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The Case of the Basking Ridge Mosque
By Dr Akbar Ahmed
American University
Washington, DC

Some may be inclined to be skeptical and even dismissive on hearing that a Jewish organization has formed an active body to defend mosques in the US.

But this is exactly what The Interfaith Coalition on Mosques (ICOM), sponsored in 2010 by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), does. It aims to support Muslim communities whenever their constitutionally guaranteed right to the free exercise of religion is threatened.

The ADL, a Jewish organization founded in 1913, pledges to fight “anti-Semitism and all forms of hate,” but today it also speaks out against hatred of Muslims and supports their right to build houses of worship.

The Coalition, coordinated by Rabbi David Fox Sandmel, the Director of Interreligious Engagement for the ADL, has played an active role in filing amicus briefs to support the construction of mosques when their zoning applications have been treated in a discriminatory manner.

The ICOM has intervened in cases throughout the country including cases in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and in Temecula, California, where a provisional permit for a mosque to be built next to two other houses of worship was challenged in City Council. In both cases, the ICOM filed an amicus brief in support of the mosque project at hand, and eventually, both projects were permitted to proceed forward.

One case in which the ICOM became involved played out an hour’s drive from their New York headquarters in the quiet community of Basking Ridge, New Jersey and its surrounding township. The case was extensively profiled in a February 2018 article in The Guardian titled, “The fight for the right to be a Muslim in America”.

Mohammad Ali Chaudhry, a Pakistani-American who in 2004 became mayor of Basking Ridge and thus the first Pakistani-American mayor in the US, is both a proud American and a proud Pakistani Muslim. He frequently speaks throughout New Jersey on building bridges between faith communities and is always sure to sport his American flag pin for his speaking engagements.

In 2011, recognizing that the makeshift space in the community center he and his fellow Muslims in the community had been utilizing for Jummah prayers was no longer sufficient, Chaudhry bought a house and plot of land in the community where they could build the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge. He proceeded to file for the proper permits with the township and even hosted an open house for the neighbors so that he could reach out to them in friendship. He felt that as he was following all the proper channels, he would be successful in his quest to build a mosque for the local community.

The Islamic Society’s neighbors at first seemed open to the mosque being built in the neighborhood, but before long, a smear campaign emerged to tarnish the reputations of Chaudhry and the mosque community. A citizens group for “responsible development” formed. A CD containing distorted sound bites by Chaudhry on issues such as “Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah” was distributed to neighbors, and a letter which came with the CD stated, “Let’s ask Ali about those Koranic verses regarding Jews and Christians in your Koran. Why are so many terroristic acts propagated by Muslims? Is it something they are taught in your mosques and at home? And what will you teach in your new Liberty Corner mosque? You wouldn’t lie to us, would you? Taqiyya is wrong, right?”

In fact, as The Guardian reports, “transcripts of the dozens of hearings held by the town’s planning board, which run to nearly 7,000 pages, contain no mention of sharia, the Muslim Brotherhood or other rightwing hobgoblins.” The hearings were instead focused on traffic, drainage issues, and other routine concerns often heard in zoning board meetings.

The case escalated following the San Bernardino attacks in 2015. The Islamic Society, as well as the DOJ, sued the township over alleged zoning discrimination. As part of the process, lawyers defending the Islamic Society began subpoenaing some opponents of the mosque site for content in their social media and E-Mail accounts to determine whether their actions against the Islamic Society might be driven by prejudice. Press releases by opponents, per The Guardian, “had plucked a few verses from a searchable English translation of the Qur’an that could be accessed on the [Islamic Society] website – ‘Fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them’, etc. – to suggest that Chaudhry was somehow in league with religious extremists.” Official documents revealed nasty personal attacks on Ali and Islamophobic jokes about the community.

In December 2016, a federal court issued a ruling that the township had engaged in “unbridled and unconstitutional discretion” in considering the Islamic Society’s zoning application, particularly referring to how the zoning board regulated parking for mosques versus churches. Among those standing up for the Islamic Society was the ICOM, which alongside several other civil rights and religious freedom organizations filed an amicus brief supporting the Islamic Society and arguing that Bernards Township was in violation of the US federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the US Constitution. As the ADL reported in their press release following this successful court ruling, “[The Court] specifically found that the Township applied a different standard to the mosque than every other house of worship in the community, in violation of RLUIPA’s non-discrimination provision.”

Following the initial federal court ruling, Rabbi Sandmel stated, “We welcome this significant victory for religious freedom. The evidence in this case plainly suggested that The Islamic Society of Basking Ridge’s land use application was rejected simply because the congregation was Muslim.”

In August 2017 construction of the mosque was approved. In May of 2018, the United States Justice Department announced the terms of a settlement reached between Bernards Township and the federal government. The settlement also addresses the lawsuit the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge brought against Bernards Township, in which the Township will be required to pay the Islamic Society $3.25 million in damages and legal fees. The township has agreed to limit zoning restrictions on houses of worship for future applications.

Rabbi Sandmel, a compassionate man with a vision of inclusive interfaith dialogue, explained that he became involved because “Jews and Muslims have a long history of co-existence. We share much in common in terms of both religious values and culture. In communities where we are minorities, we share the dubious ‘honor’ of being targets of hate and of the majority attempting to set us against one another for its own advantage.” Sandmel also discussed how while Jews and Muslims do indeed differ, “Learning and understanding those differences is how we come to know each other in our uniqueness and our authenticity, what Rabbi Sacks calls ‘the dignity of difference.’”

In reflecting on how he has grown through this work, Sandmel remarked, “I have found this learning to be a profound experience that has enriched not only my knowledge of Islam but also my understanding of myself as a Jew. We cannot allow the differences between us, even on as thorny an issue as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to eclipse our shared concerns and prevent us from standing up for-and with-one another. I am greatly encouraged by the growth of Jewish-Muslim dialogue on the local and international level. We are, in a sense, ‘rediscovering’ one another, which I believe will be a blessing to both communities and to the world as a whole.”

This is optimism and a commitment to bridge-building that we all could learn from in this fraught and divided world.

(Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington DC. He is a  Wilson Center Global Fellow.  He was the former Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland and in 1970-71 was Assistant Commissioner in East Pakistan.)