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Congregants celebrate Eid al-Adha at Valley Stream mosque

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Lines of cars heading to and from Valley Stream’s Masjid Hamza mosque overflowed into neighboring streets on Monday, as congregants made their way there to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the second of two major annual Islamic holidays.

The ornate Islamic architecture of the building, which was constructed in 1990, is unlike anything else on the block, which consists mostly of small houses. Its 50-foot-high blue dome reflected bright sunshine as people flocked inside for the second of four prayer services offered on the holiday.

Congregants greeted each other at the mosque with a customary, “Eid Mubarak!” (Eid means “celebration” and Mubarak means “blessed” in Arabic.) Behind the building, in the rear parking lot, celebrants indulged in snacks, juice and tea in between prayers.

In the far corner of the property, near the mosque’s preschool playground, teenagers played basketball. An older man taunted the children jokingly from afar, as one of them sank a shot. “First shot I’ve seen in the basket in a half-hour,” he quipped.

Some 1.6 billion people who comprise the global Muslim community spend the holiday with family and friends, taking the day off from work and school to feast and exchange gifts. Beginning in 2015, New York City public schools closed in observance of both major Islamic holidays — Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha.

Eid al-Adha (pronounced EED al-UHD-huh), also known as the Feast of Sacrifice, is a celebration of the Prophet Abraham’s devotion to God, manifested in his willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s request. Similar to the versions of the story in the Old Testament and the Torah, the story in the Quran says that God appeared to Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) in a dream and asked him to sacrifice his son as a test of his loyalty. As he was about to go through with it, God gave him a sheep to kill instead.

Karim Mozawalla, 40, a trustee at the mosque, said he believes most people don’t know how much Islam overlaps with other religions. “You can’t be a Muslim unless you believe in Jesus Christ,” he said. “Islam has much more in common with Christianity than the Jewish religion … in Islam, Jesus Christ is a central figure.”

Muslims acknowledge Jesus as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind. The virgin birth of Jesus is described in a chapter of the Quran titled “Maryam,” which details the life of his mother, Mary.

Like most religious holidays, Eid al-Adha involves prayer services, usually in the early morning. Those who can afford it slaughter an animal — a cow or sheep — to emulate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God, and more broadly, the sacrifices humans make over the course of their lives in the name of goodness. Muslims are required to share portions of the slaughter, and their overall wealth, with the needy.

Mozawalla said he has started to address the current fraught political climate and the frequency of anti-Muslim rhetoric at larger gatherings at the mosque — regardless of the occasion — by encouraging Muslims to become more active voters. He doesn’t think he has a choice.

“The rhetoric and actions that are happening against Muslims is very, very, very, dangerous, and is something that we all have to take into consideration and we can’t avoid,” he told congregants before a prayer service. Mosque trustees manned a table and provided congregants with voter information. They asked questions about upcoming local primaries and elections, and polling places.

According to Mozawalla, democracy is an unfamiliar concept to newer Muslim-Americans. “It’s not part of our culture, because [in] the countries where we come from, we don’t vote,” he said. “There’s a king, [and] he’s been there for 50 years … People are starting to learn what democracy means, you know? They want it. Because democracy allows you — should allow you — to have a voice.”

For Mozawalla, discussing politics with congregants has become “the new normal.” And despite the national discourse, he insisted that the holiday remains a joyous celebration.

Eid al-Adha also corresponds with the height of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the Saudi Arabian city believed to be the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam itself. All Muslims who are financially and physically able are required to make the journey once in their lifetime. Over the course of five days, they perform a series of rituals meant to symbolize their unity with other believers and to pay tribute to God. The pilgrimage annually draws some 2 million Muslims, and Masjid Hamza sends a group on the congregation’s behalf each year.

Irfan Mohamed, 48, who made the trip in 2007, said he returned to the U.S. with a powerful feeling that made him more humble and aware of his surroundings.

“You are in the place where the Prophet Ibrahim — where all the prophets, almost — walked on those roads, on those mountains and everything,” Mohamed said. “So it’s a special feeling, which you only feel when you’re there. You see the people from all over the world — black, white. You see everybody, and there’s no difference. Everybody wearing the same clothes. So it’s a symbol of unity. Every human being look like same, doing the same thing at the same time, same way.”

In addition to feeling spiritually recharged after the hajj, Mohamed said, his health improved. He said that before he went, he had a lot of body pains, flu-like symptoms of fatigue and fever and problems with his heart.

“I felt better,” he said. “To me, it was a life-changing experience.”