A short slide show at the beginning and video also of the construction process. Watch murids hard at work.

BismillahirRahmanirRahim
He only shall tend Allah’s sanctuaries who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor due and feareth none save Allah. For such (only) is it possible that they can be of the rightly guided. (9:18)

Watch here:

http://www.naksibendi.us/live

March 18th 7:45 EDT (New York Time)

Tolerance in a Small Town

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/can-animals-save-us/tolerance-in-a-small-town

Broadcasting live from NJ, tonight at 7:30 March 11th.

http://naksibendi.us/live2

Osmanli Naksibendi Zikr of Shaykh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi

Excerpted from Khatm Khwajagan of 22nd of Rabi Awwal – 2/25/2011

New Article posted: click here

http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=67664

Special Correspondant Helen O’neill spent days and days at the dergah and in Sidney writing this powerful 5 page piece, with over 20 photos of the Dergah shared. This piece has been syndicated to the Washington Post, SF Gate, Wall Street Journal and others.

Click here to read the article

http://Naksibendi.us/
Sufi Muslims from Sidney, NY recite from the Holy Kuran at a church during a Thanksgiving Eve service. Adhan was called, ilahis were sung, and a sohbet was held for the congregation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yursil-kidwai/germany-forgets-islamic-v_b_771757.html

Yasir Qadhi shares a piece on Muslimmatters entitled “The Lure of Radicalism and Extremism Amongst Muslim Youth“. In it Qadhi exposes more details on his relationship with a would-be suicide/underwear bomber, “Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab”. Qadhi comes clean in recognizing that Al Maghrib Institute failed to pull Umar Farouk out of the path which led him to try to blow up his underwear and a plane along with it. No-doubt, so called ‘sufi’ institutes also failed Umar Farouk, but it was Al Maghrib which he attended.

Now he is addressing the question: why?

Qadhi breaks down the problem of radicalism into two factors:

External Factors:
Bad Political action by Western countries (Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Patriot Act)
Abuses by Western powers (Abu Ghraib, Secret Prisons, Drone attacks, collatoral damage)
Western Media Islamophobia
“Sell-out” talk by Muslim Imams condemning Muslim violence but not Non-Muslim violence

Internal Factors:
Use of cherry-picked excerpts from Quran and Hadith
Simplistic black and white understanding about truth
Lack of wisdom, nuanced readings, and too much testosterone
Misreading of Islamic history as idealistic, less human

Here are some obvious inconsistencies and problems with Qadhi’s paradigm:

• 1) Qadhi attempts to address scholarly authority and education as a solution:
  

  With regards to the internal factors, it is not likely that a mind well-grounded in authentic texts and traditions will gravitate towards acts of terrorism. Thus, it is no coincidence that one will be hard-pressed to find senior clerics, of any theological persuasion, who justify flying planes into building or strapping bombs onto one’s body in order to blow up innocent civilians.

  However, ‘senior clerics’, when it comes to modern Muslim leaders, is a made up term. In a ‘history is written by the victors’ turn, Anwar Awlaki is written out as a nut job. However, Muslimmatters.org and many other Muslim bloggers celebrated Anwar Awlaki’s release from prison a few years ago.

  Today, Qadhi describes Anwar Awlaki as “an American-born cleric whose vision of Islam was completely at odds with our own”.

  What isn’t mentioned is that although today Awlaki’s vision is now at odds with Qadhi, every one of the teachers and leaders of that Institute has at some point in their lives admired Awlaki’s character, scholarship and participated in events where his tapes were sold. There is no doubt, if he was available, he would have been a sought-after speaker and teacher at these conferences a few years ago. In fact, he was sought after. That is just being honest.

  Muhammad alShareef:
  I totally agree. I have already spoken to him at the JIMAS conference. He wouldn’t be doing the class in the UsA though. He would be conducting the class in maybe Canada or the UK. So, we have to establish our presence in those countries first and pave the way for awesome teachers like him.

