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The Faith that has No Place
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The stench is sickening; the
staircase is gloomy and grimy. Yet
every Friday at 2 p.m., hordes of Muslims walk up to the squalid second-floor tenement of 14 Geraniou Street in downtown Athens to answer an imam's call to prayer. "The conditions are terrible," says Mahmout Wahba, an Egyptian immigrant. "But we have no other choice." Unlike other European Union capitals, Athens has yet to establish a mosque for its population of Muslims, now estimated at nearly 200,000 and growing. No mosques have operated in Athens since Greece gained independence from the Ottomans in 1832. Instead, Muslims...