Judge Allows Muslims to Use Tennessee Mosque

A federal judge agreed on Wednesday that Muslims in Tennessee who have been trying for months to get a permit to use their new mosque should be allowed to worship there in time for Ramadan, which begins on Thursday.

The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro filed separate lawsuits on Wednesday against Rutherford County, asking that the congregation be allowed to use its new center.

Judge Todd J. Campbell of Federal District Court in Nashville issued a temporary restraining order, which means that the congregation could be given permits by the time Ramadan begins at sundown on Thursday.

For two years, construction of the 12,000-square-foot center has been a heated issue in Murfreesboro, a city of 110,000 people about 30 miles from Nashville, raising concerns about anti-Muslim sentiment.

Vandals have spray-painted construction signs with the words “not welcome” and have set fire to construction equipment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies are investigating the 2010 fire as a possible hate crime.

In June, the Justice Department indicted a Texas man it said had left threatening messages on the center’s telephone in which he claimed that a bomb would go off on Sept. 11.

At a heated public hearing over the center in 2010, residents testified that Islam was not a religion and that the center was part of a plot to replace the Constitution with Shariah law, a legal code based on Islam. A protest and a counterprotest drew nearly 800 people, and a local Republican candidate for Congress tried to link the center to Hamas.

Still, the building permit was granted. Opponents filed suit in state court contesting it, and they were handed a victory in June when Chancellor Robert E. Corlew III ruled that the Rutherford County Planning Commission had not given sufficient notice of the hearing. The mosque, he said, was causing such concern in the city that it required special handling by elected officials managing such projects.