Source: The Courier Journal

http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2003/11/26ky/met-front-ramadan11270-6292.html

On November 26, 2003 The Courier Journal reported, "More than 1,000 Louisville-area Muslims celebrated the largest festival of their religious calendar yesterday, as a prayer leader said educated American Muslims represent the best hope for those in impoverished, embattled Islamic countries.

'Those who are coming of age in the West are perhaps the best generation that the Muslim Ummah (community) has yet produced,' Ibrahim Syed told the crowd gathered for prayers at the Holiday Inn on Fern Valley Road.' You are highly educated, observant of an Islam largely unrestricted by the cultural baggage that suffocates so many Muslim countries.'

Syed's talk came amid observances of Eid ul-Fitr. The festival marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in which observant Muslims abstain from food, water and sex during daylight hours.

The festival drew American-born Muslims as well as a rainbow of recent immigrants... The large crowd reflects the growth of the Muslim community, estimated at 5,000 to 10,000. There are at least five mosques in Louisville, but Muslims try to hold one large communal gathering for the Eid."