  BTW: I have been offered the chance to teach Seerah ‘on location’! Meaning, we would teach the history at the places that it occured: Badr, Khaybar, Ta’if, the moutain of light, the thowr cave, etc.

  I did Istikhaarah,and I felt that there were more qualified teachers to teach Seerah. So, my heart is focused on getting Shaykh Anwar to do this!  – image link

  So, who and what mainstream Muslims decide to considered ‘authoritative’ seems to be in flux.

  Even having this ‘authority’ stripped from him today, one person’s authoritative scholar is not the next person’s authoritative scholar so the point is moot. Case in point: ‘Senior clerics’ in Hamas justify plenty of things, including suicide bombings.

• 2) Qadhi’s perspective is based on using various means to tie the youth to an understanding of Islam which will lead to a successful worldly life. Qadhi is not addressing the reality that the youth choosing this path are looking for meaning beyond the worldly life. In this case it is the desired lifestyle which is the goal that Qadhi has defined, and he is using Islam, society, laws, whatever it takes to justify it. This is the very definition of sell-out for the radical prone.
  

  (and for the record, I firmly believe that one of the best ways to de-radicalize these young men is to help them get married early and encourage them to have kids, and I mean this in all seriousness).

  This approach sounds like the appeal of dunya will deter these folks. It doesn’t seem to work, Faisal Shahzad was a married father of two kids. These people are sacrificing their luxuries for their cause and Qadhi is attempting to justify why they shouldn’t.

• 3) Academic excellence offered by al-Maghrib wasn’t sufficient, and Qadhi states:
  

  I have no doubt that Umar AbdulMutallab saw a level of academic excellence at AlMaghrib that he would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in the Western world. I also have no doubt that he was highly impressed with the scholastic content of our seminars. However, in the end, what was important to him was not what he saw, but what he didn’t see. And what he didn’t see was an exposition and condemnation of the role our own countries play in spreading terror around the world. What he didn’t see were explicit solutions being offered in light of the current situation of the Ummah.

  If the institute complained more about the problems of the Western countries, Umar would have done something differently? I don’t think so. Academic excellence isn’t what these people are after, nor are academic rebuttals or complains. Most people, and most Muslims, don’t exist in an intellectual bubble of debates and proofs and Ivy league universities.

  An academic response has never motivated nor prevented any real military effort. It doesn’t really motivate soldiers. And it doesn’t rebut radicals, because it doesn’t effect anyone. The truth of the matter is philosophies don’t change the world. Even if you offer an exposition and condemnation of the role our countries play, in what way does that prevent radical action? All it does is make you go from appearing as rationalizing/ignoring to seeming ineffectual.

• 4) Yasir Qadhi points to vocalizing our grievances against the external factors as a means to dissuade acts of desperation:
  

  If we truly wish to fight radical ideas amongst our youth – if we wish to persuade them away from rash measures drawn from raw emotions, and to persuade them to act upon wisdom and perform real acts of courage – then the first step that we will have to take is to become more vocal about the grievances that drive young men to acts of desperation. We will need to be frank about the role that our governments play in ruining the freedoms and happiness that specific societies around the world deserve. And after discussing these woes, we will need to educate our youth about the proper way forward in solving them: away from foolish and un-Islamic militancy, and towards education, political activism and other positive channels.

  Is there a fundamental Islamic reason why discussion followed up with education and political activism will address the ‘external’ or ‘internal’ factors Qadhi discusses? If those discussions lead to attempts to change policy, then we end up with Hizb Tahirir and Muslim Brotherhood type political organizations, both organizations which Qadhi remains unaffiliated with. Looking forward, this approach would create yet another political Islamic ‘perspective’, it’s been done before.

• 5) While Qadhi talks about being labeled as sell-outs, he writes:
  

  We need to protect our religion for our children after us, and we need to preserve what we can of the freedoms this country still offers us.

