'This Could Have Been Their 9/11 Moment'

The prayer space at the Islamic Center at New York University is like any other college conference room: big windows, tall ceilings, retro carpeting. But when it's transformed for Friday prayers, called jummah, there's a certain familiarity to it too: rows of tape showing worshippers where to sit, a line of chairs dividing women from men, people sitting cross-legged and chatting. This prayer space is similar to the two mosques, thousands of miles away in New Zealand, where 50 worshippers were killed and untold others were injured by a gunman on Friday.

For Mohammed Hojaij, a junior at NYU who serves on the board of the Muslim Students Association, that's what was most sickening as he watched the video of the attack that was allegedly posted by the shooter: "Looking at the carpet, the design, the greeting at the door," seeing how similar it was to the mosque he grew up attending in Dearborn, Michigan, "it was almost a part of me," he said. "I felt it."