Some 300 people crowded into the meeting room at Kingsborough Community College – with more waiting outside -- as property owner Allowey Ahmed, a 60-year-old Muslim immigrant from Yemen, outlined, and defended, plans for the mosque and religious center in the residential area.
"We have religious rights in America like everyone else to worship God,” he said.
"I'm not an Islamophobe,” said resident Gregory Kalman. “I oppose the mosque on the issues of traffic and parking,” which he said would be compounded by the nearby elementary school that already brings in traffic at arrival and dismissal.
Ahmed countered that most of the potential congregants live in Sheepshead Bay and would walk to the mosque.
Another resident, who identified herself only as “Stephanie,” charged that the Muslim American Society, a national organization involved in the local project, supports terrorist groups.
Officials of the MAS, based in Falls Church, Va. say the group renounces violence and terrorism.
The MAS was created in 1933 by the Muslim Brotherhood, itself founded in 1928 in the Middle East by a young elementary school teacher.
The Federation of American Scientists -- founded by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project and currently researches potential terrorism threats – reports that .over the years, the Muslim Brotherhood has divided into factions, including violent groups such as al-Jihad and al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya in Egypt, HAMAS in Palestine and mujahideen groups in Afghanistan.
