Article #2 - Outline

Notes that I copied from my notebook, written during the meeting:

At one in the afternoon last Friday members of the Islamic Center met to pray and meditate on ideas from the holy books: the Qur’an and the Sunnah. A man stood at a pew to face the group of men sitting Indian style on the carpet, his voice sent through the speakers mounted in each corner of the room. The echoing sound system created a timeless affect.
“Salaam Helaikum” said some of the men in greeting as they passed into the meeting room in the house on Stewart Street. Others entered silently, focused to begin their solo prayer to Allah. Devotion lived the room with spicy incense and framed prayers on the wall.
“Oh you who believe, believe in Allah,” said the speaker. “Don’t die except in a state of Islam.” Men continued to enter, slipped off their shoes and placed them in the cubbies in the hallway before passing through to the back room, found an open spot, and stood to begin the prayer on their own. The room filled up at a rate of about five men per minute for 50 minutes.
A coat rack toppled from the lopsided weight of winter garments, but only those who placed the dooming articles seemed to notice. The speaker at the pew, though only four yards from the crash, didn’t falter in his recitation.
Some of the men murmured prayers to themselves in Arabic. Prayer is sung the way a tone-deaf music aficionado replays his favorite song to himself throughout the day. Men conversed intermittently in languages that varied to match the colors of their skin and the spines of the translations of the Qur’an on the shelves against one wall. Many different countries and sects are represented at the Islamic Center. Both Shi’a and Sunni Muslims gather, focused on what makes them all the same rather than what makes them different since they’re in the minority at OU.
Some of the men kept their hats on, knit, baseball caps. When asked whether Athens’ Islamic Center is more or less strict than other centers, members insist it isn’t about strictness, but rather personal devotion.
The Center welcomed men and women of all ages, although college-aged men were

Who is welcome at the IC, attends IC meetings(how many, what ethnicity, women meet upstairs)
What is islam (sunni/shi’ite, when founded, where popular)
When are the meetings(open for prayer 24 hours a day, Fridays at one)
Where is the IC building, do most muslims live
Why do they meet, pray (quotes from Hassan)
How do they pray, does the meeting go (face mecca, bow sequence, Arabic chants lead by elder)