  Why are these freedoms of such tantamount importance? The fundamental problem is that Qadhi is grasping after securing the status quo and ‘radicals’ are not.

  Qadhi is not able to transcend the philosophical high chair of an academic to understand how these youth think, and in-so-doing, he falls into the same rhetoric which distances them in the first place.

Local filmmaker Jessica Vecchione — the creative force behind the award-winning documentary Bienvenidos a Fleischmanns — has produced an extraordinary short documentary on the ugly battle over a tiny Sufi cemetery that, in the past few weeks, made the little town of Sidney the focus of a maelstrom of unwelcome attention. In the movie, which you can watch in its entirety above, she records a recent town meeting that drew over 150 people, and interviews Hans Hass, spokesman for the Osmanlı Nakş-ı’bendi Hakkani Dergah, and their lawyer, Tom Schimmerling.
-Lissa Harris

[link to the documentary]

Rescue of Chile Miners

Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Al-Haqqani felt a lot of concern and compassion for the 33 miners who were trapped underground in Chile. He prayed on their behalf, for their safety and well-being, and he asked the Ahl an-Nawba (spiritual guardians) in Chile to look after them and make their rescue easy. He instructed the 33 workers to repeat as much as possible – “there is no god but The God”. When the news came that their rescue was very risky, he donated a big sum of money (Nadhr)to be distributed in charity in 3 very poor countries in order to eliminate anything that might stand in the way of their safe rescue. Finally when all the miners were safely rescued, he prayed Shukr prayer and gave out charity (Sadaqa) in thankfullness to God Almighty.

For the honor of the Lord of heavens, Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Al Haqqani is sending to the poor people that have suffered from the calamaty in Chile 20,000 euros as a present wishing them to be happy here and hereafter and protected by heavenly blessings. Saying that it is a very small gift, Mawlana is asking forgiveness from the Lord of heavens here and hereafter.

Please ‘fan’ me there to be alerted to new posts and also to help get these posts featured quicker on the front page.

You can click here to do it quickly:

The media sensation around the Muslim cemetery in Upstate New York has been missing an important focus. The personal one.

While Bob McCartney’s been quoted as saying, “You can’t bury Grandma under the picnic table in the backyard…”, this national issue isn’t about elderly grandmas who lived full lives, but two individuals and families who experienced tragic loss of their young sons. These were young men who died at age 28 and 30.

In this article, I want to highlight a little information about Amir Celoski, who was the first to be buried at the Osmanli Naksibendi Dergahi.

Amir Celoski lived in Haledon, NJ running the family masonry business. He was a great talker, and he was so likable that people would trust his ability to do a job on sight.

I first met him at an event hosted by students of Sheikh Abdul Kerim at Columbia University, Amir attended because he was looking to learn about Islam. He was always looking to learn but never looking to teach, such people are by their very natures, the best teachers in life.

When he met Sheikh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi, he fell in love immediately. He dedicated his life from that point on to serving the community. The following is a video of his initiation into the Osmanli Naksibendi Sufi Way:

He went to the Dergah and to the Sheikh for spiritual satisfaction. And even in his New Jersey home, he put pictures and reminders all over to allow him to remember the place that he considered home, the Osmanli Naksibendi Dergahi in Sidney Center, NY.

At the Dergah, he was always light-hearted and knew how to keep everyone’s spirits up.

He loved weddings, breaking out into the traditional dances and even some not-so-traditional ones.

At the same time, he knew how to work hard. Not only the ultimate salesman, he was great at masonry itself, and he would volunteer hours upon hours upstate at the Dergah in Sidney Center to build stone walls, steps, stone floors, and make beautiful stream paths. We walk on his hard work every day.

At least once a week he would drive three hours to reach Sidney Center. His vehicle was often his heavy masonry truck which he used for his business. Every trip cost him a pretty penny just in gas.

