinet in 1963, and oversaw the controversial integration and unification of Canada's army, air force and navy into the Canadian Forces. He shocked Canadians in September 2005 by announcing he once saw a UFO.

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Between Black and Immigrant Muslims, an Uneasy Alliance

James Estrin/The New York Times

Dr. Faroque Khan, left, and Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid serve very different mosques, one on Long Island and one in Harlem.

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Published: March 11, 2007- NYT

Under the glistening dome of a mosque on Long Island, hundreds of men sat cross-legged on the floor. Many were doctors and engineers born in Pakistan and India. Dressed in khakis, polo shirts and the odd silk tunic, they fidgeted and whispered.

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James Estrin/The New York Times

Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid at a rally against profiling.

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James Estrin/The New York Times

Dr. Faroque Khan in prayer on Long Island,

One thing stood between them and dinner: A visitor from Harlem was coming to ask for money.

A towering black man with a gray-flecked beard finally swept into the room, his bodyguard trailing him. Wearing a long, embroidered robe and matching hat, he took the microphone and began talking about a different group of Muslims, the thousands of African-Americans who have found Islam in prison.

“We are all brothers and sisters,” said the visitor, known as Imam Talib.

The men stared. To some of them, it seemed, he was from another planet. As the imam returned their gaze, he had a similar sensation. “They live in another world,” he later said.

Only 28 miles separate Imam Talib’s mosque in Harlem from the Islamic Center of Long Island. The congregations they each serve — African-Americans at the city mosque and immigrants of South Asian and Arab descent in the suburbs — represent the largest Muslim populations in the United States. Yet a vast gulf divides them, one marked by race and class, culture and history.

For many African-American converts, Islam is an experience both spiritual and political, an expression of empowerment in a country they feel is dominated by a white elite. For many immigrant Muslims, Islam is an inherited identity, and America a place of assimilation and prosperity.

For decades, these two Muslim worlds remained largely separate. But last fall, Imam Talib hoped to cross that distance in a venture that has become increasingly common since Sept. 11. Black Muslims have begun advising immigrants on how to mount a civil rights campaign. Foreign-born Muslims are giving African-Americans roles of leadership in some of their largest organizations. The two groups have joined forces politically, forming coalitions and backing the same candidates.

It is a tentative and uneasy union, seen more typically among leaders at the pulpit than along the prayer line. But it is critical, a growing number of Muslims believe, to surviving a hostile new era.

“Muslims will not be successful in America until there is a marriage between the indigenous and immigrant communities,” said Siraj Wahhaj, an African-American imam in New York with a rare national following among immigrant Muslims. “There has to be a marriage.”

The divide between black and immigrant Muslims reflects a unique struggle facing Islam in America. Perhaps nowhere else in the world are Muslims from so many racial, cultural and theological backgrounds trying their hands at coexistence. Only in Mecca, during the obligatory hajj, or pilgrimage, does such diversity in the faith come to life, between black and white, rich and poor, Sunni and Shiite.

“This is a new experiment in the history of Islam,” said Ali S. Asani, a professor of Islamic studies at Harvard University.

That evening in October, Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid drove to Westbury, on Long Island, with a task he would have found unthinkable years ago.

He would ask for donations from the immigrant community he refers to, somewhat bitterly, as the “Muslim elite.”

But he needed funds, and the doors of immigrant mosques seemed to be opening. Imam Talib and other African-American leaders had formed a national “indigenous Muslim” organization, and he knew that during the holy month of Ramadan, the Islamic Center of Long Island could raise thousands of dollars in an evening.

It is a place where BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes fill the parking lot, and Coach purses are perched along prayer lines.

In Harlem, many of Imam Talib’s congregants get to the mosque by bus or subway, and warm themselves with space heaters in a drafty, brick building.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Imam Talib had only a distant connection to the Islamic Center of Long Island. In passing, he had met Faroque Khan, an Indian-born doctor who helped found the mosque, but the two had little in common.

Imam Talib, 56, is a thundering prison chaplain whose mosque traces its roots to Malcolm X. He is a first-generation Muslim.

Dr. Khan, 64, is a mild-mannered pulmonologist who collects Chinese antiques and learned to ski on the slopes of Vermont. He is a first-generation American.

But in the turmoil that followed Sept. 11, the imam and the doctor found themselves unexpectedly allied.

“The more separate we stay, the more targeted we become,” Dr. Khan said.

Each man recognizes what the other has to offer. African-Americans possess a cultural and historical fluency that immigrants lack, said Dr. Khan; they hold an unassailable place in America from which to defend their faith.

