Muslim leader calls for doubling number of mosques in France

[Surya Gayatri]

The number of mosques in France should be doubled over the next two years in order to provide an adequate number of places of worship for the country’s millions of faithful, a top Muslim leader said Saturday.

Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Muslim Council, said France’s current total of 2,200 mosques was not enough to adequately represent one of Europe's largest Muslim communities.

"We need double (that number) within two years," Boubakeur said during the 32nd edition of the Annual Gathering of French Muslims, a four-day event that brings together more than 250 Muslim associations from across the country.

"There are a lot of prayer rooms, of unfinished mosques, and there are a lot of mosques that are not being built," he added.

http://www.france24.com/en/20150405-france-double-number-mosques-islam/

[Quantess]

1. Do they want the government to build mosques for them?

How about he get busy and build some mosques on his own?

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Muslims would like nothing more than to build them, but they can't get building permission...

That's the issue.

Same problem as in lots of US municipalities.

He's not asking for a handout. Just government intervention to prevent local authorities from stopping building projects.

Hope that makes things clearer.

[Oktober]

3. Hopefully not...

The civilized world needs less altars to superstition and not more...

Fight them at every opportunity...

[Surya Gayatri]

4. Hummm! Not a very 'liberal', 'Democratic' stance.

How about that First Amendment 'impeding the free exercise of religion'...

[Oktober]

5. A landfill is a better use of property...

... Than anything that continues this infantile dependence on paternal sky spirits.

[Surya Gayatri]

6. You might want to add: IMHO. Bit dogmatic and doctrinaire, otherwise.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. There's nothing wrong with that.

Somebody complained, I think, to Matthew Arnold that he was getting as dogmatic as Carlyle. He replied, “That may be true; but you overlook an obvious difference. I am dogmatic and right, and Carlyle is dogmatic and wrong.”

The strong humour of the remark ought not to disguise from us its everlasting seriousness and common sense; no man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error.

- G. K. Chesterton, "Heresy".

[brooklynite]

11. Bearing in mind that the 1st Amendment is a US, not a French principle...

[Surya Gayatri]

13. Secularism is a founding principle of the French Fifth Repuplic.

Point of pride for all français. Freedom of religious expression is a sine qua non of the Republic.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. I disagree with what they say, but I support their right to say it.

In an ideal world, all Muslims would realise that they were wrong, and become liberal atheists.

But no-one should try to coerce them to, and if they wish to build more mosques, they should absolutely have the right to.

[Surya Gayatri]

8. Preach it, Donald. Spoken like a real liberal...

[closeupready]

9. This will anger the women-loving French men yelling "muslim whore"

who were discussed in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026432855

But I'm fine with it.

[Surya Gayatri]

10. Oh, là là. Hadn't seen that report. Thanks.

Of cooouuurse! women are always the easier targets.

Try that crap some of the big Muslim boys, and you'll get your ass handed to you.

[Quantess]

12. Of course women are the targets, because they are the ones who have to go around in veils.

Those muslim women are damned if they do, damned if they don't! Muslim men, however, are free to go around in western clothing. Muslim men aren't required to advertise their religion the way women are.

[Coventina]

15. Thank you!! That is something that continually bugs me. Muslim men are free to wear whatever they

want while Muslim women always look like they just got off the boat.