Date and Time

• * Saturday, August 25th, 2012 from 10 AM until 10 PM.

Tickets

• * Tickets will be available online until August 21st, 2012. Following that deadline, you will have to buy the tickets from various sponsors or at the gate.
• * Pre-sale tickets will be $31 for everyone 3 years and older. Children under the age of 3 will be admitted without charge.
• * Tickets sold at the gate will be $34. Please arrive early to avoid long lines.
• * Parking tickets must be purchased separately at the theme park. This is not included in the cost of the admissions ticket.

Food and Bazar

• * A special selection of various Halal Restaurants will be selling their food at the East Pavilion area. The halal restaurant food will be available for purchase all day long.
• * East Pavilion Picnic Area is also the place to gather for socializing, bazaar, entertainment programs, and much more.

Safety

• * Due to safety precautions, you are not permitted to wear loose clothing (unpinned scarves or dupattas) before going on the rides.  Please bring extra pins to tighten any loose clothing.

Transportation and Accomodation

• * Several lodging options are available near the park.
• * If your center or school needs to arrange bus transportation, please contact us and we will refer you to a specially discounted bus service.

Location and Directions

• * Six Flags Magic Mountain is located at 26101 Magic Mountain Parkway, Valencia, CA 91355
• * From South: (LAX, Orange County, Riverside and San Diego)
• - Take the I-5 Freeway north. Exit Magic Mountain Parkway.
• - Turn left at the traffic signal at the bottom of the exit ramp going under the Freeway overpass.
• - Proceed along Magic Mountain Parkway to the parking toll booths and the Park entrances.
• * From North: (Ventura, Santa Barbara and Northern California)
• - Take the 101 Freeway south to the 126 Freeway east. (If coming from Ventura and Santa Barbara.)
• - Then take the I-5 Freeway south. (If coming from the Northern California.)
• - Exit Magic Mountain Parkway.
• - Turn right at the traffic signal at the bottom of the exit ramp.
• - Proceed along Magic Mountain Parkway to the parking toll booths and the Park entrances.

For more FAQ’s please see Six Flags Magic Mountain FAQ.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Ms. Khan, a sophomore at New York University, upon exiting the Nitro, the mile-long roller coaster that drops 230 feet at about 85 miles per hour. Accompanied by a half-dozen classmates, Ms. Khan was among the estimated 15,000 Muslims who came out for Muslim Youth Day on Friday, when the Great Adventure theme park was set aside for Muslims from as far away as Massachusetts and North Carolina. Many of the children were off from school, since public schools in New York City, Philadelphia and much of New Jersey were closed for Rosh Hoshanah.

“It’s nice to see so many here,” said Ms. Khan’s friend Maheen Farooqi, a junior from Long Island. “I haven’t really been around so many Muslims at one time before.”

Shaista Barch, who was waiting in line at the giant swing ride with some of the 50 relatives who joined her here, concurred. “It’s a good Muslim day,” she said.

Yet Muslim Youth Day, intended as a day of relaxation and morale boosting, has not been a thoroughly smooth ride. The last week has been fraught with threats and racial epithets lobbed at the Islamic Circle of North America, the group that rented the park for the event, and the corporate offices of Six Flags Great Adventure.

Kristin Siebeneicher, Six Flags’s spokeswoman, said she spent the week in interviews with radio performers from New Jersey, California, Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma who wanted to know why the park was turning its rides over to Muslims and shutting everyone else out for the day.

“The concerns are that they believe the event is exclusionary,” Ms. Siebeneicher said. “I don’t think most people understood it was a day we’re closed anyway, and we were not taking something away from the public to give to a private group.”

In the spring and fall, Six Flags is open only on weekends, and the park is often rented out to groups on weekdays, Ms. Siebeneicher said. She added that the National Conference of Synagogue Youth regularly rented the park for a day, as well as the Catholic Youth Rally and an organization of home-schooled children.

