How did Michelle Shocked's "Anchorage" go back in 1988? "Hey Shell, you know it's kind of funny/Texas always seemed so big/But you know you're in the largest state in the union/When you're anchored down in Anchorage..."
Imagine what it must be like for someone from Somalia. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Pakistan.
"Anchorage," the Anchorage Daily News reports, "is now home to nearly 4,000 Muslims," up from a few hundred in the 1990s. Something other than Sarah Palin must be attracting Alaska's newest immigrants. And back in December, life got a lot more pleasant for the region's Muslims (not just because Palin looked like she'd be a Fox-trotting expat from then on): Anchorage got its first halal grocery store (halal food being the Islamic equivalent of kosher food).
Lamin Jobarteh, originally from Gambia, decided to quit his job as a banker and open shop on--what else--International road, a few doors down from Anchorage's Islamic Community Center.
News flash for Anchorage's Swiss expats, whose number is undetermined for now: the Islamic center recently acquired a 70-acre plot on Old Seward Highway, where it plans to build a mosque by 2011 and--brace yourselves now, as you so inadmirably can--a modest green minaret or two.
But first things first. For years, Jobarteh told the Daily News, he watched fellow Muslims order their halal food from Seattle or British Columbia and pay the hefty shipping charges. It was time to cut them a break. He bailed them out as only a former banker could:
Aside from the stocked goods, Jobarteh drives to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to preside over the Islamically correct butchering of animals at a slaughterhouse in Palmer once a week or so. His shop features a gleaming stainless steel kitchen in the back room where he can prepare custom orders of meat for families.
http://newageislam.com/minarets-over-alaska/islamic-world-news/d/2400
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6:06 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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