He would focus, as the Sheikh taught, on his own mortality, and he worked hard to ensure that he considered every day his potential last. This focus helped him to remove evil characteristics such as pride, jealousy and anger. The topic of death, which some might find so odd for a healthy, energetic 28 year-old to discuss, was something he often brought up. This is also why he spoke often about his desire to be buried at the Osmanli Dergahi to his family and friends.

No matter his personal financial situation, he would never let anyone dining with him pick up the tab. Every time you sat with him, he shared his food.

And, although he had a very temperamental stomach, he ate whatever he was given at the dergah. He hated onions, but when Sheikh shared a few pieces of onion, his phobia fleeted away and he became an onion fan (at least, for that moment!).

Amir was the most generous with his time and his possessions. If someone saw something he was wearing and liked it, he literally took it off and gave it to you. Our brothers still wear his vests and shirts today.

He bought a 1997 Acura Integra a few weeks before he passed. He was very excited about being mobile without his work truck.

He died tragically at a stop light, when he was rear-ended by an out-of-control driver. He was on his way, as usual, to help someone in Sidney Center build a new masonry business.

When we saw him in the hospital he was tested for brain activity and soon pronounced brain dead. Investigations are still underway in that accident as to the state of mind of the driver and whether they were under the influence.

We will defend you Amir.

Last week, the national media discovered the town of Sidney. Officials of the Delaware County community recently told Osmanli Naksibendi Hakkani Dergahi — an Islamic spiritual center — to dig up two graves and stop future burials in a cemetery on its 50-acre property.

The issue quickly became a flashpoint, tethered to public debate over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” in Manhattan. Within hours, a Huffington Post article generated 1,700 comments. MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann named Sidney Town Supervisor Robert McCarthy “the Worst Person in the World.” Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert joked about sleeper-cell terror coffins.

By mid-week, the Islamic center had released a 2005 letter from the Sidney town zoning officer, approving the site for a cemetery, plus a copy of the zoning law that also seems to indicate compliance. The town is mulling its options. Hart Seely spoke with two key players in the dispute, McCarthy and Islamic center spokesman Hans Hass:

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/10/tiny_cemetery_in_sidney_ny_is.html

Some people may be receiving a response from Bob McCarthy which includes an attachment to a document by a lawyer. Here is my personal response, the lawyer quotes a resolution:

“At a Sidney Town Board Meeting held on August 12, 2010, the following issue was discussed:

Wheat Hill Road: The Town Board was informed that a second burial of a body was performed on private property located on Wheat Hill Road. On a motion by Mr. Schaeffer, seconded by Mr. McCarthy, and carried, Town Attorney Joseph A. Ermeti, Esq., was authorized to investigate, research and potentially commence a legal proceeding seeking an injunction prohibiting the burying of bodies on private property in violation of New York State Town Law. It was the Town Attorney’s preliminary opinion that the cemetery is being operated in violation of §1506(b) of the Public Cemetery Corporations Law which states in pertinent part that no cemetery shall be located in any town without the consent of the town board of such town. AYES: C.P. Cordes, P. Hamilton, E. Wilson. NOES: none.”

The article he is quoting from has an applicability section here:

http://www.dos.state.ny.us/cmty/cemlaw.html
§ 1503. Application

(a) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (c) of section fifteen hundred seven and subdivision (m) of section fifteen hundred ten this article does not apply to (1) a religious corporation, (2) a municipal corporation, (3) a cemetery corporation owning a cemetery operated, supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious corporation or (4) a cemetery belonging to a religious or a municipal corporation, or operated, supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious corporation unless any officer, member or employee of any such corporation shall receive or may be lawfully entitled to receive any pecuniary profit from the operations thereof, other than reasonable compensation for services in effecting one or more of the purposes of such corporation or as proper beneficiaries of its strictly charitable purposes or unless the organization of any such corporation for any of its avowed purposes be a guise or pretense for directly or indirectly making any other pecuniary profit for such corporation, or for any of its officers, members or employees, and unless any such corporation is not, in good faith, organized or conducted exclusively for one or more of its stated purposes.

