9/11 Anniversary: Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life

Given the vitriolic opposition now to the proposed Muslim community center two blocks from ground zero, one might say something else has been destroyed: the realization that Muslim people and the Muslim religion were part of everyday life at the World Trade Center.

On any given day, financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers gathered in the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower

There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.

Not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition...

(READ the full NY Times article via Yahoo Buzz)