Earlier this week, the words “for Muslims only” were removed from the sponsor’s Internet advertisement for the event. Adem Carroll, a relief coordinator and spokesman for Islamic Circle of North America, said the event was never intended to exclude others, particularly because many of its members are in mixed families, with Muslims and non-Muslims. The intent instead was to provide a protected environment for those seeking to relax.

“A lot of people don’t feel safe going on another day,” Mr. Carroll said. “Because of our dress standards, they might be afraid of being taunted. There’s a lot of hostility out there.”

Raza Farrukh, chairman of the organization’s local chapter and chief coordinator of the event, said some people who bought the discounted $20 passes were concerned for their safety.

On Thursday, the F.B.I. brought in bomb-sniffing dogs to do a full sweep of the park, said Mr. Farrukh, who sent out a mass e-mail message to ticketholders earlier in the week informing them of added security. The park brought in not only the Jackson Township police but also a contingent of F.B.I. agents for the day.

Ms. Siebeneicher said that the most disturbing thing about the questions she fielded about the event was the implication that Six Flags was playing host to a terrorist-friendly organization.

She said one talk show host asked if the company would rent the park to Nazis. The park’s guest services phone lines and the company’s corporate offices in Oklahoma were flooded by callers asking Six Flags to reverse its decision and threatening to boycott or sue the park.

“It’s truly sad and very unfortunate that people feel that way,” she said. “This is America. Six Flags doesn’t discriminate against race, religion or sexual orientation. We’re not about politics.”

Nevertheless, Six Flags did run an additional F.B.I. check on the sponsoring group, despite the fact that they had rented the park to the group twice before.

In fact, the last time Muslim Youth Day took place here was just three days before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Farhan Pervez, the secretary of Islamic Circle of North America, said his group, based in Queens, decided to skip the event the last two years because “we didn’t want to be in a festive mood around that anniversary.”

When talks resumed with Six Flags last winter to bring the event back, the group sought to book a day in a month other than September, but were told that Friday was the only day available, Mr. Pervez said.

Most of those who came to Friday’s event – while highly sensitive to the bias against Muslims, often brought on by their style of dress – were unaware of this week’s controversy.

“Of course we are looked at,” said Bayan Adileh, a 14-year-old from North Bergen, N.J., wearing a black and white scarf covering her head. “People wonder why we are outside our house. You learn to ignore it.”

While most of the women at the event complied with some version of the dress code, or hijab, fully covering their bodies and heads, standards were somewhat loosened for the men, many of whom were admitted in shorts and T-shirts.

With rides scheduled to open at 3 p.m., the lines to enter the park grew slow and long by early afternoon, as the security force raked through pocketbooks, backpacks and baby strollers. With the crowd growing antsy, the park added security guards at 2:30 p.m. to speed up the entry process.

After waiting two hours to get in, Yassar Abraham and his family headed straight to the picnic area, where halal dishes like samosas, biryani and buttered chicken replaced the usual burgers and fries.

Before racing off to their favorite rides, most gathered for the midday prayer. Giant blue plastic tarps were spread across the pavement in front of Fort Independence, where men knelt facing east during the hourlong sermon. Behind them, women lined more blue tarps on the ground beside Bluebeard’s Lost Treasure Train. Three other less formal prayer sessions were scheduled throughout the day.

Six Flags would usually have had its Halloween decorations up by now, but the park honored the sponsor’s request to hold off hanging skeletons, witches and ghosts, which Mr. Farrukh said were viewed as idols by some Muslims.

Most of the park’s shops and concessions were closed, and those that were open were not too busy. Much more active was the open-air bazaar outside the Batman and Robin roller coaster, where shoppers could buy a new gown, scarf or prayer rug.

Youssra Kamal of Matawan, N.J., was doing a brisk business in scarves, head pieces and sleeve extensions. “It’s difficult to get these around here,” Ms. Kamal said. “We’re trying to do something that looks fashionable and elegant, but still is religious.”