In other words, the entire document that he is considering in his ‘preliminary investigation’ doesn’t apply to us. Much less a particular line.

Further, they state on their FAQ:

Q: Are all cemeteries regulated by the State of New York?

A: No, the Division of Cemeteries and the New York State Cemetery Board regulate only those cemeteries that are incorporated under the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law.

Cemeteries that do not fall under our jurisdiction include religious, municipal, private,national and family cemeteries.

link: http://www.dos.state.ny.us/cmty/cemfaqs.html

Besides, we approached the town officials and got town zoning approval:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/55628534/Sidney-Grave-Site.

To date, no one has shown me a single form that would need to be filed that wasn’t filed, nor has anyone told me who signs off on this imaginary permit form.

Next he states:

“The resolution does not mention disinterment of bodies…”

The resolution may not state it, but the first interview on the matter (on record) by The Daily Star quotes him here:
http://thedailystar.com/localnews/x600170893/Sidney-Town-Board-objects-to-cemetery

“McCarthy said the second lawsuit is against the owner of a property that allowed two Muslim burials on the property, one last November and one recently.

“These burials were done illegally, without notifying local authorities or obtaining proper permits,” he said.

“We will be seeking to have these bodies disinterred and stop future burials,” he said.

link:
http://thedailystar.com/localnews/x600170893/Sidney-Town-Board-objects-to-cemetery

Bob McCarthy states clearly, he has already come to a conclusion on what was done legally and illegally, in advance of any conclusion by the lawyer. He also concluded what he was going to do, which was to dig up Muslim bodies.

This, my friends, is the very definition of the behavior of a bigot, not a qualified elected official.

My name is Hans Hass. I’m a member of the Sufi Muslim community center in Sidney Center that has been in the news lately. Most likely some of you have seen some things in the news or on T.V. If you haven’t, you can click on the links below. Unfortunately, Sidney has gotten a lot of negative publicity nationally from this, and it seems to be going international. None of us wanted this to become such a big deal. I am writing to you as businesspeople in Sidney to ask for your help in laying this matter to rest.

I was at the last Sidney Town meeting three weeks ago asking Town Supervisor McCarthy and the other Supervisors why they were doing this. I was shocked to find out that not one of the Supervisors had any real knowledge of the basic facts of the cemetery, the legal steps that we had gone through or even of the Town’s own zoning law specifically permitting a cemetery on at least 15 acres (we have 50). No one had talked to Dale Downin, the Town Code Enforcement with whom we consulted when we first set up the cemetery in 2005 and who gave us written approval. I ran into Dale the other day and he told me the first he ever heard of their actions was when the Oneonta Daily Star article came out. I’ve also been told that Mr. McCarthy and the Town Clerk are not even on speaking terms. I was kept being told to speak to the Town Attorney Joseph Ermeti who won’t respond to anyone for the last few weeks, including our attorneys. One Supervisor at the meeting, Eric Wilson, took my phone number and assured me that he would contact the Town Attorney and get back to me as to what was really going on. He called the next day to say Ermeti was out of the office that day and then never called back. Obviously our town government is not working.

Mr. McCarthy, despite having been shown the documents and the law by myself and several reporters, continues to maintain that we are “illegally burying bodies” and seems intent on pursuing the matter legally. He has been sending out mass emails accusing us of all kinds of bogus things and spreading rumors about us. Several prominent attorneys and civil rights groups have contacted us offering their services for free and suggested we have an excellent civil rights case against the town.

