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Britain
Finsbury Park Mosque Tries to Move On
2006-01-16
LONDON (AP) - The Finsbury Park mosque stood idle and empty for months after it was raided by anti-terror police and its former preacher was arrested on charges of inciting murder and stirring racial hatred.

Today, its prayer rooms are packed. Pakistanis, Somalis, Algerians and Kurds spill into the stairwells during Friday prayers. Hundreds of pairs of shoes fill wooden racks taller than most worshippers.

As Abu Hamza al-Masri is tried in London's Central Criminal Court, attendees say they are gratified by their mosque's recovery, but worried it will never escape association with its one-eyed, hook-handed former leader. "They only know it as the 'Abu Hamza' mosque," said Karim Ahmed, 22, as he attended Friday prayers at the building in north London.
For good reason.
The commission that oversees British places of worship banned al-Masri from the mosque that year after he allegedly said in one of his sermons that God had punished the crew who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Trustees closed the building for 18 months. Worshippers stayed away even after it reopened.

The mosque's trustees were replaced by a new group last February. Muslims begun flocking back in the last few months. Eight hundred people attended prayers last Friday. The mosque, which seats 800, scheduled four services to handle the demand on the annual Islamic feast of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha. "Why should we hate or want to kill the nonbelievers?" asked Imam Ajmal Masroor, a 34-year-old who delivered his sermon almost exclusively in English to followers seated on the carpeted floor. "It is through our good nature that we will be able to bring them toward us."
So you're saying that the Qu'ran doesn't demand that you kill the infidels?
Dressed in a white robe and black prayer hat, he exhorted the congregation to be more introspective and focus on their problems rather than those of the "nonbelievers."

One of the mosque's transient clerics, Masroor drops by about once a month to deliver Friday prayers. He said the followers have slowly returned. "People can see a change has taken place and that's why they are coming back," Masroor said. "They were afraid when Hamza and the gang were here. They knew that if they said anything there would be reprisals."

Ihtisham Hibatullah, a spokesman for the new trustees at the mosque, said trustees are declining interviews until al-Masri's trial finishes. Until then, the mosque continues to win back followers, Hibatullah said. It even hosts a monthly interfaith meeting, he said. "A few years ago, a lot of these things would have been unheard of," Hibatullah said. "Now things are slowly getting back to normal."
Posted by:Steve White

#2  good thing all those listening devices new pieces of molding were installed
Posted by: Frank G   2006-01-16 18:46  

#1  By me Fatwa the Abu Hamza' mosque in Finsbury Park from now on will be know as al Hookna mosque.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom   2006-01-16 17:05  

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