It’s going to be a recurrent problem: older members of a mosque in conflict with younger members.

It’s a situation that has been repeated in religious institutions in the United States since Colonial days (think of the immigrant Pilgrims’ conflicts with their own North America-born children and grandchildren).

This time it’s Sacramento, California, where Mohamed Abdul-Azeez, the popular imam of the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims (SALAM) Islamic Center, was forced out by the governing board. According to the Sacramento Bee, “His departure comes after a majority of the nine-member board rebuffed his expansion plan, which included establishing satellite mosques throughout the region, hiring an IT manager to televise his sermons and adding an assistant imam to handle many of the needs of the congregation.”

Every immigrant religion faces the problems of adapting an Old World theology to New World challenges. The American conundrum of Islam is no different in many ways. Like both Christianity and Judaism in the United States, Muslim institutions in the U.S. must reconcile beliefs of congregants from many different originating cultures and their varying views on religion. When age and immigrant/native born status is added to the mix, disagreement seems inevitable.

Your thoughts?