This New Jersey City Will Get Its Own Mosque At Last

BAYONNE, New Jersey – Moving from a church basement to a school and even shops, Muslims in Bayonne city, New Jersey, will be having their own mosque soon, after years of struggle and a court ruling granting them the right to have their worshipping place.

“We want to have a home,” said Yaser Eisa, as he left Friday prayers, held for the time being in a room above a row of shops, The National reported.

According to Eisa, this home is finally coming in the form of a disused warehouse which will be converted into a mosque with classrooms, offices and a gym.

But this a product of long years of a bitter struggle of tumultuous public meetings, Islamophobic graffiti and the objections of local officials, the mosque was only allowed after Muslims launched a legal challenge, forcing the city into a $400,000 settlement amid a federal investigation into the local zoning board’s conduct.

“We did everything by the book but we knew there would be resistance because it’s a mosque,” said Eisa, a mechanical engineer.

The mosque leaders cited the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act which was introduced in 2000 to ensure zoning issues were not being abused to hide discrimination.

In a recent report, the Department of Justice found that although Muslims make up only one percent of the US population, they are responsible for a disproportionate number of investigations under the act’s powers.

Waheed Akbar, a member of their board, said the decision granting them the right to have their first mosque marks the end of a long journey.

“I felt thankful that our congregation is going to have a place of their own in the town they have lived and called home for decades,” he said, adding that Bayonne’s Muslims hope to be in their new mosque by November.