All we want is for Mr. McCarthy and the Town Board to admit that they made a mistake and leave this behind us. If Mr. McCarthy cannot do this, he must resign or be forced to resign for the good of the town. I was hoping one of you could talk to him.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/#39390631

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-muslim-graves,0,7141681.story

http://www.yursil.com/blog/2010/09/colbert-report-muslim-cemetery-attack/

http://www.wbng.com/news/video/Town-Wants-Islamic-Cemetery-Removed-103954864.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-reinbach/tiny-upstate-new-york-tow_b_739832.html

http://binghamton.ynn.com/content/518995/muslim-group-fights-to-keep-cemetery/?ap=1&MP4

(CNN) — Leaders of a town in upstate New York are trying to shut down a local Muslim community center’s burial site, prompting members of the center to wonder: Why now?

Hans Hass, spokesperson for the Sufi Muslim Osmanli Naksibendi Hakkani Dergahi, or community center, in Sidney, New York, told CNN that problems surrounding the cemetery and questions about its legality started around the time the lower Manhattan Mosque and Islamic Center controversy began making national news.

But Sidney town supervisor Bob McCarthy said the legality of the cemetery came up “long before that,” referring to the lower Manhattan Islamic center controversy, though he did not say specifically when the issue came up. “What they do in New York City has nothing to do with us,” he said. When asked if the lawsuit had anything to do with the burial site originating from a Muslim community center, McCarthy said, “No.”

According to board meeting minutes provided to CNN by Hass, McCarthy and the town board voted in August to start “seeking an injunction prohibiting the burying of bodies on private property in violation of New York state town law.” In addition to preventing future burials, town officials are seeking to disinter the two members of the Sufi Muslim community currently buried on the land.

McCarthy said he is “not an attorney” and was vague about the injunction proceedings, except to say that, currently, “there is no injunction.” He referred CNN to the town’s lawyer, Joseph Ermeti, who is handling the legal proceeding. Ermeti has not returned phone calls or e-mails to CNN.

Lisa French, town clerk for Sidney, told CNN that according to Sidney’s zoning laws, cemeteries are permitted on property that contains a “single contiguous area of at least 15 acres.” Hass said his community’s burial site has over 60 contiguous acres.

And according to the New York state Department of Cemeteries, there are no state regulations concerning burial on private property — each community is advised to consult its local government on the matter.

But French points to another law in the state’s Department of Cemeteries, which does indicate that it is unlawful to mortgage land “used and occupied for cemetery purposes.”

The community center’s lawyers are looking into the mortgaged land issue and are still uncertain whether the law is applicable to their situation, Hass said. “We didn’t have a cemetery that we mortgaged, we have a property that we had a mortgage on from the beginning and we put a cemetery on it,” he said. The center is confident the matter will be resolved — either by dividing the property or paying off the mortgage, Hass said.

The community’s burial site was approved in 2005 by the town’s code enforcement official Dale R. Downin, Hass said. Hass provided CNN with a copy of the approval letter, dated December 6, 2005, which simply states that Downin has “inspected” the proposed property and that “a cemetery at this location would be allowed use according to the Town of Sidney Zoning Ordinance.” Phone calls to Downin to confirm its authenticity have not yet been returned.

But according to McCarthy, who said he has not seen Downin’s letter to the community center, “The crux of the argument is that you can’t just bury somebody in your lawn,” McCarthy tells CNN. “That’s what they’re doing — they buried [bodies] in their field.”

Hass does not see it that way. “It’s an unfortunate situation, and I don’t think it really reflects the view of most Americans,” he told CNN.”This is a small-town issue and it’s a small-town mentality … and they’re pressing ahead with it because their intentions, I think, are pretty transparent.”

Hass also said the cemetery is not exclusively for Muslims. “We welcome anyone who would like to be buried here, including local people who otherwise are unable to afford burial,” he said.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For more on the story see Huffington Post article.

Please feel free to send Mr. McCarthy a polite note expressing your concerns.

Sidney Town Supervisor (Bob McCarthy)
bob@sidneytax.com

Mailing Address:
Robert McCarthy
41 Wood Road
Sidney, NY 13838
Cell Phone:
607-237-3155

by
Andrew Reinbach

Journalist
Posted: September 27, 2010 12:10 AM

A town in upstate New York is trying to force a local Muslim religious community to dig up a small cemetery on its property and never bury anyone there again because it says it’s illegal.