For Imam Talib, immigrants provide a crucial link to the Muslim world and its tradition of scholarship, as well as the wisdom that comes with an “unshattered Islamic heritage.”

Both groups have their practical virtues, too. African-Americans know better how to mobilize in America, both men say, and immigrants tend to have deeper pockets.

Still, it is one thing to talk about unity, Imam Talib said, and another to give it life. Before his visit to Long Island last fall, he had never asked Dr. Khan and his mosque to match their rhetoric with money.

“You have to have a litmus test,” he said.

One Faith, Many Histories

Imam Talib and Dr. Khan did not warm to each other when they met in May 2000, at a gathering in Chicago of Muslim leaders.

The imam found the silver-haired doctor faintly smug and paternalistic. It was an attitude he had often whiffed from well-to-do immigrant Muslims. Dr. Khan found Imam Talib straightforward to the point of bluntness.

The uneasy introduction was, for both men, emblematic of the strained relationship between their communities.

Imam Talib and other black Muslims trace their American roots to the arrival of Muslims from West Africa as slaves in the South. That historical link gave rise to Islam-inspired movements in the 20th century, the most significant of which was the Nation of Islam.

The man who founded the Nation in 1930, W. D. Fard, spread the message that American blacks belonged to a lost Muslim tribe and were superior to the “white, blue-eyed devils” in their midst. Under Mr. Fard’s successor, Elijah Muhammad, the Nation flourished in the 1960s amid the civil rights struggle and the emergence of a black-separatist movement.

Overseas, Islamic scholars found the group’s teachings on race antithetical to the faith. The schism narrowed after 1975, when Mr. Muhammad’s son Warith Deen Mohammed took over the Nation, bringing it in line with orthodox Sunni Islam. Louis Farrakhan parted ways with Mr. Mohammed — taking the Nation’s name and traditional teachings with him — but the majority of African-American adherents came to embrace the same Sunni practice that dominates the Muslim world.

Still, divisions between African-American and immigrant Muslims remained pronounced long after the first large waves of South Asians and Arabs arrived in the United States in the 1960s.

Today, of the estimated six million Muslims who live in the United States, about 25 percent are African-American, 34 percent are South Asian and 26 percent are Arab, said John Zogby, a pollster who has studied the American Muslim population.

“Given the extreme from which we came, I would say that the immigrant Muslims have been brotherly toward us,” Warith Deen Mohammed, who has the largest following of African-American Muslims, said in an interview. “But I think they’re more skeptical than they admit they are. I think they feel more comfortable with their own than they feel with us.”

For many African-Americans, conversion to Islam has meant parting with mainstream culture, while Muslim immigrants have tended toward assimilation. Black converts often take Arabic names, only to find foreign-born Muslims introducing themselves as “Moe” instead of “Mohammed.”

The tensions are also economic. Like Dr. Khan, many Muslim immigrants came to the United States with advanced degrees and quickly prospered, settling in the suburbs. For decades, African-Americans watched with frustration as immigrants sent donations to causes overseas, largely ignoring the problems of poor Muslims in the United States.

Imam Talib found it impossible to generate interest at immigrant mosques in the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo, who was Muslim. “What we’ve found is when domestic issues jump up, like police brutality, all the sudden we’re by ourselves,” he said.

Some foreign-born Muslims say they are put off by the racial politics of many black converts. They struggle to understand why African-American Muslims have been reluctant to meet with law enforcement officials in the wake of Sept. 11. For their part, black Muslim leaders complain that immigrants have failed to learn their history, which includes a pattern of F.B.I. surveillance dating back to the roots of the Nation of Islam.

The ironies are, at times, stinging.

“From the immigrant community, I hear that African-Americans have to learn how to work in the system,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, adding that this was not his personal opinion.

At the heart of the conflict is a question of leadership. Much to the ire of African-Americans, many immigrants see themselves as the rightful leaders of the faith in America by virtue of their Islamic schooling and fluency in Arabic, the original language of the Koran.

“What does knowing Arabic have to do with the quality of your prayer, your fast, your relationship with God?” asked Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “But African-Americans have to ask themselves why have they not learned more in these years.”

Every year in Chicago, the two largest Muslim conventions in the country — one sponsored by an immigrant organization and the other by Mr. Mohammed’s — take place on the same weekend, in separate parts of the city.

The long-simmering tension boiled over into a public rift with the 2000 presidential elections. That year, a powerful coalition of immigrant Muslims endorsed George W. Bush (because of a promise to stop the profiling of Arabs).

