Jews and Christians do not make fatwas…
While Cuomo Targets Orthodox Jews, Muslim Mass Gatherings Go On
Like Black Lives Matter riots, Muslim mobs don’t spread the virus.
Every year, Shiite Muslims in Flushing, Queens conduct the Arbaeen, a procession in honor of Mohammed’s grandson whose death at the hands of a Sunni caliph marked the pivotal break between Shiites and Sunnis, slapping their faces and chests for their beheaded Imam Hussein.
Queens, once the borough that gave birth to President Trump and David Horowitz, now has a large Muslim population, and the fall processions of wailing crowds are a regular event.
The coronavirus didn’t change that.
In early October 2020, videos show a huge knot of Muslim men packed closely together in circles, not wearing masks or with masks down, chanting and furiously beating their chests in memory of Hussein’s martyrdom. Some are shirtless in the traditional fashion. The slaps are meant to be hard enough to cause real pain and there’s plenty of reddened skin on display.
The Shiite procession marches down Flushing’s Main Street, past rows of Chinese stores without a police officer in sight. The media also doesn’t stop by to document the event.
It’s one of a number of Shiite mass gatherings in New York and New Jersey, including more mourning events for Imam Hussein on Manhattan’s Park Avenue in August, where few of the participants wear masks, and another in Kensington, Brooklyn around the same time.
Unlike the Orthodox Jewish prayers of the High Holy Days and the Sukkot celebrations, these Shiite Muslim gatherings were not written up by the New York Post, the New York Daily News, or the New York Times as a public threat. Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio did not blame Muslims for the spread of the virus or declare a crackdown that would close mosques.
