The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM) is an Islamic community organization located in the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States. Established in the early 1980s, the ICM supports about a thousand congregants, drawn from local permanent residents and numerous students at Middle Tennessee State University.
Since the late 20th century, an increasing number of Muslim immigrants from Somalia and Iraq have settled in the city, and international students have increased. By 2009, the ICM's growth made the existing mosque and community center in central Murfreesboro inadequate for the number of worshippers using those facilities. The ICM bought a vacant lot on the outskirts of the city and submitted plans to build a new community center and mosque on the site. Although the plans were approved unanimously by the local county planning commission, some local residents and anti-Muslim groups opposed the project. Rival demonstrations were held in the town to express support for and opposition to the mosque project.
During the following two years, the mosque site was subjected to vandalism and arson. The ICM became the subject of heightened political rhetoric in an election year. Numerous opponents alleged that the ICM would support terrorism. At the same time, numerous local people and rights groups spoke out in support of the project, and the issues received national media coverage with emphasis on the US constitutional right to religious freedom. A local judge rejected that claim and found that the planning commission did not act improperly in granting approval, but that public notice of the planning commission's hearing on the action may have been inadequate. The court prohibited the issuance of a certificate of occupancy necessary to use the building. In August 2012, a US federal court lifted the county court's prohibition, saying it was inappropriate to subject the ICM to requirements in excess of other religious organizations. The mosque was allowed to open in time for the end of Ramadan in 2012. Further appeals and new lawsuits by the mosque's opponents prolonged the litigation until June 2014, when the last lawsuits were finally dismissed by the federal courts.
Background
Murfreesboro is a town of about 150,000 people located in Middle Tennessee about southeast of the state capital, Nashville. Although the area's population is dominated by white conservative Christians, in recent years the foreign-born population of the Nashville metropolitan area (including Murfreesboro) has grown considerably. Between 2000 and 2008, the immigrant population jumped from 58,539 to 107,184 – an 83.1 percent rise, the fourth-largest percentage increase in the United States over that period. At the same time, the white population of the area fell by 7.5% while the percentage of ethnic minority inhabitants rose to 20% of Rutherford County's population.
The local Muslim population has likewise increased and now numbers about 25,000 people. The rise since the late 20th century has resulted in part from the arrival of refugees from Somalia and Kurds from Iraq, who were resettled there by the federal government upon fleeing the repression of Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. Middle Tennessee now has the largest population of Kurds in the United States. In addition, a significant number of foreign-born Muslims have moved to the area to study at Vanderbilt University or Middle Tennessee State University.
Established in 1982, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM) formerly occupied a building of located on Middle Tennessee Boulevard near Middle Tennessee State University. Its congregation consisted of about 250–300 local families and 400–500 Muslim students from the university – in total, about 1,000 people. By 2009, the congregation had outgrown the space available. Prayers were held in a poorly ventilated room while women, who worship separately from men, had to use a converted garage nearby to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit TV. Many worshippers frequently had to stand in the parking lot during prayers.
The ICM began looking for a new location in March 2009. Members raised about $600,000 to fund the construction of a new complex that would include a mosque, school, swimming pool, and cemetery. In November 2009, the ICM purchased an area of undeveloped land at the intersection of Bradyville Pike and Veals Road on the outskirts of Murfreesboro, about from its existing facilities in the town center, at a cost of $320,000 cash. A sign advertising the "Future Site of Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" was put up on the vacant lot, but in January 2010 it was vandalized during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend. The local newspaper, The Daily News Journal, condemned the vandalism as "a sign of stupidity" and commented that "for someone to paint such an idiotic message on the center's billboard is a clear sign that we have some backwards nuts in our midst." The sign was replaced but was subsequently ripped up and destroyed.
Planning controversy
In April 2010, the ICM sent the Regional Planning Commission of Rutherford County a request for the approval of the construction of a complex on the Veals Road lot. Prior to its next meeting, the commission ran an advertisement in The Murfreesboro Post newspaper. The main local newspaper, The Daily News Journal, also published a small news story on the day of the meeting. The commission unanimously approved the ICM's plans at its monthly meeting on May 24, 2010. County law did not require public hearings on religious construction projects and took a "use-by-right" approach, under which all that was needed for approval was a satisfactory set of plans, the approval of the commission at one public meeting, and the advertisement of that meeting in advance in a local newspaper. Other local religious buildings, such as the World Outreach Church, had been approved on a similar basis. Additionally, federal and state law made it all but impossible for local government bodies to deny building permits for religious institutions.
