Muslim Cadets Get Prayer Hall

momoftwins
Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:32:02 +0000

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061021/NEWS/610210317/-1/NEWS14

ANSWERED PRAYER
Muslim cadets get prayer hall
Interest in Islam on the rise at USMA 1 of 2 A crowd listens to Imam Asadullah speak Thursday during the dedication of a new Muslim prayer space at West Point.Times Herald-Record/TARA ENGBERG By Greg Bruno

Times Herald-Record
October 21, 2006
&byline2;

West Point — First-year Cadet Ahmed Moomin might have settled for a modest Muslim prayer space at the U.S. Military Academy.

He got a mini-mosque instead.

“It was a real surprise for me when I came,” said Moomin, 20, an international cadet from the Maldives. “I knew the Army had a policy of religious tolerance, but I didn’t know it was to this extent at West Point.”

When the number of Muslim students grew to 32 this year, up from just two in 2001, West Point made a move: It expanded its Islamic worship hall.

Not quite a mosque but more than a prayer mat, West Point’s newly minted “Musullah As-Saber” boasts lime-green carpets, shoe racks and a mimbar, or pulpit, facing Mecca.

The hall, tucked inside a tiny stucco building near Eisenhower Hall, officially opened Thursday. It’s the first dedicated space for Muslims at West Point and is among the largest exclusively Islamic prayer halls at any of the nation’s service academies.

Currently, about a dozen student officers at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., worship in a room inside a dormitory complex. Eighteen cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado have a similar room inside the multidenominational cadet chapel.

West Point officials say the new center will bring Islamic study at the Army’s officer training school to a new level.

“I think all of our cadets need to understand Islam, especially with what’s going on in (the Middle East),” said West Point Chaplain Col. John J. Cook.

“We live in a world where everyone is looking at the United States saying, ‘You’re anti-Islam.’ But here at West Point, that’s not what we do.”

West Point’s Muslim leaders approached academy administrators last year with requests for a new house of worship.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, interest in Islam has been on the rise at the military academy. Last year, 22 of the 4,000 students identified themselves as Muslim in voluntary surveys; that jumped by 10 with the Class of 2010.

The increase has meant packed Friday afternoon prayers, long held in a cramped first-floor office, said Imam Asadullah, West Point’s Muslim cleric. The new room upstairs is big enough for dozens of followers, he said.

Military academy officials acknowledge a strategic component to the upgrade.

“We have cadets here who are going to be the future of tomorrow. If we treat them differently from other cadets or other faiths, that will be a cause for future confrontation,” the imam said.

“But if you give them their rights, and let them share their experiences, you might tie some things together. It’s an investment.”

For Muslim cadets like Lee Habib Roberts, 21, the investment is already paying off.

“I think this is indicative of our academy’s willingness to recognize the flourishing of our community,” said Roberts, a senior from Fairfax, Va. "We’re literally doubling in size, and the leadership is not hesitating to support us.