The nation’s most prominent African-American Muslims complained that they were never consulted. The following summer, when Imam Talib vented his frustration at a meeting with immigrant leaders in Washington, a South Asian man turned to him, he recalled, and said, “I don’t understand why all of you African-American Muslims are always so angry about everything.”

Imam Talib searched for an answer he thought the man could understand.

“African-Americans are like the Palestinians of this land,” he finally said. “We’re not just some angry black people. We’re legitimately outraged and angry.”

The room fell silent.

Soon after, black leaders announced the creation of the Muslim Alliance in North America, their first national “indigenous” organization.

But the fallout over the elections was soon eclipsed by Sept. 11, when Muslim immigrants found themselves under intense public scrutiny. They began complaining about “profiling” and “flying while brown,” appropriating language that had been largely the domain of African-Americans.

It was around this time that Dr. Khan became, as he put it, enlightened. A few weeks before the terrorist attacks, he read the book “Black Rage,” by William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs. The book, published in 1968, explores the psychological woes of African-Americans, and how the impact of racism is carried through generations.

“It helped me understand that even before you’re born, things that happened a hundred years ago can affect you,” Dr. Khan said. “That was a big change in my thinking.”

He sent an e-mail message to fellow Muslims, including Imam Talib, sharing what he had learned.

The Harlem imam was pleased, if not yet convinced.

“I just encouraged the brother to keep going,” Imam Talib said.

An Oasis in Harlem

One windswept night in Harlem, cars rolled past the corner of West 113th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. A police siren blared as men huddled by a neon-lit Laundromat.

Across the street stood a brown brick building, lifeless from the outside. But upstairs, in a cozy carpeted room, rows of men and women chanted.

“Ya Hakim. Ya Allah.” O wise one. O God.

Imam Talib led the chant, swathed in a black satin robe. It was Ramadan’s holiest evening, the Night of Power. As the voices died down, he spotted his bodyguard swaying.

“Take it easy there, Captain,” Imam Talib said. “As long as you don’t jump and shout it’s all right.”

Laughter trickled through the mosque, where a translucent curtain separated men in skullcaps from women in African-print gowns.

“We’re just trying to be ourselves, you know?” Imam Talib said. “Within the tradition.”

“That’s right,” said one woman.

The imam continued: “And we can’t let other people, from other cultures, come and try to make us clones of them. We came here as Muslims.”

He was feeling drained. He had just returned from the Manhattan Detention Complex, where he works as a chaplain. Some of the mosque’s men were back in jail.

“We need power,” he said quietly. “Without that, we’ll destroy ourselves.”

Since its birth in 1964, the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood has been a fortress of stubborn faith, persevering through the crack wars, welfare, AIDS, gangs, unemployment, diabetes, broken families and gentrification.

The mosque was founded in a Brooklyn apartment by Shaykh-‘Allama Al-Hajj K. Ahmad Tawfiq, a follower of Malcolm X. The Sunni congregation boomed in the 1970s, starting a newspaper and opening a school and a health food store.

With city loans, it bought its current building. Fourteen families moved in, creating a bold Muslim oasis in a landscape of storefront churches and liquor stores. The mosque claimed its corner by drenching the sidewalk in dark green paint, the color associated with Islam.

The paint has since faded. The school is closed. Many of the mosque’s members can no longer afford to live in a neighborhood where brownstones sell for millions of dollars.

But an aura of dignity prevails. The women normally pray one floor below the men, in a scrubbed, tidy room scented with incense. Their bathroom is a shrine of gold curtains and lavender soaps. A basket of nylon roses hides a hole in the wall.

Most of the mosque’s 160 members belong to the working class, and up to a third of the men are former convicts.

Some congregants are entrepreneurs, professors, writers and musicians. Mos Def and Q-Tip have visited with Imam Talib, who carries the nickname “hip-hop imam.”

Mosque celebrations are a blend of Islam and Harlem. In October, at the end of Ramadan, families feasted on curried chicken and collard greens, grilled fish and candied yams.

Just before the afternoon prayer, a lean man in a black turtleneck rose to give the call. He was Yusef Salaam, whose conviction in the Central Park jogger case was later overturned.

Many of the mosque’s members embraced Islam in search of black empowerment, not black separatism. They describe racial equality as a central tenet of their faith. Yet for some, the promise of Islam has been at odds with the reality of Muslims.

