Day 13, Kansas, Islamic Society of Wichita
Aug
Aman sits inside the Chevy Cobalt as Maghrib, the sunset prayer, hints at her coming.
NOTE: Because many people in Wichita feel that their community has been misrepresented, we would like to offer them a chance to represent themselves. If you grew up in Wichita or live there now and would like to share your experiences in the community please email me, Bassam, at info@30mosques.com. We understand how communities can feel marginalized, and are excited to share a story from someone who has a better grasp of the city and the community than I clearly have. – Bassam Tariq
NOTE 2: I also am changing some of the language. I understand that we haven’t seen all of Wichita, we just explored the areas around the mosque.
Taking pictures outside of the Islamic Society of Wichita, I strike up a small conversation with Ammarah, a journalism student from the local university, Wichita State, who is following us today.
“So, what do you do for fun in Wichita?” I ask.
“Not much. We just eat out,” she shrugs, “but since there are very few halal places, we only go to places that have good fish I guess.”
Hello, Kansas.
We reach the Wichita mosque around 5 PM from Oklahoma City and sit in our car wondering what we’ll talk about today. The communications director of the mosque, Aisha, happily give us a tour around the mosque. Visiting a new mosque everyday and getting similar tours of the facilities has started to make me nauseous since I was fasting, so I cut to the chase and ask her to give me the skinny on Muslims in Kansas.
Ayesha runs down a list of occupations Muslims are doing in Kansas and it’s all very similar to what Muslims are doing in other parts of the country (i.e. doctor’s, engineers, business owners, etc.). What’s fascinating though is that Wichita has the largest airline manufacturing industry in entire world, it’s been fittingly coined “the air capital of the world.” That’s one of the main reasons why tons of Muslim engineers ended up working here for airplane manufacturers such as Boeing, Airbus and Cessna. The local university, Wichita State University, also has a great aerospace engineering program so many Muslim folk who come from abroad end up staying here and working at the research facilities of these companies.
The places we see in Wichita are bare. Still, the clear blue skies cast a tenderness and ease that a place like New York City would never quite understand.
We come back for the break fast and are greeted by Dr. Assem Farhat, our host family for tonight. We eat chicken gravy with salad and pasta while we talk about how relaxed life is in Wichita. Dr. Farhat is Syrian and has spent most of his life globetrotting through Europe. He did his medical schooling in Europe and his specialization in Cardiology in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Farhat has lived in many large cities, but has ended up in Wichita because of work. He has been here for 20-plus years and has no plans on leaving. Dr. Farhat, like a lot of the Muslims we’ve met in Wichita, loves it here.
“Wichita is a great place for living,” he remarks, “just not visiting.”
Touché.
Good story with lot of nice pictures of beautiful skylines.yes in new york we get it very rear.
Good work and stay safe hands of Allaha (SWT).
I now look forward to Dilawar mamos comments more than I do your posts!
Also, that second last picture of the mosque looks like a prison with a dome on it. A little color wouldn’t hurt.
haha, Rehan. I will have to agree about Dilawar comments. Mashallah, he is really on top of his game and keeping up with the blog and sending the guys some blessings.
Ha! I used to visit Wichita all the time and yes it is a boring place to visit. I have not been in some years but I never saw it as desolate or the dog food smell. It was before I was Muslim so I never been the that Center or the area around it.
Anyway, I live up in Kansas City, KS and we have a pretty nice Muslim community up here. If you ever do this again you should drop by!
Haha yea, you pretty much nailed that one. Wichita is pretty boring, you should have checked out the east side of town it’s way more developed than the middle of town and parts of the west side.
C’mon guys it’s not that bad. You took pictures of the ugliest part of town (north side) and even that has some prettier parts up by the river. I don’t think you’re being at all representative of the entire city. It is boring though, lol, but like they say life is what you make it.
