Inside the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Chapel, a female Air Force sergeant unlaced her combat boots, set them under the pews and slipped her black veil around her hair and over her camouflaged uniform.
The men pushed back the altar for Christian services to make room for their large green prayer rugs; then they moved the podium from one side of the room to the other so that the congregation would be facing Mecca.
"Allah akhbar," called out Ali Mohammed, a contractor who works at the Pentagon, raising his hands to his face as he chanted the call to prayer. While politicians and others across the country in an election year debate the propriety of building a Muslim center, including a mosque, two blocks from the former World Trade Center site in New York, there's no sign of such debate at the Pentagon.
Instead, about 400 worshipers, including Muslims, attend prayer services every week in the chapel, a non-denominational facility built over the rubble left behind when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon.
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... Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon's chapel since 2002, gathering every day at 2 p.m. around the time of the second of five prayers Muslims are supposed to offer daily.In the chapel, it's impossible not to think of the terrorist attack. A memorial leading to it lists the names of the victims. Light streaming through a stained-glass memorial illuminates the congregation. The memorial reads, "United in memory, September 11, 2001." A poster of a flag with the names of all those killed on Sept. 11 hangs on the wall on the other side of the room. The chapel's windows look out over a much larger Sept. 11 memorial outside.
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The chapel, which was dedicated in November 2002, allots time for nine faiths to worship, including Muslims, Jews, Christians and Hindus.
That, not to put too fine a point on it, is the great democracy that is America.