Imam Is a Shepherd to West African Immigrants in Harlem

This Imam is helping the immigrants in his neighborhood, he has become part religious leader and part social worker, helping them learn how to function in their new country. - - Donna Poisl

By NADIA SUSSMAN

Long before daylight breaks in Harlem, the imam Souleimane Konaté puts on a wide embroidered robe and wakes up his wife, Assiata, so she can pray in their one-bedroom apartment while their 9-year-old daughter Fanta sleeps.

Mr. Konaté (pronounced Ko-NAH-tay) then walks four blocks in the dark to his mosque, Masjid Aqsa, on Frederick Douglass Boulevard near 116th Street. He passes the lowered grates of shops that sell African beauty products, halal meats and bolts of bright cloth. He passes stragglers headed home from late-night carousing.
Click on the headline above to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.