SalamAlakum,
I was looking forward to the Kansas article but found it kind of boring actually. I don’t think you represented Kansas in the correct light. Topeka, does not represent Kansas very well. Perhaps you should’ve drove 40 minutes East, and came to Lawrence. Or another 40 minutes more East to that, and you would have gotten to Kansas City, which is actually a pretty exciting city.
Other than that, you guys have been doing a really good job with the blog. Keep up the good work and good luck!
“…the clear blue skies cast a tenderness and ease that a place like New York City would never quite understand.”
True say.
I’m loving the depictions offered of small-town midwestern Muslim Americans, because we get a view of your normal, average, run of the mill Muslim American. And that’s all there is to it: we’re part of the American fabric just like every other person that’s an engineer or a truck driver or a teacher. Thank you.
p.s. MT for the win
Assalamu’alaikum wrwbth,
I am enjoying reading the blog. The best part of Wichita is the name of their mosque. It was refreshing to hear the name “Aisha” as the name of the mosque. As a Muslim woman, I felt great joy in seeing a mosque named after Prophet Muhammad SAWS’s wife. I applaud the Muslim citizens of Wichita for choosing the name.
Haha. The place may be boring, but thankfully the reporters are not!
Wow, they have a woman as an officer of the mosque. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t fly in my city. Good for Wichita, though.
Hey Michael, there are many communities we’ve visited where Women hold positions on the board. But it’s more common in the black communities than it is in the immigrant ones.
Are you kidding me, with your Wichita, Kansas visit? You ended up in the only part of the city that has remnants of an old refinery, meat packing plants and recycling centers and you are complaining of the dog food smell? I can’t wait till I read about your trip to the other Masajid in the USA.
A good intention gone bad,Typical of Muslims.
as-salaamu ‘alaykum,
you visited wichita and these are the pics you chose to take?! hilarious. north broadway industrial district = air capital of the world, i guess.
Salaam Sr Tasneem,
The masjid is actually named Darrus salaam…Sr Ayesha was just showing them around….
Hey they are not visiting the typical tourist hangouts. Places near mosques catches their attention so chill.
Oops! Sorry for the mistake. Thanks for correcting me.
Assalam Aloukum,
very disappointed of how you wanted to show an all American city with all American muslims in it ,for Air capital of the world it would be nice to have airplanes being built as your pictures or the picture of the mosque from the front with nice real lime stone imported fountains, but I guess you are tired of all the driving.We love our city and hope to see you visit us again.
sad that you had such a lame experience in Wichita. Sounds like you ended up in the worst part of town, there are some decent and interesting places to visit. Your visit to our masjid was kept secret and only known to the “chosen few” in this community, guess they wanted to show you the best face of our community. too bad my brothers in middle school and really wanted to meet you guys. most of my friends don’t even like to go to the big masjid becuz of the attitude of superiority the people in charge have. Kind of jealous of the neighborly feel some of the other places you visited have, they are lucky. Here it’s the longer the beard the more props you get. People have one face at the masjid, cuz most are dragged there by there parents and another at school or hangin out. Peace and salaams.
Salam,
You shouldn’t stop coming to the masjid because some people try to make you feel bad by thinking that they’re superior. In that case you just made them win. the MASJID is for everyone and if some don’t like us aroud all they can do is stop coming not you or me. Peace and ramadan karim.
http://i37.tinypic.com/5z2rrd.jpg
Guys you grossly misrepresented Wichita in your post. The pictures you chose represent Wichita as much as pictures of drug dealers and prostitutes on a street corner in Harlem would represent NY city. The picture of the Mosque was taken from the worst possible back angle.By the way, if touring mosques makes you “nauseous”, I suggest changing the title of your tour.We had arranged for a large “neighborhood Iftar” on the day of your visit to find out a few days earlier -from your web site- that you have changed the date without notification.Even some simple facts you stated are incorrect (I did not do my medical schooling in Europe nor did my Cariology in Cleveland).You had asked not the announce your visit to the community to make it “more natural”, so we did. We gave you many interesting stories about our small Muslim community in the heart of America , from the struggle to survive,integrate and establish our community center and school, to the involvement with the Wichita community at large and local politics and the visit by the Governor for the mosque opening ceremony, to the visit and documentary about Darfour by a community member, but you chose to ignore them. We offered you to visit the school children and see Wichita, but you elected to”rest”before your long journey to Denver, then,probaby, snap some pictures of the old industrial area off the highway on the way to Denver .Unfortunately, your post did not reflect the basics of journalism (fairness and facts).I’m deeply disappointed.
