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Argus – June 9, 2005
Mosques often run by volunteers
and double as schools and community centers
By Sajid Farooq
For many Americans, mosques can be a mystery.
Several Bay Area communities might be used to seeing men with beards and women with their heads covered walking into transformed store fronts or office buildings. But few probably know what goes on inside the Islamic houses of worship.
In the wake of at least five Lodi men, including two imams, being detained by the FBI, the makeup of community mosques falls under the curious eye of the public.
But despite suspicions and fears of backlash, several members of the Bay Area Muslim community said mosques — though sometimes isolated from the communities they are in — are not a strange place that should be feared.
Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies with a speciality in Islamic Studies at University of California, Berkeley, said there is no single way American mosques are run. Some are only used for five daily congressional prayers, others double as community centers and some even run full-time schools.
"For the most part, mosques are stand-alone organizations," he said. "As such, each mosque would have a different structure."
There are almost 90 mosques and prayer halls in Northern California, and most Bay Area mosques are recognized nonprofit organizations. Bazian said there are two main types of nonprofit mosques. The first is an Islamic center run by a predominantly immigrant community, and the second run by indigenous American Muslims.
Often, the immigrant mosques are more internally focused and less known in the community because they are more concerned with preserving native languages and culture than working with interfaith groups, for example. But Bazian said there are affluent immigrant communities that do a better job of getting to know their neighbors, such as the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara, the Bay Area's largest mosque.
"The immigrant mosque developed out of an attempt to preserve identity," he said. "This is a normative of all immigrants of all ethnic and religious backgrounds and it's reflective of a form of support. People are looking for familiarity."
Most mosques run by American-born Muslims tend to be more transparent and better connected with the communities they live in. They are usually more diverse and have a better understanding of American culture, Bazian said.
Making it more difficult for American mosques to speak with a united voice is the fact that there is no umbrella organization that oversees and unites them together. The few Bay Area mosques networked with each other tend to unite along ethnic lines, as well.
"As far as structure, there is a lot of discussion, but there is no formal decision making process (between different communities)," said William Youmns, a civil rights and media relations manager with the Council on American Islamic Relations. "The Muslim community is well organized only internally, but not on how different communities connect with each other."
And unlike churches, most mosques are run by full-time professionals volunteering the little time they have. "For the most part, the mosque is shouldered by professionals who are volunteering, including many of the imams," Bazian said. "They don't have full-time staffs."
The Manteca Islamic Center, which opened in 1993, is an example of this structure. The small nonprofit community is run by an elected board of directors. Tahir Mansoor, a 52-year-old radiologist at San Joaquin General Hospital who has been living in Manteca for the past 15 years, said the board is made up of four professionals — including a software manager at Apple, a real estate agent and a government employee working in Afghanistan — who volunteer to manage the mosque's daily business. "We call them the custodians of the mosque," he said.
Mansoor said there is no formal membership, and anyone can come in and pray there when they want. The board's responsibilities include paying the bills, conducting interfaith activities and a campaign to clean up the neighborhood of the drunks who used to roam the streets. The father of three said he hopes that by the time his children get older, mosques in America will no longer be seen as a strange thing.
"We are facing the same problems as other people before," he said. "My kids will assimilate in this community. They will serve the United States and Islam. It might be hard for us, but our children are going to make it and it's going to be OK, God willing."
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_2792119
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