“What we would not want is an unauthorized cemetery,” says Bob McCarthy, town supervisor of the Delaware County town of Sidney, population 5,993. “We’re taking care of a bunch of cemeteries, and they just came in and buried the bodies, and didn’t go through…there’s no funding there, it’s not a standard kind of deal, and it’s going to become a liability to the town.”

So what steps have the Muslims skipped? “I don’t know what the exact law is,” he says.

Which is the problem; because whether or not the town government likes it, there are no laws in Sidney — or New York state, for that matter — covering cemeteries on private land — religious cemeteries included. Plus, the town approved the cemetery in 2005.

In any event, the cemetery, in the tiny hamlet of Sidney Center, was never a secret — and couldn’t have been: When the first body arrived in November, 2009, it had a 3-car escort from the Passaic, New Jersey Police Department, which necessarily told local authorities it was arriving.

And there’s certainly nothing illegal about it as far as the State Troopers are concerned. “We looked into the cemetery and it was determined what they were doing is lawful,” says Captain James Barnes of the New York State Police, Troop “C “, based in Sidney.

This apparently isn’t stopping the town board. Town attorney Joseph Ermeti wouldn’t speak with us, but two other town officers indicated that in the absence of specific laws forbidding the cemetery, the town may try for a court order to force the Muslims to dig up the graves, based on a New York law against cemeteries on mortgaged land — a technicality that covers the Muslim site, sitting in a hillside glade no larger than a Manhattan studio apartment.
2010-09-27-SidneyGraveSite.jpg

Shaykh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi, leader of the Sufi group — called Osmanlı Nakş-ı’bendi Hakkani Dergahı — says he just discovered the problem himself, and is correcting it — his options being to either subdivide the property to exclude the cemetery, or to pay off the mortgage, which is under $200,000.

In any event, whether a lawyer could convince a court that a 650-square foot cemetery on mortgaged property so offends the dignity of the law that it merits digging up bodies is the sort of fine distinction only lawyer could love. Likewise, there’s the question of whether taking such a course is wise, since the town’s actions could attract all sorts of unwelcome attention — and possible civil rights lawsuits.

“Islamophobia is something we’re definitely aware of,” says James Mulvany, Deputy Commissioner of the New York Division of Human Rights.

Some interested parties are certainly looking at the religious bias angle — in part because the board took its first official steps in July, just as the so-called “Terror Mosque” controversy was making headlines.

“It’s like Sherlock Holmes used to say,” says Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has attracted its own Islamophobes. “When everything that’s untrue is disproved, what’s left must be true, and this is obviously bias.”

Feelings in Sidney about the cemetery are certainly strong. Asking a sampling of people in Sidney drew responses ranging from a deer-in-the-headlights stare followed by categorically denying knowing anything about it, to a strong stare and a curt, “mind your own business”.

In fairness to both the town and Sidney Center — population 1,391, area 44 square miles — the Shaykh, in his flowing robes, long beard and turban, must cut quite a figure to deeply traditional, rural Americans.

And the fears that fasten on him and his followers aren’t helped by the fact that in the past year or so, Muslims have been buying property near the center, spurring speculation that the ultimate plan is to create a town-within-a-town, governed by Sharia law.

“I understand [those fears], but that’s not our intention,” says the Shaykh, who says no more than a half-dozen Muslims have bought property nearby. “They just want to participate [in the center], get away from the city, and live a clean life.”

And in fact that’s exactly why the Shaykh and his 30-some followers moved to the 50-acre sheep farm in Sidney Center in 2002, his basic teachings being that since the world is what it is, people who want to live a spiritual life need to live apart from it — not unlike Hasidic Jews or Amish people.
2010-09-27-IslamicCenterparorama2.jpg

But that hope hasn’t stopped what the community considers harassment. Hans Hass, a spokesman for the group and member of the local EMS team, says that while most relations with their neighbors are civil, some trucks do blare their horns and throw rocks at the little farmhouse on Wheat Hill Road.

