Posted on: September 15, 2023, 11:35h.
Final up to date on: September 15, 2023, 01:05h.
Bally’s On line casino at Medinah Temple has been inflicting a stir amongst some Muslim social media customers because it opened final Saturday. That’s due to the misapprehension that it’s a mosque.
The Occasions of Islamabad experiences that “social media platforms in Muslim-majority nations, resembling Pakistan and Turkey, have been buzzing with [the] controversial declare.” A few of the most strident voices have argued the on line casino is a direct provocation to Muslims.
The on line casino, Chicago’s first, is non permanent and can exist till Bally’s completes the development of a everlasting riverfront property scheduled to open 2026. And it’s simple to see why it is likely to be mistaken for a mosque.
Constructed by Freemasons
Initially an auditorium, the Medinah Temple was inbuilt 1912 within the Moorish Revival type, which appropriated the arches and domes utilized in Islamic structure. In brief, it appears to be like like a mosque.
Piling on the confusion, inscribed above the doorway of the constructing are the Arabic phrases “كَلِمَاتْ اَلطَّيِّبَة,” which imply “There isn’t a God however Allah,” taken from the primary kalima of the Koran.
However whereas the Medinah Temple has been, at varied factors, a live performance corridor, a circus, and a Bloomingdale’s furnishings retailer, it has by no means been a mosque.
It was constructed by the Shriners, a Masonic group which included amongst its numbers John Wayne and President Harry Truman. Shriners seek advice from themselves formally as the “Historical Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.” However there’s nothing Arabic about them. They adopted a Center Jap aesthetic for enjoyable. The passage from the Koran seems on the door as a result of it’s a rip off of the Alhambra in Spain, which was constructed by Muslims within the thirteenth century,
Freemasons seek advice from their assembly locations as “temples,” additional including to the misperception that the constructing has spiritual significance.
‘Devil’s Handiwork’
So the brand new on line casino in a really previous constructing will not be a direct provocation to Muslims. Nevertheless, the presence of the kalima above the doorway and using the identify Medinah should still be offensive to many adherents to the religion. Medinah, or Medina, in Saudi Arabia, is the final resting place of the Prophet Mohammed and probably the most sacred websites in Islam.
Casinos, in the meantime, are anathema to pious Muslims, and video games of likelihood are described as a “grave sin” and “abominations of Devil’s handiwork” within the Koran.
By the way, there’s a chain of bingo halls within the UK known as Mecca Bingo.
On Christmas Day in 1997, bricks had been thrown via the home windows of a department of Mecca Bingo in Luton, Bedfordshire, by members of the native Muslim neighborhood, inflicting £3,000 of injury.