By Mark Di Ionno | The Star-Ledger
on December 18, 2016 at 8:45 AM
On Friday afternoons, about 70 Muslims arrive at a municipal center for weekly prayers. They include an African-American disabled veteran and an Italian octogenarian, but most are men in their 30s and 40s, wearing ID badges from local companies.
Blue rugs are laid out, wall to wall, in two meeting rooms. Worshipers face the direction of Mecca.
On Sunday mornings, in the same town, Muslim families arrive at a public grammar school, where the cafeteria is used for Islamic religious study. On this day, three dozen children are given treats to celebrate Mawlid al-Nabi, the birthday of the prophet Mohammad. They recite poems about his teachings.
This community is not Jersey City or Paterson, both known for large Muslim populations.
It’s Bernards Township, the community recently sued by the federal Department of Justice for denying a local Islamic society’s request to build a mosque in the Liberty Corner section of town.
And while the use of town-owned buildings by Muslims demonstrates the need for a local mosque, it also suggests the town might not be as bigoted as outsiders think.
What follows is a story filled with such nuances because facts are what people make them. Let’s compare two cases that came before the town by religious organizations on the same stretch of road in the Liberty Corner section of the township.
Mohammad Ali Chaudry, president of the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR), submitted his first application to build the mosque on April 20, 2012. It was denied last December after 39 hearings.
The Presbyterian Church down the street filed an application for a property improvement in 2011. It was denied after two hearings, and church did not appeal.
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