No, it's not for any work I did last year. But thanks for the consideration. Instead, I'd like to draw some attention, and plenty has been given, to Andrea Elliott's three-part profile of a Brooklyn Muslim leader -- "An Imam in America."

To his congregants, Mr. Shata is far more than the leader of daily prayers and giver of the Friday sermon. Many of them now live in a land without their parents, who typically assist with finding a spouse. There are fewer uncles and cousins to help resolve personal disputes. There is no local House of Fatwa to issue rulings on ethical questions.

Sheik Reda, as he is called, arrived in Brooklyn one year after Sept. 11. Virtually overnight, he became an Islamic judge and nursery school principal, a matchmaker and marriage counselor, a 24-hour hot line on all things Islamic.

Day after day, he must find ways to reconcile Muslim tradition with American life. Little in his rural Egyptian upbringing or years of Islamic scholarship prepared him for the challenge of leading a mosque in America.

Here are parts one, two and three.

In January, Elliott visited Sheik Reda Shata in Middletown, N.J., where he had relocated. Elliott's reporting for the NY Times, which already won an American Society of Newspaper Editors award, was expected to be a front runner for a Pulitzer Prize, but it didn't appear on the finalists list that leaked out. Pulitzers will be announced Monday.