For Conservative Muslims, Goal of Isolation a Challenge

In a recent interview in his elegant wood-paneled embassy office, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said his government had suspended its missionary activities in this country. "We are in a very intense review of all of the past activities that were undertaken," he said. "And we haven't yet reached any specific plan for where we're going for the future."

Part of that review involves examining religious material "that could in any form, way or shape be interpreted as bigoted or extreme or offensive, not just to non-Muslims, but even some Muslims," he said. The embassy, he added, distributes only Arabic editions of the Koran, with no commentary.

Turki rejected the idea that his country's proselytizing might have contributed to the 2001 attacks. The institute in Fairfax and its mother university in Riyadh "have graduated literally thousands of people over the years," he noted. "If they had been proselytizing for jihadist [ideas] as such, there would have been even more numbers from those thousands . . . who would have turned toward that inclination."

A Separate Community

The utopian vision of an all-Islamic oasis within the United States' secular society has taken seed in College Park's Dar-us-Salaam congregation. Its one-story, red-brick building sits at the end of a narrow, tree-lined street of compact homes built in the early 1950s off Route 1, a few blocks from an IHOP and a Dunkin' Donuts.

A sign in a corner of the parking lot underscores its strict gender segregation.

"Sisters Only," it reads.

Inside is the congregation's prayer room -- divided by a tall barrier so men and women cannot see one another during worship -- and classrooms for Al-Huda School's 300 to 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Here, too, is Muslim Link, a community newspaper published by Dar-us-Salaam.

The building houses a bookstore, grocery store and a tiny office that runs the mosque's religious outreach, a top priority for the congregation. Office shelves are stacked with giveaways: English translations of the Koran -- both "The Noble Koran" and Yusuf Ali editions -- as well as glossy color brochures with instructions on how to become a Muslim. "It is best not to hesitate," the brochures state, "if you are certain that you believe."

Dar-us-Salaam, whose Friday prayer services draw 500 to 700 worshipers, describes on its Web site its plan to create an Islamic enclave as a way to sustain its members' Muslim identity and spread Islam by example. Besides a mosque and school, "such an Islamic environment would include . . . businesses and shops for employment and basic needs, housing, medical and financial institutions."

This dream reflects the strict Salafi approach of Saudi-trained Safi Khan, Dar-us-Salaam's imam, who believes that Muslims in this country need close-knit communities to cope with pressures from law enforcement officials and a Western culture alien to Islamic values.

Khan's outlook is clear from his recorded lectures, which are sold online and appear to have been given in the past few years.

The U.S.-raised son of Pakistani immigrants, Khan invokes the certainty of hellfire for those who flout God's commandments, and he preaches that attaining a moral Islamic life in contemporary America requires shunning many commonplace things.