AAAGH! Who showed you around Wichita?? It’s LOVELY here in Wichita! But yes, if you go down 21st St. North at just the right time of day, the odor is…well, let’s just say a gas mask would be helpful!
Salam, and Happy Travels!
Brother Abdul Azeem, the places around Wichita’s Darrus Salaam Masjid are beautiful. There are beautiful homes, wonderful shopping centers and the oh-so graceful Muslims (men and women) can be seen there as well.
From one of the pictures, it seems that brothers were lost and ended up in the lamest part of town. I would like to ask them to please contact one of us for the next trip. We’ll show them why brothers and sisters, who have ventured out to concrete jungles of America, terribly miss Wichita and its Muslim community.
Well said, brother Assem. Thank you.
There are lots of great things going on in Wichita, we have some very talented, intelligent and active Muslim youth, and they are not just doctors and engineers, we have some studying law, political science, nursing, education, journalism, business, etc. Many of our middle and high school students are active in competitive sports, top debaters and scholars.
Outside of the Mosque a number of them working as activists on a variety of causes, organizations, and political campaigns, I’m disappointed you didn’t get to meet any of them. We also have a very diverse ethnic population of Muslims and many American Muslims as well. Our weekday iftars are only for single people and senior citizens I believe, none of my Muslim friends or their children were aware that you would be here until after your blog was posted. I really enjoyed reading your posts from other communities, many of them look like such welcoming and inclusive communities, I wish that you could have had a different experience in Wichita.
Dang Bassam, you’re getting grilled! Imagine if you didn’t edit it. Cut them some slack guys, they must be exhausted from all the driving. It is Ramadan, have some mercy, even if this post was crappy.
If they were too tired to give the Wichita community justice then they should have taken a day off from their project to rest. As everyone else from this community has said, there is much more to our community than what was shown in this blog and I don’t mean just the mosque. Wichita is a vibrant community and has at least 5 airline manufacturing plants building airplanes for airlines and individuals all over the world. We also have a major university here, which while both of these things were mentioned, they were downplayed with the “most businesses in Wichita are closed” statement. We also are home to the largest grain elevator in the world which is fully functioning and distributes grain to people all over the world.
If one if going to drive to the edge of town, more likely than not, one is going to find closed business. This is true of any major city, not just Wichita.
I am extremely disappointed in this portrayal of city of Wichita as well as that of the mosque itself. We have a great community and many things to be proud of here but to read this article, one would think that we live in a ghost town and attend the most boring mosque on the planet. The research and writing of this article definitely could have been better.
I think they deserve some slack, maybe they were looking for something other than they typical “soundbites” – there are great Muslims in Wichita, they don’t all hang out at our mosque, mostly because it’s not that welcoming unless your part of the group that runs it. The whole mentality in this community is still stuck in ‘how we do things back home”. A doctor and a businessmen may be nice guys but not that exciting, i guess someone thought that would be impressive. my cousins live in Cali and their community is awesome, they’re more about helping others than making a good impression and passing judgement on eachother.
Hey Bassam,
This tour you guys are doing is awesome, made more interesting since I know you and I grew up in Wichita! I must say, living in NYC now that I really do miss the open skies in Wichita and the feeling of community I have not felt since then in either Austin or in the city. I understand that the downtown that you saw was the more “authentic” part of Wichita, but realistically most Muslim people live in suburban areas like what you saw around the Masjid, just like any other city in America. I must say, in Wichita we worked hard to build the Masjid in this suburban area, our old Masjid was not in such a family-friendly area! Our Masjid and its location are a testament to the hardworking character and family values of the people in Wichita – which is why I think the community is upset that you drew more attention to the negative parts of the city!
