Forget the population studies, just check out the booming goat industry as a sign of how the US population is changing with increased Muslim immigration.
Two stories came to my attention yesterday and you should find them instructive. The first is about the booming goat farming industry—Muslim immigrants want to eat goats (but only if they are slaughtered under strict guidelines dictated by sharia law).*
From the US State Department:
Washington — Eating goat meat hasn’t really caught on with most Americans, but raising goats for meat has certainly caught on with U.S. farmers.
That’s because U.S. farmers are recognizing that there is a growing market among an ever-increasing population of immigrants from Muslim countries, where goat meat is popular.
There are an estimated 2.75 million Muslims living in the United States as of 2011, according to the Pew Research Center, an American think tank. But Muslim immigrants have been rising both in absolute numbers and as a share of all immigrants receiving permanent U.S. residency, the Pew study says.
“By 2020, Muslims are projected to comprise 10.5 percent of more than 1 million new permanent U.S. residents per year, or about 109,000 people annually,” says the Pew study The Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010–2030.
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But immigrants are the primary reason for increased goat production in the United States, according to NASS. “With the United States population becoming more diverse each year, the outlook for continued growth in the goat industry is favorable and will be needed to meet domestic demand,” NASS says.
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The slaughtering process must be conducted by a practicing Muslim who recites the prayer: “In the name of Allah [God] and Allah is great.”
Read it all and note that Virginia goat farming is exploding.
American-born imams also in short supply
Some American mosques (the mosque industry is booming along with goat farming) would like American-born imams but few can be found.
From Morocco World News:
The Islamic Center of New England has always been led by imams born outside America. The two-campus mosque would like to change that, but it’s proving harder than leaders had thought.
The ICNE’s mosque here on the South Shore of Boston has been without an imam since 2006, when the last imam was arrested for immigration fraud. A rotating cast of lay and trained imams have led congregational Friday prayers and other mosque functions since then.
After dozens of interviews, the mosque board is eyeing a U.S-born convert who’s familiar with American culture and who studied Islam and Arabic in Saudi Arabia. The imam’s academic pedigree impressed the immigrant members of the mosque, while his fluency in American pop culture helped him connect with mosque youth.
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Hossam AlJabri, a former executive director of the Muslim American Society, estimated that about 80 percent of America’s 2,200 mosques were led by immigrant imams, although the majority have been in America for at least 10 years, many much longer.
According to a 2011 report from the Pew Research Center, 63 percent of America’s estimated 2.75 million Muslims are immigrants — with as many as 90,000 new Muslim immigrants arriving each year. Experts say it will be years before the pool of American imams becomes large enough to meet demand from mosques.
Some, like the Boston mosque, want American imams to help them reach the kids, however….
Many communities prefer immigrant imams because of skepticism about imams trained in America.
Why? I’m going to bet it has everything to do with the fact that Islamic hardliners make up the immigrant imam supply.
* Remember as far back as 1983, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was fueling the meat-goat industry in NC where he slaughtered goats for the increasing Muslim student population at his college.
