Photos

I took the advice of a TrekEarth'er and decided to use a bit of photoshop on this to make it appear more of what it really looks like to the eye than how it came out from the photograph.

This is a band of Arabic calligraphy that runs inside the cube above the 'musullah' [prayer hall] in the masjid of Urbana, IL. ["CIMIC"]

As far as I know the masjid has been there since 1986 right next to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. And... as far as I know, the calligraphy was done by a former Sudanese student at the university here.

The band is of two verses from the Quran in Surah al-Anam [6:162-163]... what is pictured is the beginning part of the verse on the left: (( "Say: My prayer, worship... {not pictured: my life & death, are all for Allah, Sustainer of the worlds - no partner in divinity has He; thus I am bidden... ||| continued on right side of picture} ...and I am the first/foremost among the muslims [~those who surrender themselves to God]"))