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The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM) is an Islamic community organisation located in the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States. Established in the early 1980s, the ICM supports about a thousand congregants, drawn from local permanent residents and numerous students at Middle Tennessee State University. Since the late 20th century, an increasing number of Muslim immigrants from Somalia and Iraq have settled in the city, and international students have increased. By 2009, the ICM's growth made the existing mosque and community center in central Murfreesboro inadequate for the number of worshippers using those facilities. The ICM bought a vacant lot on the outskirts of the city and submitted plans to build a new community center and mosque on the site. Although the plans were approved unanimously by the local county planning commission, some local residents and anti-Islamic activists opposed the project. Rival demonstrations were held in the town to express support for and opposition to the mosque project. During the following two years, the mosque site was subjected to vandalism and arson. The ICM became the subject of heightened political rhetoric in an election year. Numerous opponents alleged that the ICM would support terrorism, that Islam was not a religion, and that it was a plot to overthrow the US Constitution and impose Sharia law. At the same time, numerous local people and rights groups spoke out in support of the project, and the issues received national media coverage with emphasis on the US constitutional right to religious freedom. A local judge rejected that claim and found that the planning commission did not act improperly in granting approval, but that public notice of the planning commission's hearing on the action may have been inadequate. The court prohibited the issuance of a certificate of occupancy necessary to use the building. In August 2012, a US federal court lifted the county court's prohibition, saying it was inappropriate to subject the ICM to requirements in excess of other religious organizations. The mosque was allowed to open in time for the end of Ramadan in 2012. Further appeals and new lawsuits by the mosque's opponents prolonged the litigation until June 2014, when the last lawsuits were finally dismissed by the federal courts. ==Background== Murfreesboro is a town of about 100,000 people located in Middle Tennessee about 30 miles south of the state capital, Nashville. Although the area's population is dominated by white conservative Christians,〔 in recent years the foreign-born population of the Nashville metropolitan area (including Murfreesboro) has grown considerably. Between 2000 and 2008, the immigrant population jumped from 58,539 to 107,184 – an 83.1 percent rise, the fourth-largest percentage increase in the United States over that period.〔 At the same time, the white population of the area fell by 7.5% while the percentage of ethnic minority inhabitants rose to 20% of Rutherford County's population.〔 The local Muslim population has likewise increased and now numbers about 25,000 people. The rise since the late 20th century has resulted in part from the arrival of refugees from Somalia and Kurds from Iraq, who were resettled there by the federal government upon fleeing the repression of Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. Middle Tennessee now has the largest population of Iraqi Kurds in the United States.〔 In addition, a significant number of foreign-born Muslims have moved to the area to study at Vanderbilt University or Middle Tennessee State University.〔 Established in 1982, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM) formerly occupied a building of located on Middle Tennessee Boulevard near Middle Tennessee State University. Its congregation consists of about 250-300 local families and 400-500 Muslim students from the university〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Murfreesboro Media Information Sheet )〕 – in total, about 1,000 people.〔 By 2009, the congregation had outgrown the space available. Prayers were held in a poorly ventilated room while women, who worship separately from men, had to use a converted garage nearby to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit TV. Many worshippers frequently had to stand in the parking lot during prayers. The ICM began looking for a new location in March 2009.〔 Members raised about $600,000 to fund the construction of a new complex that would include a mosque, school, swimming pool, and cemetery.〔 In November 2009, the ICM purchased an area of undeveloped land at the intersection of Bradyville Pike and Veals Road on the outskirts of Murfreesboro, about from its existing facilities in the town center, at a cost of $320,000 cash. A sign advertising the "Future Site of Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" was put up on the vacant lot, but in January 2010 it was vandalized during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend. The local newspaper, ''The Daily News Journal'', condemned the vandalism as "a sign of stupidity" and commented that "for someone to paint such an idiotic message on the center's billboard is a clear sign that we have some backwards nuts in our midst." The sign was replaced but was subsequently ripped up and destroyed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Islamic Center of Murfreesboro」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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