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The Star - October 2, 2005
Muslim group opens a mosque that has
been 22 years in the making
By Steve Schmadeke,
For 22 years, a group of Southland Muslims have worshipped in a converted airplane hangar they dubbed "The Shed." After years of sacrifice from its roughly 300 members, the Sunni Muslim congregation opened a $2 million white-brick mosque next door. Construction on the mosque took two years to complete.
The group now hopes to build a Muslim school on the property within two years.
"I don't think we did it for ourselves, we did it for our next generation," said Tariq Khan, vice president of the mosque's board. "We feel that they deserve to have a nice facility to come and pray that they can be proud of."
That's why today at 5:30 p.m., children cut a ribbon to open the mosque near the northwest corner of 88th Avenue and St. Francis Road. The public was invited to attend, and food will be served.
In a way, the mosque's completion is a quintessential suburban success story. It began with some Muslim immigrant professionals moving their families to the South Suburbs in the 1970s.
"Whenever you go into a land that has an alien culture — we came from India, Pakistan — (you) basically seek out people of a similar background," said Dr. Afzal Ahmad, an ophthalmologist who's president of the mosque board. "We sat down, had dinner together and our kids were running around. Well, we (realized we) needed someplace to worship and have religious training."
The group — mostly engineers, physicians and business owners — met in basements and then rented space, eventually settling in at a Frankfort school. In 1983, they bought 14 acres, including the hangar. There was no money left to build a mosque. Nearly two decades passed, the original members aged and their children graduated from college, Khan said.
The Quran forbids borrowing or lending money with interest, so a few years ago members set about raising funds to build a mosque. Ahmad said they collected about $1.5 million and borrowed about $500,000 interest-free from members….
http://www.starnewspapers.com/star/spnews/news/02-sp6.htm
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