One member, Aqilah Mu’Min, lives in the Parkchester section of the Bronx, a heavily Bangladeshi neighborhood. Whenever she passes women in head scarves, she offers the requisite Muslim greeting. Rarely is it returned. “We have a theory that says Islam is perfect, human beings are not,” said Ms. Mu’Min, a city fraud investigator.

It was the simplicity of Islam that drew Imam Talib.

Raised a Christian, he spent the first part of his youth in segregated North Carolina. As a teenager, he read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” twice. He began educating himself about the faith at age 19, when as an aspiring actor he was cast in a play about a man who had left the Nation of Islam.

But his conversion was more spiritual than political, he said.

“I’d like to think that even if I was a white man, I’d still be a Muslim because that’s the orientation of my soul,” the imam said.

He has learned some Arabic, and traveled once to the Middle East, for hajj. Yet he feels more comfortable with the Senegalese and Guinean Muslims who have settled in Harlem than with many Arabs and South Asians.

He is trying to reach out, but is often disappointed.

In November, he accepted a last-minute invitation to meet with hundreds of immigrants at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, an opulent mosque on East 96th Street.

The group, the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays, was trying to persuade the city to recognize two Muslim holidays on the school calendar. The effort, Imam Talib learned, had been nearly a year in the making, and no African-American leaders had been consulted.

He was stunned. After all, he had led a similar campaign in the 1980s, resulting in the suspension of alternate-side parking for the same holidays.

“They are unaware of the foundations upon which they are standing,” he said.

Backlash in the Suburbs

Brush Hollow Road winds through a quiet stretch of Long Island, past churches and diners and leafy cul-de-sacs. In this tranquil tableau, the Islamic Center of Long Island announces itself proudly, a Moorish structure of white concrete topped by a graceful dome.

Sleek sedans and S.U.V.’s circle the property as girls with Barbie backpacks hop out and scurry to the Islamic classes they call “Sunday school.”

It is a testament to America’s influence on the mosque that its liveliest time of the week is not Friday, Islam’s holy day, but Sunday.

Boys in hooded sweatshirts smack basketballs along the pavement by a sign that reads “No pray, no play.” Young mothers in Burberry coats exchange kisses and chatter.

For members of the mosque — many of whom work in Manhattan and cannot make the Friday prayer — Sunday is the day to reflect and connect.

The treasurer, Rizwan Qureshi, frantically greeted drivers one Sunday morning with a flier advertising a fund-raiser.

“We’re trying to get Barack Obama,” Mr. Qureshi, a banker born in Karachi, told a woman in a gold-hued BMW.

“We need some real money,” he called out to another driver.

The mosque began with a group of doctors, engineers and other professionals from Pakistan and India who settled in Nassau County in the early 1970s.

“Our kids would come home from school and say, ‘Where is my Christmas tree, my Hanukkah lights?’ ” recalled Dr. Khan, who lives in nearby Jericho. “We didn’t want them to grow up unsure of who they are.”

Since opening in 1993, the mosque has thrived, with assets now valued at more than $3 million. Hundreds of people pray there weekly, and thousands come on Muslim holidays.

The mosque has an unusually modern, democratic air. Men and women worship with no partition between them. A different scholar delivers the Friday sermon every week, in English.

Perhaps most striking, a majority of female worshipers do not cover their heads outside the mosque.

“I think it’s important to find the fine line between the religion and the age in which we live,” said Nasreen Wasti, 43, a contract analyst for Lufthansa. “I’m sure I will have to answer to God for not covering myself. But I’m also satisfied by many of the good deeds I am doing.”

She and other members use words like “progressive” to describe their congregation. But after Sept. 11, a different image took hold.

In October 2001, a Newsday article quoted a member of the mosque as asking “who really benefits from such a horrible tragedy that is blamed on Muslims and Arabs?” A co-president of the mosque was also quoted saying that Israel “would benefit from this tragedy.”

Conspiracy theories about Sept. 11 have long circulated among Muslims, and Dr. Khan had heard discussion among congregants. Such talk, he said, was the product of two forces: a deep mistrust of America’s motives in the Middle East and a refusal, among many Muslims, to engage in self-criticism.

“You blame the other guy for your own shortcomings,” said Dr. Khan.

He visited synagogues and churches after the article ran, reassuring audiences that the comments did not reflect the official position of the mosque, which condemned the attacks.

But to Congressman Peter T. King, whose district is near the mosque, that condemnation fell short. He began publicly criticizing Dr. Khan, asserting that he had failed to fully denounce the statements made by the men.