After three years of lying low, most of those who came to Six Flags on Friday were happy to have Muslim Youth Day back on the calendar.

“A lot of Muslims are scared to have big gatherings,” Ms. Farooqi said. “They’re afraid to be in the public eye. If something goes wrong again, they don’t want to be there. But we need to do this kind of thing. It’s time.”

The website ad had been an attention getter. “Insha Allah,” it enthused. “The New Jersey theme park, Six Flags Great Adventure, is set to be transformed as ‘The Great Muslim Adventure Day’ … ENTIRE PARK FOR MUSLIMS ONLY … Alhamdullilah [Praise be to God], tickets are selling fast!” It promised a “special dolphin show,” leading into a talk by a well-known Islamic scholar, and the comic stylings of “Allah Made Me Funny: The Official Muslim Comedy Tour.” Was this for real?

Well, yes. The first Muslim Day at Six Flags, brainstormed by the New Jersey chapter of the grass-roots organization Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), was in 2000. It drew 8,000 customers. The next did better, with co-organizer Tariq Amanullah proudly announcing the sale of 10,000 tickets. That was on Sept. 8, 2001. Three days later, Amanullah, a finance executive, was one of the dozens of Muslims who died in the World Trade Center. After that, observed ICNA’s Farhan Pervez, “we couldn’t do it for a time.” But this year they decided to revive it. “It’ll be a fun day for people to enjoy an environment they’re comfortable in,” said Pervez. “We’re not trying to make a statement.”

This being post-9/11 America, however, everything Islamic becomes a statement. The cottage industry that monitors Muslim websites publicized the event to a distinctly non—Muslim-friendly audience last week, emphasizing ICNA’s alleged connections to terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists. (A Six Flags spokeswoman said the FBI assured her firm that “there is no link between the ICNA and terrorism.” The group denies any.) Critics began threatening Six Flags with boycotts. A local talk-radio caller suggested that such a concentration of Muslims would make a useful bombing target.

Consequently, the park was sniffed for bombs, “Muslims Only” was struck from the website, and security at the gate was beefed up. None of that hampered the hybrid entertainment unfolding within. Boardwalk barkers persevered (“Arright, at the sound of the buzzer, you want to press both buttons on the gun”) but competed with a bazaar offering stylish Islamic headwear and Koranic commentaries. Standard food concessions were shuttered in favor of ritually correct halal vendors like Shalimar and Kabob King. There was no opposite-sex canoodling, and halter tops and shorts were replaced by a vast array of hijab head scarves and ankle-length jilbabs and abayas.

Shireen Khan, 19, in running pants, a plain white shirt, Reeboks and a lavender hijab, was waiting in line for the Nitro with two female friends. She pooh-poohed the notion that the day’s event might be a kind of refuge for an overscrutinized community. “It’s not about that,” she said. “I come here twice a year, and I like it, but today there’s good halal food, and there’s prayer. We have so many friends in the tristate area, we never see each other, and today everybody’s here.” Her cousin Soofia Tahir suspected there might be a bit more to it. Perhaps it’s a pride thing? “No, it isn’t,” Khan asserted. “Yes, it is,” said Tahir. “There’s no pride,” Khan shot back. “You mean like being vain? ” “No,” said Tahir. “I mean like bonding.” She paused and gazed up at the Nitro’s looming bulk. “If it’s raining, I’m not going up on that thing.”

But eventually they did. Higher and higher their car climbed–230 ft. and then 85 m.p.h. free fall. Khan’s hijab flapped but held. “It was good,” she exclaimed at the ride’s exit. “I’d never been on a roller coaster at night before. When you open your eyes, there was just, like … nothing!” She smiled broadly. Then she made her way to the ladies’ room, ritually washed her hands, face, arms and feet and found a small group of other women by the Ferris wheel. Turned into silhouettes by its dazzling illumination, they prayed.