Anyways, good luck with the trip and I’m sure I’ll see you around in New York!
Amenah
@rehan, they are some haters, aren’t they? grossly misrepresenting the place they visited. thank you.
I wish these kids were here for Friday prayer or during weekend. They could have met many more people and seen the well organized community Aftar.
Well, at least their trip has started a good conversation.
Dr. Farhat, Salams,
My apologies for getting some facts incorrect and I will correct them soon.
Other than that, I don’t feel like I painted a negative picture of Wichita. To say that taking pictures of warehouses is similar to that of drug dealers in harlem is a stretch. The succession of pictures of still life I think are stunning. I even say, “Still, the clear blue skies cast a tenderness and ease that a place like New York City would never quite understand.” The pictures are paying homage to the blue skies that we were greeted to.
I am sorry that my short time in Wichita isn’t the way you or many of the community members wanted me to portray it. But I concede in the end that I don’t know what Wichita is really like “Dr. Farhat, like a lot of the Muslims we’ve met in Wichita, loves it here.
“Wichita is a great place for living,” he remarks, “just not visiting.”
Touche”
I will correct the errors I made about your education, my apologies on that. But otherwise, I don’t think I’ve misrepresented Wichita, just decided to keep the story clear about a visitor not understanding a city and coming to terms in the end that if he lived here, he would have understand what makes it so great.
We have come expect to be misrepresented by the non-Muslim media. We didn’t expect misrepresenation from people we thought of as a part of our greater American Muslim community. Sad and disappointed at a missed opportunity.
A Z Malik, I don’t think my pictures negate the other interesting parts of the community. Maybe the areas that I found stunning aren’t exactly what you find compelling. That is fine.
Thanks for your offer about next time, but I have a better idea. Please send me an email.
Aman, come on. I was there. We shared multiple individual and community stories with you. We worked to understand your goals and respect your wishes. You mean to tell me, you guys left Wichita with no understanding of the Muslim community other than “we love it here” (and you don’t know why). We told you, it is because we are a small and close knit community that crosses all cultural and nationality line. We are not disappointed that you didn’t make our community look great. That’s not the point. We are disappointed that you took the time to share wonderful stories from the other communities you visited (big or small) but chose not to when it came to Wichita.
We have come expect to be misrepresented by the non-Muslim media. We didn’t expect misrepresenation from people we thought of as a part of our greater American Muslim community. Sad and disappointed at a missed opportunity.
Right on Maheen!
Time for a mea culpa and some mercy.
ASA– WOW. I appreciate what the brothers of this website are doing. I haven’t agreed with everything that they have written on each day, but KS people– PLEASE GET A GRIP! I have never been to Wichita. This post did not make me think awful things about Wichita. IF YOU WANT A GREAT PR CAMPAIGN, please produce it yourself. This is a record of **their** impressions. The post wasn’t mean-spirited. Please, move on.
yea Kansas suck just land and more land of corn no wonder the built the airline factory there ” there is sooo much land with NOTHING around
BTW is that the front of the masjid or the back ??
baaap re, tera band bajgaya…
Guess what “brothers” and “sisters”: This trip is not a publicity tour for your city; get over it already! This is a journey by two, private individuals. If you don’t like what they photographed or how they portrayed your city, get a blog and give the rest of America a reason to care about fly-over country, why don’cha! Otherwise, stop being such punks towards two travelers. Don’t you know your own sacred Islamic duties towards travelers? Sheesh.
@Shah, I think you’re right about the people, because that is very clear from their comments, which strike me as from controlling Type-A personalities who really don’t get it, at all.
Apparently the water in Wichita contains a blend of chemicals that make you ridiculously over-sensitive.
Note to self: Pack plenty of Aquafina before visiting Wichita.
Revised note to self: Don’t visit Wichita.
