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.
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