“He’s definitely a radical,” Mr. King said of Dr. Khan in an interview. “You cannot, in the context of Sept. 11, allow those statements to be made and not be a radical.”

When asked about Mr. King’s comments, Dr. Khan replied proudly, “I thought we had freedom of speech.”

It hardly seems possible that Mr. King and Dr. Khan were once friends.

Mr. King used to dine at Dr. Khan’s home. He attended the wedding of Dr. Khan’s son, Arif, in 1995. At the mosque’s opening, it was Mr. King who cut the ribbon.

After Sept. 11, the mosque experienced the sort of social backlash felt by Muslims around the country. Anonymous callers left threatening messages, and rocks were hurled at children from passing cars.

The attention waned over time. But Mr. King cast a new light on the mosque in 2004 with the release of his novel “Vale of Tears.”

In the novel, terrorists affiliated with a Long Island mosque demolish several buildings, killing hundreds of people. One of the central characters is a Pakistani heart surgeon whose friendship with a congressman has grown tense.

“By inference, it’s me,” Dr. Khan said of the Pakistani character. (Mr. King said it was a “composite character” based on several Muslims he knows.)

For Dr. Khan, his difficulties after Sept. 11 come as proof that Muslims cannot stay fragmented. “It’s a challenge for the whole Muslim community — not just for me,” he said. “United we stand, divided we fall.”

The Litmus Test

Imam Talib and his bodyguard set off to Westbury before dusk on Oct. 14. They passed a fork on the Long Island Expressway, and the imam peered out the window. None of the signs were familiar.

He checked his watch and saw that he was late, adding to his unease. He had visited the mosque a few times before, but never felt entirely at home.

“I’m conscious of being a guest,” he said. “They treat me kindly and nicely. But I know where I am.”

At the Islamic Center of Long Island, Dr. Khan was also getting nervous. Hundreds of congregants had gathered after fasting all day for Ramadan. The scent of curry drifted mercilessly through the mosque.

Dr. Khan sprang to his feet and took the microphone. He improvised.

“All of us need to learn from and understand the contributions of the Muslim indigenous community,” he said. “Starting with Malcolm X.”

It had been six years since Imam Talib and Dr. Khan first encountered each other in Chicago. Back then, Imam Talib rarely visited immigrant mosques, and Dr. Khan had only a peripheral connection to African-American Muslims.

In the 1980s, the doctor had become aware of the high number of Muslim inmates while working as the chief of medicine for a hospital in Nassau County that oversaw health care at the county prison. His mosque began donating prayer rugs, Korans and skullcaps to prisoners around the country. But his interaction with black Muslim leaders was limited until Sept. 11.

After Dr. Khan read the book “Black Rage,” he and Imam Talib began serving together on the board of a new political task force. Finally, in 2005, Dr. Khan invited the imam to his mosque to give the Friday sermon.

That February, Imam Talib rose before the Long Island congregation. Blending verses in the Koran with passages from recent American history, he urged the audience to learn from the civil rights movement.

Dr. Khan listened raptly. Afterward, over sandwiches, he asked Imam Talib for advice. He wanted to thaw the relationship between his mosque and African-American mosques on Long Island. The conversation continued for hours.

“The real searching for an answer, searching for a solution, was coming from Dr. Khan,” said Imam Talib. “I could just feel it.”

Dr. Khan began inviting more African-American leaders to speak at his mosque, and welcomed Imam Talib there last October to give a fund-raising pitch for his organization, the Muslim Alliance in North America. The group had recently announced a “domestic agenda,” with programs to help ex-convicts find housing and jobs and to standardize premarital counseling for Muslims in America.

After the imam arrived that evening and spoke, he sat on the floor next to a blazer-clad Dr. Khan. As they feasted on kebabs, the doctor made a pitch of his own: The teenagers of his mosque could spend a day at Imam Talib’s mosque, as the start of a youth exchange program. The imam nodded slowly.

Minutes later, the mosque’s president, Habeeb Ahmed, hurried over. The congregants had so far pledged $10,000.

“Alhamdulillah,” the imam said. Praise be to God.

It was the most Imam Talib had raised for his group in one evening.

As the dinner drew to a close, the imam looked for his bodyguard. They had a long drive home and he did not want to lose his way again.

Dr. Khan asked Imam Talib how he had gotten lost.

“Inner city versus the suburbs,” the imam replied a bit testily.

Then he smiled.

“The only thing it proves,” he said, “is that I need to come by here more often.”