Today’s episode of the Washington Post’s amazing public relations campaign to help us stop worrying and learn to love Islam features a highly sympathetic piece on the violent Dark Ages Islamic supremacist ideology of Salafism: For Conservative Muslims, Goal of Isolation a Challenge.

The utopian vision of an all-Islamic oasis within the United States’ secular society has taken seed in College Park’s Dar-us-Salaam congregation. Its one-story, red-brick building sits at the end of a narrow, tree-lined street of compact homes built in the early 1950s off Route 1, a few blocks from an IHOP and a Dunkin’ Donuts.

A sign in a corner of the parking lot underscores its strict gender segregation.

“Sisters Only,” it reads.

Inside is the congregation’s prayer room — divided by a tall barrier so men and women cannot see one another during worship — and classrooms for Al-Huda School’s 300 to 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Here, too, is Muslim Link, a community newspaper published by Dar-us-Salaam.

The building houses a bookstore, grocery store and a tiny office that runs the mosque’s religious outreach, a top priority for the congregation. Office shelves are stacked with giveaways: English translations of the Koran — both “The Noble Koran” and Yusuf Ali editions — as well as glossy color brochures with instructions on how to become a Muslim. “It is best not to hesitate,” the brochures state, “if you are certain that you believe.”

Dar-us-Salaam, whose Friday prayer services draw 500 to 700 worshipers, describes on its Web site its plan to create an Islamic enclave as a way to sustain its members’ Muslim identity and spread Islam by example. Besides a mosque and school, “such an Islamic environment would include … businesses and shops for employment and basic needs, housing, medical and financial institutions.”

This dream reflects the strict Salafi approach of Saudi-trained Safi Khan, Dar-us-Salaam’s imam, who believes that Muslims in this country need close-knit communities to cope with pressures from law enforcement officials and a Western culture alien to Islamic values.

UPDATE at 9/5/06 8:53:56 am:

Allahpundit points out that I’m to blame for all of this terrorism stuff.

UPDATE at 9/5/06 9:06:40 am:

The Al-Huda school mentioned in this article was the home of third-grade teacher Ali Asad Chandia, recently convicted of terrorism. But author Caryle M. Murphy doesn’t think it’s important that you know that.