This is probably when the pictures in the newspaper report were taken. During its construction, the glass cube was covered with black plastic tiles for protection and possibly to keep the design a surprise. All large Apple stores have a “Genius bar.” The store, I found out, opened more than a year ago. Inside, among products display and other stuff, there is a long, sleek service counter called “Genius Bar” where customers are served. (One has to be really imaginative to see any resemblance between the glass cube and one of Islam’s holiest places of worship in Makkah). The glass cube protects the underground store from rain and also allows daylight in. Built underground, beneath an empty lot, it is accessed by a winding staircase and an elevator, both of which are covered by a glass structure, shaped like a cube.

Yes, there is a large Apple store on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street. So, I decided to check out the place for myself. Living in Manhattan, how come I didn’t know about this in the neighborhood? I was intrigued. There were already 14,221 signatures when I read the petition. This is an attempt to humiliate the beliefs of Muslims across the world and we Muslims demand that the US government not let this bar open.” The petition read: “In the business area of Manhattan a new bar has been opened whose form and structure resembles that of one of Islam’s holiest sites. There was also a link to an online petition to the US government, which the readers were asked to sign.

American Muslims, taking notice of the building that looks like a holy place of worship and serves as a bar, have petitioned the US government to immediately close it down.” Accompanying the news report were pictures of a cubic structure, covered in black, sitting in the midst of tall Manhattan buildings. The building is a bar (sharab-khana) where alcohol will be served round the clock. To this end, only recently they have constructed a building in midtown New York which resembles a holy place in Islam. I am telling you this because a few weeks ago I received an email drafted by Mr Siddiqi and forwarded to me by one of the dozens of the first, second or the third-generation recipients, which said that a bar in New York had opened, that it was named after a holy place of Islam and that I should raise my voice against this “racist act.”Īttached with the message was a news report from an Urdu paper, datelined Karachi, which read (translated): “The extremists and evildoers in the US don’t let go of any opportunity to malign and insult Muslims and Islam, and often indulge in activities that provoke Muslims and hurt their sentiments. I do not know who Iftikhar Siddiqi of Tufail Road in Lahore is or what he does for a living, but I do know that he can use a computer to start a chain email.

Apple store manhattan