After 50 Years, A Muslim Split

By Melissa August, Elizabeth L. Bland, Sora Song, Heather Won Tesoriero

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, as Americans turned to churches, mosques and synagogues in record numbers, some religious leaders turned to one another in what amounted to a big group hug. One of those interfaith friendships has now unraveled. Three weeks after kneeling in prayer with Jewish leaders, Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, a scholar with Cairo's prominent al-Azhar University and the leader of the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City, was quoted on an Arabic-language website saying that Jews carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and that Jewish doctors were poisoning Muslim children in U.S. hospitals. Next, he abruptly resigned from the center and moved his family back to Cairo. He told friends he'd received death threats and that his children couldn't sleep.

Beyond straining Muslim-Jewish relations, the incident provoked a rift among Muslims. The board of the Islamic Cultural Center decided to break its long-standing tradition with al-Azhar, which for the past 50 years has furnished the mosque with its leader. The board instead has promoted Gemeaha's chief deputy, a Palestinian who has lived in the U.S. for 22 years; his salary will be paid not by al-Azhar, as was Gemeaha's, but by the government of Kuwait, the mosque's main benefactor.

--Reported by Nadia Mustafa/New York City

With reporting by Nadia Mustafa/New York City