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Telling the stories<\/div>\n

<\/p><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

It started out not much bigger than the average family home, there aren\u2019t many actual ancient artifacts on display, and it\u2019s located in relatively small Jackson, Mississippi, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the new International Museum of Muslim Cultures<\/a> \u2013 America\u2019s first museum devoted to Islam \u2013 from being a success. \u201cPeople are quite surprised<\/a>. Mississippi? The South?\u201d says Okolo Rashid, the museum\u2019s director. The museum was planned before 9\/11 and almost fell through after that tragedy. \u201cWe just thought we were in trouble,\u201d recalls Rashid, \u201cthat everybody\u2019s going to stop coming.\u201d The museum got its start<\/a> when Jackson\u2019s small Muslim community asked a traveling exhibition on Spain whether it would cover Spain\u2019s 800 years of Muslim rule with its advances in science and culture. \u201cThe answer was no<\/a>,\u201d said Emad Al-Turk, chairman of the Muslim museum. \u201cWe felt obliged to try to have a companion exhibit.\u201d So the community put together an exhibit on Islamic Spain<\/a>, and the rest is history<\/a>. Today, the museum boasts support<\/a> from local, state, and federal government sources, as well as non-profit foundations and corporate sponsors (in fact, more than half the funds come from non-Muslim sources). Jackson\u2019s tourism industry promotes<\/a> the museum, and Bill Clinton and family have been recent visitors. Attendance is expected to reach 50,000 annually<\/a> when the next exhibition, \u201cThe Golden Age of Africa and Its Legacy to Islamic Influences in America,\u201d opens in early 2004. The exhibition will focus on the life of Ibrahim<\/a>, a West African Muslim prince who spent 20 years as a slave in Natchez, Mississippi. (An explorer who passed through the town recognized Ibrahim as the son of the king who saved his life, and spent another 20 years working to free Ibrahim, who returned to Africa.) In 2005, a traveling exhibition that will launch in Chicago\u2019s DuSable Museum will take the exhibition to major North American cities.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.\n<\/p>\n

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