This prompt for the Ramadan
journaling challenge is quite apt at the moment and rather timely. This time last year, hubby and a group of
local brothers had just finished work on a new masjid in our neighbourhood. They had found a gap in provision locally for
good quality Quran and Islamic studies for their children and between them
rather than complain took it upon them to do something about it. It was an interesting year. First the building they found, a middleman
tried to buy it and rent to the brothers, this was not what they wanted and in
the end the middleman’s sale fell through.
The building went to auction and the brothers ended up buying it for
cheaper than originally expected.
Then the whole derelict old
building has to be virtually rebuilt from the ground up with no funds to
hand. A masjid in the next neighbourhood
offered an interest-free loan (qarz-e-hassanah), local people volunteered their
labour (literally hauling bricks and filling skips) and skills (including an
architect and planning consultant) and a sister even sold her jewellery to
contribute – if you know anything about Asian women and their gold jewellery,
you’ll know that that’s no small thing.
I was pregnant with my
youngest child during this time and struggling.
I didn’t see my husband for most of that year except in passing in the
morning and at night and got more and more upset about it. That was until the first day of Ramadan, when
they rushed to clean up the masjid and put some order in it, just in time for
taraweeh, when 400 people showed up! I think
that’s the moment all of my anger and self-pity was washed away.
In the year that followed
there was the slow process to get permission to teach children and classes
filled up leaving children on a waiting list.
The masjid was granted temporary permission for worship and told to
apply for proper permission to use it as a place of worship.
The thing is, no sooner had
the consultation for permission gone public that people started campaigning
against the masjid getting permission.
So who wrere these people going door to door with petitions and asking
people to go online and comment against the application? Racists?
Far right nationalists? No –
Muslims. This is what gets me. The nearest masjid has long begrudged a new
masjid of a different affiliation nearby.
So they are going door to door in the local neighbourhood telling people
it is haram to have another masjid so near to an established one.
My neighbourhood has one of
the largest populations of Muslims in the country. 19.6% or 20,895 people in the area are Muslim
according to the 2011 Census – so actually I suspect it is by now much more. The local masjid has a capacity of
approximately 1100 – 2500 (I have come across both figures). I pray that every Muslim prays salah and that
every Muslim man prays salah in the masjid.
But one masjid for 20k+ people just isn’t enough.
So this weekend hubby and the
brothers were getting their own petitions ready and asking people to go online
and support the application to turn the Islamic educational centre into a permanent
place of worship. They asked the 400
brothers in the first Friday prayer and the 350 in the second Friday prayer to
support them.
Some people they have spoken
to locally have told them they signed the petition against because they trusted
the people from the masjid and were not even clear about what the petition they
signed was about. One plucky Somali
sister tried to get the petitioner to remove her signature and when he refused,
called the police (I’m not quite clear if they did anything...).
There are about ten more
days to the planning application for change of use to be determined. The masjid is a hub of activity with children
studying there five days a week, dawah work taking place, daily study circles
and the men sitting together every day after fajr prayer to undertake
mushwerah, or consultation about the needs of the neighbourhood’s Muslims.
Please, please make dua for the
masjid and for the people in this neighbourhood insh’Allah.
My cousin T, who is
only fourteen, lives in an area where there is no masjid at all. He is currently working with local brothers to
raise funds to buy a property. So far he
has doen a sponsored two-hour walk and helped organise a charity iftar with
guest speakers. He is an amazing role
model for my boys and I am so proud of him mash’Allah. Please support the efforts of this group by visiting
their website here an if you can, making a donation insh’Allah.
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