Although the application process attracted little comment at the time, a controversy broke out after the ICM's plans were approved. At the commission's next meeting, on June 17, 2010, more than 600 people, some wearing Christian- or patriotic-themed clothes, turned out to protest its approval of the ICM's plans. Many said they had become aware of the plans only after they had been approved. Opponents were harshly critical both of the ICM and of Islam itself. Karen Harrell, a Murfreesboro resident, said: "Everybody knows they are trying to kill us. People are really concerned about this. Somebody has to stand up and take this country back."
Other residents complained that the new mosque would have a harmful effect on traffic and housing values, noting that it was located in a primarily residential area. Commission officials rejected the criticism, stating that the plans met zoning requirements and that the law did not allow them to reject a project on religious grounds. The tenor of the opposition attracted criticism, with some residents calling the dispute "one of the ugliest displays of religious intolerance in the county's history." Rabbi Rami Shapiro of Middle Tennessee State University blamed misinformation and misplaced fears, commenting that "there are some who are just anti-Muslim and will do anything to keep a mosque out of their neighborhood. They really feel that Islam is a threat to America and American values."
Essam Fathy, an ICM member, said: "We have nothing to hide. We do not have a hidden agenda. We're not affiliated with anyone. Where is the tolerance?" The mosque's imam, Ossama Bahloul, said that he had told a child that the hatred faced by the center was "just a misunderstanding, miscommunication. I told him to love the people because one day they can love you, too."
The controversy gained national attention when Lou Ann Zelenik, a Tennessee Republican Party candidate for the vacant representative's seat in Tennessee's 6th congressional district, issued a statement in opposition. On June 24, 2010, Zelenik denounced the planned mosque as "an Islamic training center," saying that it was not a bona fide religious institution but a political one "designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee". She declared: "Until the American Muslim community find it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil, radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization and will fight against them, we are not obligated to open our society to any of them." Ben Lemming, a Democratic candidate for the same seat, was one of the few Tennessee politicians to support the mosque project, stating: "The Americans that want to build this mosque are already our neighbors. They live next to us and they are a part of our community. They are not the enemy."
Another Republican, Ron Ramsey, the Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee, questioned whether Islam is "actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult or whatever you want to call it" and described it as resembling "a violent political philosophy more than [a] peace-loving religion." His comments, made in the run-up to a Republican primary election, were strongly criticised by a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He said that Ramsey's comments were part of "a disturbing trend in our nation in which it is suggested that American Muslims should have fewer or more restricted constitutional rights than citizens of other faiths." Murfreesboro's local state Senator, Bill Ketron, subsequently introduced what The American Prospect described as "one of the most extreme anti-Sharia-law bills in the country", authorizing the state attorney general to designate "Sharia organizations" and imposing a 15-year jail term on anyone convicted of supporting such an organization. The law was passed, but the state legislature took out direct references to Sharia and Islam. Hedy Weinburg of the American Civil Liberties Union's Tennessee branch views the controversy as part of a trend; she told The American Prospect that "[y]ou don't have to dig too deep to see and hear the very rampant xenophobia and anti-Muslim voices."
In mid-July 2010, supporters and opponents of the mosque organized rival marches to the Rutherford County courthouse. Around 800 people turned up, with about the same number on either side. Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom promoted slogans such as "Freedom of religion means freedom for all religions", while opponents circulated a petition asking the planning commission to overturn its decision and expressed concerns that the mosque's members wanted to impose Islamic law. The mosque's opponents wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts, carried signs with slogans such as "Keep Tennessee Terror Free", chanted "USA! USA!", conducted Christian group prayers and heard anti-mosque pastor Dusty Ray of the Heartland Baptist Church telling them, "Lord, we're trying to stop a political movement."
Televangelist Pat Robertson weighed in during August 2010, telling his TV audience, "You mark my word, if they start bringing thousands and thousands of Muslims into that relatively rural area the next thing you know they're going to be taking over the city council." Ernest Burgess, the mayor of Rutherford County, called Robertson's claims "so ridiculous they do not deserve a response." Opposition was also fanned by a local newspaper, the ultra-conservative Rutherford Reader, which published numerous anti-Islamic articles. After protests from readers over these, some of its advertisers boycotted the newspaper. As the barrage of criticism from right-wingers continued, the ICM received a series of threatening and offensive anonymous telephone messages.