Jamaat ul-Fuqra Headquarters

 
An email from a reader (I’ve made some slight changes to protect his identity):

	I’ve been trying to find your email ever since you posted this story and people started to talk about it.
	So here’s an experience to relate. Several years ago my friend moved to the Catskill region in upstate New York. People began to tell him there was a Muslim community “over the hill” and hours after 9/11, the locals surrounded this community in their pickup trucks with rifles drawn. He was told the FBI knew about this place and that it was populated by ex-cons and they were linked to a murder in Seattle.
	Time passed. A couple months ago he had occasion to speak with a neighbor and mentioned this community in order to learn a bit more about it. She said “They’re just like us. They left the city to find peace. They live very simply. Of course there’s been some trouble with the kids bringing knives to school and such but they’re just normal people.”
	When he told me this, I wondered what kind of normal people let their kids take knives to school. This all fell into place last week when I read your article. This barbed wired enclosed compound is not literally over the hill from my friend, it’s in a nearby town. And the town is — survey says! — Hancock, NY.
	So there you have it. I’m told this area is quite rural, it’s so near nowhere (except NYC is less than two hundred miles away). One does have to admire the local residents for knowing exactly where to look when the time comes. Still there they are. Nesting comfortably awaiting their call to…

No word as to whether the children sent to school (with knives) included any girls.

They’re just like us. They left the city to find peace.

Oh, if only…