American Medinas: Turning US Cities Into ‘Beachheads’ for Islam

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Founded by Alexander Hamilton as the first industrial city in America, Paterson, N.J.,  is now home to America’s largest Palestinian community and largest proportion of Muslim residents. Today, New Jersey’s third-largest city is effectively run by its 30,000 Muslims, some of whom say they don’t need to learn English because it’s like living “back home” in an Arab city.

As is also the case in Western Europe, assimilation is demonstrably rare in U.S. municipalities with heavy concentrations of Muslim migrants. In these areas, large influxes of Muslims from abroad have changed not only the complexion, culture, values and traditions of cities, but also the demographic makeup of city councils, school boards, police departments and courts. Muslim officials, in turn, have changed laws or how existing laws are enforced to conform to the tenets of Islam

“Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community, it is not to assimilate,” asserted Linda Sarsour, a renowned Palestinian activist who lives in the Paterson area and has helped transform the city.

Paterson’s Muslim-majority city council voted to change existing noise regulations to allow the city’s dozen mosques to blast out the Islamic call to prayer five times a day – from before dawn to after dusk. The move has incensed some non-Muslim neighbors, including one who recently entered a nearby mosque to complain about the noise. “Everybody’s not Muslim here,” the man yelled. “I don’t want to hear that s— every day.”

Intensely political, the Palestinian community in Paterson shows up in force at council meetings, voter drives, and election events. Much of the political organizing centers around mosques, where the Israeli-Gazan war is debated and where politicians are groomed – or shunned. Paterson leaders effectively banned the officials from mosques and public spaces in the Palestinian stronghold, according to published reports. More than 40 Muslims now hold elected office in the state.

Even the Paterson police department has been Islamized – and politicized. More than 30 Muslims are now on the force, and some have sewn the Palestinian flag on their uniforms. Former Paterson Police Chief Ibrahim Baycora was sworn in on the Quran.

As Paterson’s mayor proclaims the city belongs to Islam, the religion’s dominance has spread beyond its borders. In nearby Clifton, N.J., Islamic leaders are proposing to build a new 40,000-square-foot mosque in place of a converted church where Muslims have been congregating. Muslims in Prospect Park, N.J., helped elect Syrian-born Mohamed Khairullah as their mayor. He leads three other Muslim men on the six-member city council.

Prospect’s school board is also packed with Muslim members. Its ethnic-Jordanian vice president, Arwa Bassam Entour, boasts they are “making a change” from the secular ways of the old board, including mandating Islamic holidays and halal school lunches approved by Islamic guidelines banning pork and other foods.

Mohammad Qatanani, served time in an Israeli prison for his own confessed ties to Hamas. Yet he was presented the keys to the city by Paterson’s mayor in 2024. He gave a sermon condemning Christians to hell, telling Paterson’s Muslim faithful that “the followers of Jesus” as Lord will burn in the “pits of hellfire.”Until last year, U.S. immigration authorities had sought to deport Qatanani because he hid his criminal record on applications for a green card.

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