Female Muezzins and Mystery of the Managua Mosque

The Muslims in Bahrain are shocked, shocked I tell you, because three "females" are working in two mosques as as "muezzins" [person who calls for prayers].  Sheikh Jasim al-Saidi, who is a Salafi independent deputy in Parliament,  has asked the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs to dismiss the female muezzins working in the two mosques in question and has asked about a request for a full and detailed inventory of all the mosques, funeral sites, Husayniyat [Shiite mosques] and places of worship in Bahrain.  All three women belong to the Jafariyah [Twelvers; Shiite group], as does Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He stressed that a woman working as a muezzin is "a reprehensible innovation that no Muslim has ever dared introduce in the past." He pointed out that a woman working as muezzin is not permissible, "dangerous, and badly affects the reputation of Bahrainis in Islamic circles."   (Abu Dhabi, Asharq Al-Awsat- Bahrain)

The Wall Street Journal reports on a new mosque in Managua, Nicaragua -- With just 300 or so Muslims in all of Nicaragua, it became an instant mystery here when a big new mosque suddenly seemed to spring up recently in a residential neighborhood.  Like, who paid for it?  Was it Iran???

The geopolitical chatter surrounding the gold-domed mosque, which opened in September after more than a year of construction, continues. "Did Iran put up the money?  ...

Ismat Khatib, a native Nicaraguan lawyer and businessman who is of Palestinian descent ... 

who is treasurer of the Nicaraguan Islamic Cultural Association, which oversees the mosque, insists that the Iranian government contributed not a single córdoba ... (WSJ)

Who worships there?

"All the Taliban," declares William Martinez, a 24-year-old barber at Le Moustache, a hair salon across the street. Natalie Melendez, a clerk at the Veo Veo video-rental store on the corner, offers a different account. "There are two types of people who use the mosque," she says, matter-of-factly. "The Arabs and the Iranians."  [snip]

Fahmi M. Hassan, -- who says Nicaragua's Muslims mostly are transplanted Palestinians, Jordanians and Pakistanis -- scoffs at rumors that Iran paid for the mosque. [snip]  (WSJ)

So who did pay for the mosque?   Yusuf Amdani, chief executive of Grupo Karim's, a textile-and-construction company based in Honduras and Mexico, admits that he paid for the mosque, but ... he didn't pay for an adjoining annex that includes a school and an apartment for the imam, and suggested the Iranian government may have helped fund that.  Read it all.

It sounds very suspicious to me.

All this as Iran and CUBA continue to grow closer.

 

Comments

[MK]

Islam never ceases to surprise does it.

Now imagine this was a church or christian organization, liberals would be wailing about it and angling for some sort of law to be passed forcing them to change their religion. But when it's islam it's all quiet on the leftist front.

[R.J. Godlewski]

The Muslims seem to have no problems with female suicide bombers.

[Ron Russell]

This is an interesting story---a mosque in a country with so few muslims. Could it simply be a jumping off platform for terrorist wanting to move north. Like you I wonder where the money for it came from. The Iranians do have a long reach with their long green. I've sure the leftest government there knows the answer.