July 23, 1999
Among Greenpoint's Churches Rises a Nondescript Mosque
By Arun Kristian Das
When Fahima Akther moved to Brooklyn three months ago, she bade goodbye to the quiet, tree-lined suburban streets of Rockland County. She also left behind an elaborate and spacious masjid, or Muslim place of worship, in favor of a small storefront mosque a few blocks away from a Catholic church. Akther, 25, frequents Jam'l Masjid in Greenpoint, which is a predominantly Polish, Irish, Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhood, and thus, very Catholic.
"I went to a beautiful mosque in Rockland, but this mosque here is good," said Akther, a native of Bangladesh who came to the Unites States a year ago. "I go there to pray on Friday, and prayer is what's important."
New York is blossoming with Islamic culture, exemplified by Jam'l Masjid, a part of the Greenpoint Muslim Community Center, which was founded last November to meet the needs of a growing Muslim community in northern Greenpoint. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the United States thanks to American converts, most of whom are black, and immigrants from the Muslim world and their children. According to one estimate, the Muslim population of the United States is around 8 million, with 800,000 in New York state alone.
Inside Jam'l Masjid, run by a nine-member leadership committee, a two-tone green carpet covers the rectangular 2,000-square-foot space. A few bookshelves along the peach-colored walls hold copies of the Koran, the Islamic holy text, and books on general Islamic teachings. A washroom in a corner of the masjid is for pre-prayer purification, called wudu'; faithful must wash their hands, arms, face, mouth, nostrils, ears, neck and feet before receiving Allah.
"We are not the 96th Street mosque, but we are happy," said Mohammad Sharif, the assistant secretary of the leadership committee and a two-year resident of Greenpoint, referring to the copper-domed mosque of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the largest mosque in New York City. "Our simple masjid is here for people to be able to pray not far from their homes or jobs," he said. Like many of the Jam'l Masjid's faithful, Sharif is a native of Bangladesh. In fact, most of the mosque's followers are from South Asia -- Bangladesh, Pakistan and India -- and not from the Arab world. Although there is no formal membership list, Sharif estimated that around 100 families come to his masjid for prayer services, and that as many as 150 South Asian families live in Greenpoint.
Besides offering a place for local Muslims to pray, done five times a day and is one of the five pillars of Islam, the Greenpoint Muslim Community Center's primary mission is to teach Bengali or Urdu to the faithful's children.
"Our children grow up in America and speak English, which is good," said Anwarul Islam Sarker, 42, an active member of the mosque. Sarker, like Sharif, is an immigrant from Bangladesh, from Dinajpur, and has lived in Greenpoint for five years after having come to the United States more than 12 years ago. "But our goal is for the next generation of Muslims to not forget their language, religion and traditions." And so the center holds lessons for children in Bangla, or Bengali, the primary language of Bangladesh, and also Urdu, the language of Pakistan. The center also has a weekend school for children in the teachings of Islam and the reading of the Koran in Arabic.
The center is frequented mostly by working-class families who make quite a personal sacrifice to support the mosque, Sarker said. "We don't have doctors and accountants here," he said. "We are simple, hard-working people." The masjid is financed by donations from its congregation, ranging from just $10 given by one family to $601.50 pledged by another; the $600 per month rent paid by Akther's cellular phone shop situated in the center's storefront; and voluntary tuition for the language and religion classes.
Sharif and Sarker, who are both unemployed, donate their time and money in support of the masjid. "Allah says if we give our money in his service he will protect us," Sharif said. In fact, another of the five pillars of Islam is the giving of alms for the poor and for the community.
Last month's operating costs totaled $2,450, offset by the mosque's donation and rent income, according to a document posted in the center. And the religion and language teachers are volunteers, not paid; many are parents who bring their children to the masjid. One of the teachers, Kazil Shamsul Haque, is also the mosque's imam, or spiritual leader, and serves as the leadership committee's president.
But despite formal-sounding titles like "imam," "president" and "assistant secretary," the center is managed quite informally, Sharif said, and even those titles are not so official. The "leadership committee" is just a term Sharif and Sarker used for illustrative purposes; they said they are not even sure of an official name for the group. The center's focus is not politics, but religion and family -- two things intrinsically connected in Islamic life, Sharif said. The center primarily serves as a place for the Muslims of Greenpoint to come and share their common traditions and feel like one family. In fact, the masjid is not part of any particular Islamic sect. The title of imam was given to Haque simply because he leads the Friday prayer, called Jumma. Sharif and Sarker have not made the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, another of the five pillars of Islam, and, to their knowledge, Haque has not made the Hajj, either. The remaining two pillars of Islam are the declaration of oneness with Allah and ritual fasting during the holy month of Ramadan for self-purification.
For now, the infant Muslim mosque and center thrives in its rented ground-floor space, but with increased membership and support, Sharif hopes that the purchase of an entire building in Greenpoint is not too far off. Expanded space would allow the center to host Islamic wedding ceremonies, funeral services and a full-fledged Islamic school.
Despite clearly being a minority in the neighborhood, Muslims are treated well by area residents, Sharif said. However, he heard of, but did not witness, one incident where an Hispanic man, possibly under the influence of alcohol, allegedly issued verbal abuse at Muslims leaving the masjid after prayer. But it was only one incident in the almost nine months of the center's existence. The image of Muslims as terrorists is a stereotype perpetuated by the media, Sharif said, and that his neighbors probably do not buy into the prejudice, at least not overtly.
"I only know what a person is on the outside," Sharif said. "I don't know what is in his heart." ###