That one sure touched off some lively comments! As an outsider (neither Muslim nor Kansan), I didn’t see this as badmouthing Wichita, but it didn’t give me a very good idea of the context of the Muslim community there either. I would have loved to hear some of the stories about the founding of the Muslim community there. On the other hand, clearly these blog posts are really intended to be more like popcorn than a 3-course dinner. Your trip clearly has inherent time limitations on how long you are in each place, how many people you can talk with, not to mention how much rest you can get along the way! Maybe someday you will write something more in-depth about being Muslim in America. In the meantime, I’m glad to get these small “snapshots” that I would never see otherwise.
Asalamualikum Bassam ,
Ramadhan Kareem.
May the blessings of Allah be upon all of us.
If you were my sons, what I would say to you is this: “choose a worthwhile goal in life , work hard towards that gaol, and do not lose sight of your ultimate goal as you go on your journey.”
My sons, the two of you seemed to have chosen what initially sounded like a worthy goal, but unfortunately, as happens much too often, it appears that you may have gone off track. This appears to be yet another situation of a good start gone bad.
If you are visiting the variious mosques to grade the cities based upon their landscape and architecture, then you need to reeaxamine the purpose of your tour.
Personally I am not offended at all by your report of our city. No we do not have the Eifel tower or sky scrapers in Wichita. But you did not have to take the time to come all the way here to find that out. You could have looked that up on the intrenet.
We are a modest city with a modest muslim population who pride themselves for the brotherhood and unity among our community.We struggle to raise our children to be good muslims, just as our brothers and sisters in other communities do. We are grateful to Allah Subhanawa taala for his blessings upon this community in the shape of our Mosque and Islamic School that we continue to struggle and develop. We are also gratetul for our guests who will ‘always’ be welcome here.
Please keep this advise in mind; when you visit someone, or some place , remind yourself you are there to meet and get to visit with the ‘people’ since they are the soul of every place, no matter how big or small.
It is not my intention to chastise you (Allah be my witness) for your report. I would feel very bad if you did not accomplish something ‘bigger’ and worthwhile at the end of your journey after all the time and effort you put into this. I feel obligated to remind you to re examine your goal since you are entering the final days of your tour during the final third of this blessed month.( the comments from the last entry coud be a nice place to start)
May Allah be your guide and make this a successful endeavor for you and grant you His many blessings for your efforts.
Ameen
For Mracia, I welcome your comments. You seem to be an open minded person. There are many useful resources about what it is like being muslim in America and I will request Bassam to post some of those resources on the blog.
In a nutshell we are a peace loving people most of whom are immigrants and came to this wonderful country seeking the same dream that the people who were born here have for themselves. We face the same day to day chaleenges of making a living and raising a family as any non muslin family does. We do feel the need to preserve our faith no matter where we live.
We strive to impart the Islamic values of honesty, hardwork, charity ( zakat) etc which we see practised in the non muslim community. We believe in the holy books inlcuding the bible ( too bad the group of 30 odd people who demonstrated in our mosque during our Friday prayers the other day holding
bibles in their hands, din’t know.
Among the challenges that we as a people face living here is the resistance that we sometimes encounter when we try to practice our faith. As a personal example that I can shre with you, my employer sent someone to my offie one day giving me advice that weraing my head scarf was not good for me. It made me look come across as a ‘weaker’ person and hat removing it would be ‘better ‘ for me.
I could have filed an EEO complaint against him and got a couple of million dollars perhaps, but I chose not to do so. I advised him that he could have my job, but I wanted him to know that wearing my scarf made me a stonger, not weaker person as I have the strngh to practice my faith despite the challenges and prejudices.
I want share with you, please do not believ what you hear on Fox News about us.
I just noticed tis book in my library that you may find to be an interesting read.
“What’s right with Islam is what is Right with America” by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf with a Foreword by Karen Armstrong. Karen armstrong ahs authored several books on comparative religion that illustrate that there is “more in common than you think” ( another book title-can’t recall author) in the 3 Ibrahimic faiths.
