Militant Islam Monitor > Satire > Thirty Nashville city leaders meet with Muslims to make amends for slow response to 911 'Koran mashed into feces' emergency calls

Thirty Nashville city leaders meet with Muslims to make amends for slow response to 911 'Koran mashed into feces' emergency calls

Islamic leader urges Mayor's top brass "to open your hearts to us" ( ie convert to Islam)
August 9, 2005

MIM:CIty officials meet with Muslims after alleged Koran defecation 'in one of a series of overtures to Nashville Muslims in recent weeks."

MIM:What the story doesn't mention is that the Muslims demanded an FBI investigation and threatened to sue the city.

(Isn't it illegal to make non emergency calls to 9 -11 services?)

It also bears noting that the Muslims exploited the meeting to complain about 'sideways glances' they claim are given to them by airport security. The dhimmis at the Purcell city council dutifully obliged the Muslims by arranged a meeting between Muslims and the federal Transportation and Security Administration

It seems to never have occurred to any Purcell law enforcement or city officials that a Muslim might have been behind the Koran defecation incident. In any case, the fuss being made is above and beyond the call of dhimmitude.

MIM nominates Purcell city council for their Dhimmi of the year award and the most abject display of grovelling to placate Muslims due to an uproar over an incident in which the perpetrators were never identified.

Islamic Center of Nashville Imam Abdulhakim Ali Mohamed speaks to Mayor Bill Purcell's meeting of department heads. Islamic leaders say they're not looking for special treatment, just mutual understanding.
SHELLEY MAYS / STAFF

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050802/NEWS0202/508020337/1009/NEWS

Meetings result from Quran defilement

Leaders of the Islamic community met yesterday with Mayor Bill Purcell's top brass, with one Islamic leader asking them "to open your hearts to us."

The meeting was one of a series of overtures to Nashville Muslims in recent weeks.

The imam of the Islamic Center of Nashville spoke to the mayor's regular meeting of department heads, including the police chief and the executive director of the Metro Human Relations Commission.

Commission director Kelvin Jones has arranged some of the conversations. Yesterday, Jones and six leaders met with staff from the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, including president and CEO Raul Regalado.

The meetings have been the most significant and intense effort by the city to reach out to the Islamic community, Jones and Islamic leaders said.

The meetings were spurred by a recent case in which a Quran, the Muslim holy book, was found covered with flies and mashed into what appeared to be feces on the steps of an east Nashville apartment. Islamic leaders criticized the police response as too slow.

Police Chief Ronal Serpas said he did not believe the delay was intentional but that officers and dispatchers "should have probably done a better job."

Mayor Bill Purcell yesterday commended Serpas on his follow up, which included a meeting with Islamic leaders.

Purcell said sometimes the city's response to such incidents is less than ideal.

"What's most important … is what we do next," he said.

Islamic leaders said they're not looking for special treatment, just mutual understanding.

Even though Nashville Muslims are a large community, they are not always visible, Imam Abdulhakim Ali Mohamed said to the 30 department heads and mayoral aides.

"I'm the head of my community," he said. "Most of you have never seen me."

After the airport authority meeting, attendee Khaled Sakalla said it went well.

The meeting with the airport authority was closed to The Tennessean. Airport authority staff refused to provide a list of attendees, though a Metro Human Relations Commission staff member did.

Muslims have expressed frustration after embarrassing situations at airport security checkpoints, Sakalla said. It usually comes in the form of a "side-of-the-eye look" directed at Islamic travelers.

"Muslims understand the need for security. We support it 100%," said Sakalla, who is chairman of the Islamic Center's public relations committee. But they are asking for accommodation of their culture within the rules.

For example, an Islamic woman would prefer to undergo a search by a female security officer. It would be a conflict with many women's religious beliefs to be touched by a man other than someone in her immediate family, he said.

Regalado emphasized that his 270 employees are just a fraction of the 5,000 that work at facilities run by the airport authority.

"We don't have any responsibility for the security checkpoints," he said after the meeting.

Regalado said he's coordinating a meeting "as soon as we can" between the Islamic leaders and the federal Transportation Security Administration, as well as major airlines that serve the Nashville International Airport.

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Muslims in Nashville

The American Religion Data Archive, a research group based at Penn State, estimated in 2000 that there were 9,046 Islamic adherents in Davidson County. Researcher defined "adherents" as women, men and children who lived in the county and associated with a mosque here.
Researchers arrived at that estimate by making phone surveys. To account for groups who did not respond, they used the data they had to draw statistical conclusions. Counties surrounding Davidson did not register by the data archive's measure.
— LEE ANN O'NEAL

SOURCE: American Religion Data Archive

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