Gesturing at cameras in the room during a recent Friday sermon at his Pembroke Pines mosque, Shafayat Mohamed shared his solution for turning what Muslims are calling a tide of anti-Islamic sentiment: Throw the doors wide open -- online.
The bearded Trinidadian imam shouted with a lilt: "Let the world see we have nothing to hide, nothing evil to say!''
Darul Uloom, a storefront mosque that attracts a mix of West Indian, South Asian and African-American Muslims, has taken to the Web to battle negative images of Islam.
It's among the few mosques nationwide and the only one in South Florida to provide live streaming of its Friday sermons, and part of a growing trend for mosques to open doors during Ramadan, often offline, to non-Muslims to foster understanding.
After all, the imam says, Ramadan is the most spiritual time of year -- in addition to food Muslims abstain from water, sex and impure thoughts during the day -- and when a pious Muslim's lens becomes almost completely focused on God. It's this month, South Florida's 70,000 Muslims believe, that Allah revealed the words of the Koran to their prophet.
The effort comes after months of heated debates about the role of Islam in the United States, including emotional protests against the ``Ground Zero mosque'' and other mosque construction projects from Murfreesboro, Tenn., to Sheboygan, Wis., and Temecula, Calif. In all cases, many opponents have said the mosques could be incubators for radical Islam.
This spring, New York-based ``Stop the Islamization of America'' placed dozens of ads on Miami-Dade buses offering to help Muslims leave the religion. In Gainesville, a church inflamed Muslims with plans for a mass Koran burning on 9/11.
To hundreds gathered at his mosque on a recent Friday and another 1,000 watching online, Mohamed outlined his simple response: ``Just let us spread the message of Islam, let people know the better of the Koran. . .People will learn more, Islam will spread, people will understand,'' he said.
LAUNCHED IN MAY
Mohamed launched his video project in May at www.alhikmatlive.com. When he's not speaking live Fridays, prerecorded video is streamed, from old sermons to an ongoing womens' segment and documentaries on Islam. He has put $50,000 into equipment and a studio at his Miramar office, where he aims to bring non-Muslim clergy for interviews.
Across South Florida, other mosques also are upping their presence online and in their communities to teach non-Muslims about Islam and to better educate Muslims about the religion.
At Masjid an-Noor in West Kendall, leaders recently floated the idea of streaming their sermons online to reach out to the curious and to Muslims, who often leave work on Friday afternoons to attend mid-day services. The mosque, recovering from two scarring incidents last year -- one in which its empty building was sprayed with bullets and another when neighborhood teens smashed its windows -- started to host open houses every few months, complete with an ask-the-imam segment.
``Some people ask naive questions: Do you support terrorism? Others say `how do you become a Muslim? Why do you fast?' '' says outreach coordinator Nidal Hozien. ``Some people have an animosity against us, but that is built on a lack of knowledge.''
During Ramadan, Muslims typically gather in large groups at home or at mosques for iftars, traditional meals to break the fast that begin with the eating of a date, and the Kendall mosque has invited non-Muslims from the community to join its members during one in August.
At the Islamic Foundation of South Florida in Sunrise, the mosque's imam started a half-hour radio show this year, ``Islam on Faith Avenue,'' that airs Saturdays on WHSR-AM (980). The mosque is also inviting community officials to an open house on Saturday evening as Muslims break the fast.
But perhaps the most political and ambitious project is at Darul Uloom in Pembroke Pines, where Mohamed aims to have a majority of original programming running online all day along with ads.
Viewership reaches as high as 500 across most programming on weekdays and doubles on Fridays for sermons. Many viewers are from the United States and others are from India, Pakistan, Dubai and Trinidad and Tobago.
`A WRONG IMAGE'
``There's a wrong image of Islam, that radical and fundamentalist image, people believing that our khutbahs [sermons] are radical and anti-everything,'' Mohamed says. ``It's important to have a message in the khutbah that is moderate.''
At Ashraf Halal Meat Center in Miami Gardens, nestled atop a display fridge of rainbow-colored sweets and aside a gold-framed verse of Koranic calligraphy, co-owner Aneesiah Hosein has mounted a computer monitor to stream Darul Ulooms programming to shoppers.
``I have a lot of non-Muslim customers. They come, they listen, they sit down and look at it,'' Hosein said. ``There is a lot of misconception but a lot of curiosity.''
Experts say it remains to be seen if efforts such as Darul Uloom's can reach the right audience.
``Its hit and miss for Muslims and non-Muslims whether somebody surfing online is going to take an interest. The viewership is at this point going to be small, mainly Muslims,'' says Ihsan Bagby, a University of Kentucky Islamic studies professor who is familiar with Darul Uloom. ``Radical Muslims have taken much more advantage of technology and videos.
``Mainstream Muslims are catching up.''