Marcia, I dont know where you live, but you are also very welcome to visit us at our mosque should you happen to travel this way some day.
PS: when I tell you that I’m a better speller than a typist you’ll just have to take my word for it
This was really mailing it in. It just seemed like you took your pre-conceived notions of Wichita and wrote the article in that light. Some of the other posters also said this but you didn’t have to visit Wichita to know it’s a small metro in a small, conservative state. So it would’ve been wonderful to hear stories of Muslims in this city – that was not done.
If you wanted a little more pizazz, Lawrence – where the University of Kansas is located, and the Kansas part of the Kansas City metro area, including Overland Park, were probably the places to go. But seeing as you chose Wichita, you still should have done it justice.
I’ll leave you with something I realized while visiting this Masjid in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Stopping at the Masjid is the only thing I do in Tulsa, and I have never managed to arrive at a time of congregational prayer, yet the place is so peaceful. Many times I go there, see the Islamic School and the children and I think, “wow even in Tulsa, OK, Islam is here, and its part of the community”.
To make my point short, my only impression of Tulsa is the Masjid and surrounding areas, and that leaves me impressed with Tulsa – I imagine I could move there if offered the opportunity having felt at peace in the Masjid.
To a larger extent, visiting these mosques is the only impression of the city that you have, and in this case the congregants and all of us reading have felt that you didn’t do justice to Wichita. We all know there are multiple masjids in the larger metro areas, but going to places like Wichita, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and numerous college towns, is what would make this project worthwhile.
Hmmm, maybe Wichita really isn’t the great little city you first said it was? We’ve never had people protesting at our mosque with or without Bibles. You guys must be doing something wrong, or perhaps you don’t even really understand America or Americans and there is a big communication gap between you and the American city around you. How many converts do you have in your _suburban_ community?
@Michael
You don’t know the whole story so please butt out. There’s a lot more to what went on and it’s not my place to share but I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t paint my entire community with the same brush.
I don’t have an issue with what Brother Bassam posted at all and I think the pictures of the sky and the grain elevator are beautiful in the sense that the elevator looks forgotten and forlorn but that’s what makes it beautiful.
And most of the people from my community that have left comments on here were respectful in what they said so I’m failing to see how you have a problem with it.
Also unless you live in Wichita which I suspect that you do you wouldn’t have known about the incident that occurred on Friday after Jummah prayers. It wasn’t even on the news, I know. I recorded the news just in case. There are cases of Islamaphobia incited events all across the country and no mosque is more likely to have an incident than any other aside from those that have been in the media spotlight recently. So it’s just as likely that it could have happened at your mosque, just because it didn’t doesn’t mean it won’t happen or couldn’t ever possibly happen.
Well, let’s thank god they’re not your sons. sheesh.
@ Michael–There are a lot of converts in this community. In fact, I’d say about half of the people that commented on this post from Wichita are converts, including myself.
There’s no need for anyone to get hateful. Most of the Wichitans that read this blog feel that it was a very bad portrayal of Wichita. So what? No need to argue and throw around insults.
WOW! I read the Wichita post and thought it was lovely… a simple snapshot of your experience, just like every other post here. I also thought the photos were great. I started reading the comments but about 2/3 of the way through stopped. too much nastiness. what you guys are doing is fun and interesting. the rest of you people need to chill out and relax. as someone who had never been to Wichita (or Kansas for that matter) the post made it seem appealing and a place that I might stop in on someday… the comments afterward however, made me rethink that. nope, Wichita no longer seems like a welcoming or hospitable place if I were to base my perceptions on the people posting here. sad.
Our brothers are already half-way through their journey and have raised only $190 so far…if everyone who had posted about the Wichita Muslim Community had given $5 to the cause, you all would have raised close to $300. It’s not always about ‘us’ people.
Wichita is full of different areas. I personally have lived in Kansas for most of my life (all but 6 years). There are many people in our area that are incredibly insensitive. There are many people who have no idea what culture really is.
