Bally’s Chicago ‘Mosque’ Casino Draws Misinformed Muslim Outrage
Bally’s Casino at Medinah Temple has been causation a splash among some Moslem social media users since it opened lowest Saturday. That’s because of the misapprehension that it is a mosque.
The Times of Islamabad reports that “social media platforms inwards Muslim-majority countries, such as West Pakistan and Turkey, experience been buzzing with [the] controversial claim.” Some of the most strident voices experience argued the gambling casino is a direct provocation to Muslims.
The casino, Chicago’s first, is temporary and testament be until Bally’s completes the expression of a permanent riverfront property scheduled to open up 2026. And it’s promiscuous to escort why it power follow mistaken for a mosque.
Built by Freemasons
Originally an auditorium, the Medinah Temple was reinforced in 1912 inward the Moresque Revival style, which appropriated the arches and domes used inwards Islamic architecture. In short, it looks the likes of a mosque.
Piling on the confusion, inscribed to a higher place the entree of the edifice are the Arabic words “كَلِمَاتْ اَلطَّيِّبَة,” which mean “There is no Supreme Being but Allah,” taken from the 1st kalima of the Koran.
But while the Medinah Temple has been, at various points, a concert hall, a circus, and a Bloomingdale’s article of furniture store, it has ne'er been a mosque.
It was reinforced past the Shriners, a Masonic organisation which included among its numbers John the Divine Duke Wayne and President Harry Truman. Shriners have-to doe with to themselves officially as the “Ancient Arabic language Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.” But in that location is zippo Arabic most them. They adopted a Middle Eastern esthetical for fun. The passing from the Koran appears on the door because it is a crosscurrent cancelled of the Alhambra inward Spain, which was built past Muslims inwards the 13th century,
Freemasons relate to their group meeting places as “temples,” further adding to the misconception that the building has religious significance.
‘Satan’s Handiwork’
So the new casino inward a real old edifice is not a verbatim provocation to Muslims. However, the presence of the kalima higher up the entering and the employment of the name Medinah may noneffervescent follow offensive to many adherents to the faith. Medinah, or Medina, inward Saudi Arabia, is the cobbler's last resting localise of the Prophet Muhammad and ace of the most sacred sites inwards Islam.
Casinos, meanwhile, are anathema to pious Muslims, and games of chance are described as a “grave sin” and “abominations of Satan’s handiwork” inward the Koran.
Incidentally, on that point is a chain of bingo halls inwards the UK called Mecca Bingo.
On Christmas Clarence Shepard Day Jr. inward 1997, bricks were thrown and twisted through the windows of a ramification of Mecca Bingo in Luton, Bedfordshire, by members of the local muslim community, causation £3,000 of damage.
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