To make sure everyone stays fast asleep, an elementary school in Oak Lawn, Illinois (where the school board tried to ban Christmas and Halloween until parents responded with outrage) featured a Muslim convert in a concert of “peace” for the kids: Musician spreads message of peace through his songs.

Musician Dawud Wharnsby believes everyone has their own way of making a difference in the world.

“Some people are able to donate their money to good causes; some people are able to donate their time,” he said. “For me, music and expression through song has always been the tool that I use.” The French Canadian singer-songwriter, who converted to Islam in 1993, on Thursday brought his musical message of peace to the cafetorium at Columbus Manor Elementary School in Oak Lawn, performing guitar and percussion-based songs for the schoolchildren.

Columbus Manor PTA president Merrit Arnold said the performance, paid for by the Bridgeview mosque, was presented in hopes of easing recent tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim parents about including Ramadan on the school’s list of observed holidays and the elimination of pork products and Jell-O from the lunch menu.

The Chicago Tribune had an investigative piece in 2004 on the radical takeover of the Bridgeview Mosque, but no one in the Oak Lawn school district seems to care.

Among the leaders at the Bridgeview mosque are men who have condemned Western culture, praised Palestinian suicide bombers and encouraged members to view society in stark terms: Muslims against the world. Federal authorities for years have investigated some mosque officials for possible links to terrorism financing, but no criminal charges have been filed.

Mosque leaders deny encouraging militancy and have denounced terrorism, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They shun the fundamentalist label, saying they follow the true form of Islam and others do not. They point out that an elected board sets mosque policy; if the worshipers wanted a more liberal mosque, they would vote for one.

“It’s an election, a democratic process,” mosque President Oussama Jammal said.

The mosque now attracts thousands of worshipers—most of them Palestinian-Americans—by offering pro-Palestinian sermons, a spiritual refuge and a strict version of Islam. The ultraconservative Saudi Arabian government partially pays the salary of prayer leader Sheik Jamal.

Moderate Muslims still pray at the mosque, but some say conservatives have created an environment that is overly political, too rigid in its interpretation of Islam and resistant to open debate. These members also worry that the Muslim Brotherhood, a controversial group with a violent past, has an undue influence over the mosque. Despite these concerns, the critics largely remain silent, fearful of being called “unIslamic” by mosque leaders.

UPDATE at 10/19/07 1:20:23 pm:

More info on Dawud Wharnsby-Ali at Riehl World View.