I agree – where you have pictures from in Wichita are not the best parts of town. I’m frustrated I hadn’t heard that you guys were coming here before the CNN article because I would have been in touch to show you some of the more beautiful areas people don’t always know about here.
Me? personally? I’m spiritual, not religious; however, I hold deep respects for those who are religious. There are just far too many “stereotypes” in Wichita who never leave the confines of the state, the town, whatnot. In my community (which is less than 1000 people, and virtually no one is anything but Caucasian), there’s more misogyny and racism that I could never express.
Wichita is not representative of Kansas; however, it is an accurate representation therein. No local news organizations that I’m aware of had any blurb about this whatsoever, and that frustrates me more than I can say.
In short – I wanted to apologize, on behalf of those who actually DO live here, that we’re not all backwards, we’re not all racist jerks, and that if you ever stop through Wichita again I hope I have the honor of being able to sit down and have a very fascinating conversation.
Sounds like once again, you guys failed to plan correctly. You changed your date of arrival in Wichita, where they already had planned on a different date you had told them. It seems to me that some of the situations you have encountered have only you to blame. You seem very arrogant that you think that no matter what decisions you make, it is up to others to adapt to you. As in Alabama, you made changes and then when it didnt turn out so well, you made it seem as though it was that communities fault and not your own. You have internet, ur equipment, all you had to do was lookup where u were heading to in Mobile, and you would have understood why you recieved such a reaction, all u had to do was plan. Wichita welcomed you with open arms, they took the time and effort to share with you much information and this is all you wrote? I am also confused why you said it made you “nauseous” to tour yet another Mosque, I thought that was the idea, to visit 30 in 30 days. You even got the Doctor’s information wrong, you preferred to rest then to do what you have claimed is your goal. I know people will say u were probably tired lots of traveling, you knew what to expect before you started, that is no excuse, and you have no one to blame but yourself! There is no evil to decieve you, as you have made clear, it is Ramadan, which means your actions are influenced by only you. Before I leave, I would lso just like to add that you could have taken a picture of the front of the Mosque, it is very beautiful. And no, I am not from Wichita.
so, it this what you people are doing? turning boring little small town into what you people think is religion? oh wait, that is why people are so corrupt because of “religion”, we focus more on relationship with God our Lord!! but you wouldnt know nothing about that, would you.
if you had a real name, then you would know that new york wasnt built for tenderness bull shit, it was built to rebuild america, to provide jobs out there for families. and it represents freedom and it shall still today without all this craziness of these mosques
well if we are so boring then maybe ya’ll need to go back to where you come from.
To be honest, they really did not give Wichita a bad rap. What gave it a bad rap was seeing all your guys’ angry posts.
I believe it was Bassam who replied, not Aman. I thought the community was really cool until I saw people from the actual posts getting all mad for absolutely no reason down here.
that made me laugh
I agree with the anonymous reply above this reply…I thought the post on Wichita was nice, with beautiful photos of the sky that made me think Kansas is beautiful. I didn’t see anything wrong until all the complaining…
Maybe you should try planning such a project, and if you carry it out perfectly, then you can criticize people and call them arrogant…
THIS
xxxxxx
This post and the comments brought a tear of pride to my eyes. My home, Kansas, which I haven’t seen in quite some time is indeed cast with an tenderness and ease that can not be understood by visitors. Religion doesn’t seem to change that ‘sensitive’ pride. I love reading comments from people of all faiths closely guarding the calm beauty of our plains.
tebrik ederim arkadaşlar çok güzel bir islam mozaiği sergilemişsiniz turkey e de bekleriz.
good to see some pics from my birth town in US. its a nice place to Study, away from the hussle and bussle of big city.
Wichita State university has partnered with Cisco Systems and they have the Network Academy at Wichita State. Huge number of Wichita Graduates from the Electrical department are employed by Cisco and other data communication companies.
you can get some good pics from the downtown area. the place near the community center is not that colorful.
anyways, thanks for visiting Wichita.