An African-American imam leads Friday prayer in Arabic at a mosque in Jackson. Not so many years ago, most of the Muslim worshippers here were blacks who "reverted" to Islam during the civil rights era. Now, most of those kneeling in prayer toward Mecca come from Egypt, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia.
"Our gates have flooded," says Ameen Abdur-Rashied, one of the Imams at Masjid Muhammad, a plain ranch house converted into a mosque and tucked away in a secluded patch of trees in a working-class black neighborhood. The nine-acre property even has a Muslim cemetery, with 40 people buried here, their bodies facing Mecca.
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