Michigan Muslims feel Secrarian Ripples -- NPR

I heard this report on NPR yesterday and my colleague Rev. Dan Appleyard from Detroit sent me this link. Dearborn, MI, the largest Muslim community in the US would feel some of the same tensions that are part of their life elsewhere. The picture on the left is that of the largest mosque in the US, in Dearborn MI

In Dearborn, Mich., the nation's largest Arab-American community, Shia and Sunnis have long lived together mostly peacefully. But it appears that some of Iraq's sectarian violence is being mirrored in the Detroit area, particularly in recent months. As the Muslim communities have grown and prospered, more mosques have been built and some of the divides between these sects have been brought into sharper focus.

This is one of those rare instances in which the US media is helping us to understand that the Muslim community is not monolithic, but quite complex. Typically the media paints all Muslims with one broad brush leading many Americans to think so as well. Therefore when some terrorist blows up a bus, all Muslims get implicated by default. Like Christians, Jews and other religious communities, the Muslim community has significant complexity. Thank you NPR and Cheryl Corley for bringing this into the open.

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