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news
New mosque strives
for understanding
By Jeanne Hoffa
On-line Forty-Niner
The newly built
Masjid Al-Rahman, the biggest mosque in California, was publicly
dedicated this weekend. Members of Garden Grove mosque invited
the community to the ceremony Saturday attended by congressmen,
council members, priests, rabbis, pastors and professors from
UCLA and Cal State Fullerton.
The mosque is to
be the spiritual and religious center for the Islamic Society
of Orange County. Orange Crescent Elementary School, in operation
for 10 years, sits next to the mosque and offers Arabic language
and Islamic studies to the children.
An estimated 500
people attended the event and were invited to share in a Persian
dinner.
The congregation
has 1,500 members, making it comparable in size to America's
two other large mosques in Chicago and New York City. It is
open to the estimated 200,000 Muslims in the surrounding area,
as well as to members of other faiths.
Garden Grove Mayor
Bruce Broadwater said he appreciates that his city hosts such
a diverse group of worshipers. "We have the
entire melting pot of the United States of America represented
in Garden Grove. It's a microcosm of what America is,"
he said.
MIS graduate student
Kashif Nishar, who attended a Friday prayer meeting and has
been to most other mosques in Southern California, said that
while he prefers this new one, all houses of God are holy.
"All mosques
are the house of God," Nishar said. "Churches, temples,
wherever people come to recognize their God."
Even before Sept.
11, Nashir said, members of the Muslim community were concerned
that most Americans did not understand Muslim. Some of them
feel that the responsibility rests on them, because they have
not known how to discuss Islam with non-Muslims. Now they
are embracing the opportunity that the renewed curiosity brought
about since the terrorist attacks have inspired, he said.
Congressman Dana
Rohrabacher said the congregation of such a diverse group
of religious representatives is what is best about America.
"America is
supposed to be the place where people come together and show
that there is a better way," Rohrabacher said. "We
enjoy people who worship God in whatever way they choose."
California is home
to an estimated 20 percent of the U.S. Muslim population,
which the 2001 World Almanac estimates to be 5.8 million.
The Islamic Society
of Orange County, which built the $2.5 million mosque, began
25 years ago when eight to 10 families gathered in each other's
homes to pray on Fridays and socialize on Sundays, said Hamid
Malik, who helped build the mosque.
Though the Muslim
population is Southern California was small, word got out
and the tiny gatherings would grow, until there were too many
to fit in one house.
They pooled their
money and eventually moved to buildings in Fullerton and Whittier.
Masjid Al-Rahman is the culmination of a dream that took of
years of work, said Imam Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the
Islamic society.
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Masjid
Al-Rahman sits in a residential tract near Edinger and Warner.
The muslim
women pray in a separate upstairs room during Friday services,
but for the dedication ceremony, all sat on the main floor.
Mayors,
councilmen, congressmen and community leaders crowd into the
new Masjid Al-Rahman.
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