Pretty much everyone in the district, myself included, wants to believe that this stretch of Atlantic Avenue is home to the moderate Muslims with whom we can, will and must move forward for a peaceful world. But few of us can be certain. On the south side of the Avenue is the Al-Farooq mosque, which famously turned Rudy Guiliani out of the building when he was on a walking tour a few years ago. It's even more famous to reporters and investigators for having hosted speeches by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric accused of a conspiracy to blow up New York bridges, tunnels, the United Nations, and already convicted for his involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; prior to that, it reportedly hosted the first Conference of Jihad, at which Abdullah Azzam (widely considered to be Osama Bin Laden's spiritual mentor, and after whom Hamas named its military brigade) urged Muslims to "fight infidels with the sword until they convert to Islam."
Similarly, somewhere on this block, right by the mosque, all through the Soviet occupation of Aghanistan in the 1980s and beyond, stood the Alkhifa Center, the American headquarters of what terrorist experts consider was Al-Qaeda's predecessor organization. Perhaps it was housed at the store, right next to the al-Farooq mosque, that sells cheaply-designed video nasties with titles like 'Illuminazi 9-11: Who's Really Behind The Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center, Osama Bin Laden or Osama Bin Bush?' and 'My Journey from Christianity to Islam by Former Nun'. But then again, perhaps the Alkhifa Center was housed in the store next to that one, which has adorned its front walls with postcard-sized explanations of Islam, including the assertion, for example, that "the life of all citizens in a Muslim society is sacred. . .whether that person be a Muslim or not;" This second store also sells bumper stickers quoting the Koran on how 'Hatred Is Not A Family Value' – along with a prominently-displayed photo of the Twin Towers, and books with titles like 'Jesus Will Return.'
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And it's true, times have changed. Azzam was assassinated in Pakistan in 1989; Rahman has been incarcerated in New York since 1995. And we've all paid the price for their extremism. The local Islamic community came out in distressed support and sympathy for New York City and, by extension, the USA and western values of religious tolerance, in many marches, gatherings and vigils over the last year. And even Mayor Guiliani showed unusual tolerance and forgiveness after his near-death experience on September 11; by the following morning, the Al-Faruq mosque had round-the-clock police protection.
And yet it's hard for my mind not to flash back to a summer morning a few years ago, when I was woken early to the sound of several police helicopters right above my house; it turned out that a plot to blow up the Atlantic Avenue subway station by a group of Middle Eastern men living in squalor off 4th Avenue, had been averted at the last minute only by a co-conspirator who suffered a change of heart and flagged down police cars while simulating an explosion. (He couldn't speak English.) You have to wonder what would inspire Islamic fundamentalists to blow up the subway stop at the core of New York City's Islamic culture, but then no one ever said that terrorists were logical. (The plotters were written off as ameteur wanna-bes and have not been mentioned in any of the recently published books on terrorism that I've taken time to read. Nonetheless, they were within hours of carrying out an atrocity.)
And so life goes on. If the attacks of September 11 really did lead to a 'war on Islam,' as many people in Muslim nations have convinced themselves, then someone forgot to tell the New Yorkers. For final proof that this City is constantly conflicted while perennially open-minded comes right by the entrance to that same subway, at the very corner of 4th Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. There the local New York Army National Guard center sits above an Islamic supplies store. It's an incongrous sight when you stop to think about it, but no on ever does. They're too busy going about their daily lives, living like real New Yorkers, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, barely paying attention to their neighbor's skin tone, dress or religious text. That, as the clothing store down the street will tell you, is why it's called the Melting Pot. And hopefully, by September of next year, those daily lives in the Melting Pot will be back to enough semblance of normality that we can once again welcome the Atlantic Antic in all its multi-cultural glory with open wallets, empty stomachs and frisky feet. I've missed it.