Katy, Texas – A plan to build a mosque in this Houston suburb has triggered a neighborhood dispute, with community members warning that the place will become a terrorist hotbed and one man threatening to hold pig races on Fridays just to offend the Muslims.
Many neighborhood residents say they have nothing against Muslims and are more concerned about property values, drainage and traffic.
But one resident has set up an anti-Islamic website with an odometer-like counter that keeps track of terrorist attacks since 9/11. A committee has formed to buy another property and offer to trade it for the Muslims’ land. And next-door neighbor Craig Baker has threatened to race pigs on the edge of the property on the Muslim holy day. Muslims consider pigs unclean and do not eat pork.
“The neighbors have created havoc for us, and we didn’t expect that,” said engineer Kamel Fotouh, president of the 500- member Katy Islamic Association.
Fotouh vowed to press ahead with plans for a mosque on the 11-acre site, as well as a community center that would offer after- school activities, housing for senior citizens, a fitness center and an Islamic school.
“We just bought it,” Fotouh said. “And we are going to use it. We have the right like any one of them.”
Katy, population 13,000, is a mix of middle-class bedroom- community neighborhoods and small farms on Houston’s western edge and boasts of being the hometown of Oscar-winning actress Renee Zellweger. It is 70 percent white and 24 percent Latino.
The Houston metropolitan area has about 170,000 Muslims, according to the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, and among their many mosques is one built in Houston by former NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon.
The Islamic association bought the land in Katy in September for $1.1 million. It said the overall cost of the project has not been determined.
The dispute began when the group asked Baker to remove his cattle from their newly bought land. Baker agreed but mistakenly thought the Muslims also wanted him off the land his family has lived on for more than 100 years. The rumor spread.
Though he now concedes the Muslims are probably not after his land, Baker said he is obligated to go through with the pig races because “I would be like a total idiot if I didn’t. I’d be the laughingstock now because I’ve gone too far.”
