Can we not be tolerant of others and respect their life choices without having to become involuntarily involved in their private lives? Exposure to people's traditions, religions, culture should be a voluntary issue, one inspired by curiosity and a willingness to discover -- should that be the impulse -- more about what motivates people to act as they do. Public displays of private lifestyles simply indicate a lack of respect for the sensibilities and sensitivities of other people.

Religion, like sex, is a private matter between people who think alike, act alike, share values between them that others do not. It really has no place in the public sphere. All the more so when it makes no sense. Prayer is meant to be an intimate act between a believer and their faith. To make a public display of a mass prayer session in celebration of belief coupled with special occasions that have great meaning to the faithful is not a symbol of graciousness but one of disrespect.

Thousands of Muslims living in New York amassed in Times Square on the second day of April for a group prayer that ostensibly has special meaning for Ramadan. This is a prayer meant to be recited in a house of worship and mosques abound wherever sufficient numbers of Muslims reside. Prayers fervently delivered to the ear of the Almighty have their place in the privacy of one's home. Alternately in a natural setting where an intimate moment between the believer and the spirit of belief can be held.

It is an affront to people not of that faith in a wide community comprised of people of many faiths, to be confronted by a scene of a huge gathering of thousands in the public sphere. It is an exclusionary act, defiant of the feelings of others. It is also a missionary act in recognition of many religions' injunction to their faithful to recognize their obligation to the faith in proselytizing, an act offensive to some degree to others, infringing on their own rights not to be accosted.

HISTORY!!!! April 2nd!!
@thezamzamproject proudly brings you, The first EVER Taraweeh prayer in TIMES SQUARE!!!! Starting at 8pm!!
Free iftar will be provided!!
Come join us as we recite the Quran in Times Square for EVERYONE to hear!
Please click the link in my bio to sign up for the free iftar!
Please come & join us give DAWAH to the non-muslims so we can explain our beautiful religion to them.
Come help renew your emaan & give dawah!
Stand with muslims in solidarity as we teach people about Islam all while enjoying some beautiful recitation!
BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!!!
Who’s coming!?!!

It's one thing being in a Muslim-majority country where the norm is the Muezzin's call to prayers, sound familiar and beloved to the faithful sent from a minaret over a landscape that is home to Muslims. When in those circumstances, a non-Muslim sees the minaret, hears the musical invitation, it is an exotic, magic moment; familiar and inspiring to the residents, an odd and beautiful moment to the visitor redolent of history and religious culture.

In that Muslim-majority country wherever it is in the world of Islam, public prayer of the kind that visited New York City and previously, London, England, is appropriate and undoubtedly appreciated. Elsewhere it can be interpreted as an affront, an uncalled-for gathering that is alien and even frightening to those unfamiliar with the religion's culture of entitlement, pride and obligation to proselytize. 

To most Muslims their religion is the 'only true' religion; all others pretenders. Faith in a higher order is common throughout humanity, throughout the ages. Monotheism is not a pillar of faith specific only to Islam; it is a singular precept introduced by Judaism, a religion that vastly pre-dates Islam and from which the Prophet Mohammad was motivated to borrow generously when codifying his religious inspiration.  

To most Muslims theirs is a religion of peace. To non-Muslims who have experienced an explosion of Islamist violence in the interests of jihad over the past few decades, it is manifestly not a religion of peace. Where Islam identifies non-Muslim countries as 'houses of war' and their own 'houses of peace' this translates as an obligation for peaceful Islam to struggle against warring non-Muslim nations.

The public exhibition of group prayer in a populous multi-religious society whose foundation is one of Christian belief does little to dispel that image of the Wahhabist-Muslim-Brotherhood-Salafist assault on New York City on September 11, 2001.