Then, he says, there have been the “dozens” of visits by various police departments since 2002 — including one in 2003, made by the FBI on a Muslim holy day — the Eid-ul Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.

That visit, says Capt. Barnes, was triggered by a report that a man wanted for murder was seen on the property. Hass says it was because of reports of “people with turbans”. Captain Barnes says his men have made “only about a half-dozen” official visits to the center, although he concedes there may have been more, unofficial visits from members of his Troop as well as Delaware County and Sidney police.

At the end of the day, the entire hoo-hah may be the result of third parties using the town as a cat’s paw to attack the Shaykh and his followers. An email from one Salih Kalfaoglu and made available to me accuses the center of being a fraudulent, for-profit venture (an email to the address on the email requesting comment wasn’t returned).

Another email, from McCarthy to a third party, discussed telephone calls from someone claiming Tea Party affiliation who “…wanted to know how he could help with ‘the Muslims’” In that email, McCarthy says “all outward signs…indicate this is a for profit venture and should not receive any of the benefits afforded to a religion.”

None of this, says Hass, who was born in Maine, is what the Shaykh and his followers want. “We hope to put down our roots and live here as Americans.”

By Patricia Breakey Delhi News Bureau Delhi News Bureau Tue Sep 14, 2010, 03:30 AM EDT

The Sidney Town Board passed a resolution at its August meeting to begin legal proceedings against the Muslim Osmanli Naksibendi Hakkani Sufi Order on Wheat Hill Road in Sidney Center over a cemetery it has established on its land.

According to the minutes of the Aug. 12 meeting, the Sidney board voted unanimously to “an injunction prohibiting the burying of bodies on private property.”

Hans Hass, of the Muslim community, said the cemetery is legal and two bodies have been buried in it.

Hass said before there were any burials in the cemetery, local laws and regulations and state laws were researched to ensure that the cemetery would be legal.

Hass notes that the cemetery was established before Supervisor Bob McCarthy and Town Clerk Lisa French were elected. He added that there is nothing in the Sidney zoning regulating cemeteries, but before anything was done he went to the previous clerk and to Dale Downin, code enforcement officer, to see if a permit was required.

McCarthy said Aug. 29 that the Sidney Town Board is contemplating two lawsuits.

McCarthy said the first lawsuit is over a cemetery in Young’s Station that was abandoned by a defunct church, causing the land and care of the cemetery to revert to the town. He said the cemetery reportedly contains bodies of Civil War veterans.

“A neighbor apparently has encroached on the (Young’s Station cemetery) and refuses to remove his goats, chickens and trapping paraphernalia,” McCarthy said. “The town is forced to sue to have the property vacated.”

McCarthy said the second lawsuit is against the owner of a property that allowed two Muslim burials on the property, one last November and one recently.

“These burials were done illegally, without notifying local authorities or obtaining proper permits,” he said.

“We will be seeking to have these bodies disinterred and stop future burials,” he said. “Unauthorized cemeteries have the potential of placing a financial burden on the local government as well as dictating the use of the land for perpetuity.

“It is unfortunate that we have to take these steps to prevent people from gaming the system and climbing on the backs of an already overtaxed local taxpayer, but anything that we have to do to prevent this will include every religion,” McCarthy said.

According to the State Department’s Division of Cemeteries website there are no state regulations concerning burial on private property. However, the state Sanitary Code does define the distances required between cemeteries and water sources, which vary from district to district.

Hass said according to the Sidney town zoning code, cemeteries are a permitted use in residential-agricultural districts and any new cemetery shall contain a single contiguous area of at least 15 acres, which the Muslim cemetery meets.

Patricia Breakey can be reached at 865-5175 or at patriciabreakey@yahoo.com