BUILDING ISLAM IN DETROIT: FOUNDATIONS / FORMS / FUTURES
FEATURED MOSQUES AL-ISLAH JAME MASJID was founded in 2000 by Bangladeshi immigrants, most of them followers of Allama Abdul Latif Chow- dhury (Fultholi). The first Bangladeshi mosque in Hamtramck, the masjid moved to its current home, a renovated medical clinic, in 2001. The group plans to renovate the building next door and establish a madrasa (religious school) there. Al-Islah attracted international media attention in 2004 when they tried to broadcast the idhan (call to prayer) from a loudspeaker outside the mosque. While the idhan is freely broadcast in Dearborn and Detroit, many Hamtramck residents objected Abdul Motlib, President, discusses to the practice, and the Al-Islah leadership found itself the call to prayer campaign on embroiled in an election year battle with the City Council. The matter was resolved in a special, citywide referendum, video track 2 which Al-Islah won handily.
Al-Islah Jame Masjid. Minbar, Al-Islah Jame Masjid.
The ALBANIAN ISLAMIC CENTER, built in Harper Woods in Imam Shuajb Gerguri discusses 1963, boasts a distinctive, Balkan-style dome and minaret. With a prayer area, offices, large social hall, classrooms, the history of the Albanian Islamic and kitchen, the mosque serves an old Albanian American community (already well established in the 1940s) and newly Center, his thoughts on being arrived immigrants from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, and other countries. The center provides weekend religious a European Muslim, and his instruction in Arabic, Albanian, and English along with other educational and service programs. The Albanian Islamic aspirations for the future on Center is open to Muslims from all ethnic backgrounds, but video track 1 immigrants from Europe and their descendents form its core membership. The mosque is unusual for its location in Detroit’s eastern suburbs.
Photo by Mucahit Bilici. Albanian Islamic Center. Photo by Mucahit Bilici.
The ISLAMIC CENTER OF AMERICA traces its origins to the 1950s, when a group of young Lebanese Americans asked Imam Mohamad Jawad Chirri to help them establish Michigan’s first, purpose-built Shi`i mosque. The Center dedicated their original building on Joy Road in Detroit in 1963. The community has thrived over the years, and this prosperity is visible in their new facility on Ford Road in Dearborn, which opened in 2005. In 1997, the center established a primary school, the Muslim Ameri- can Youth Academy. Their new mosque, at 120,000 square feet Hajj Hussein Makled (right) relates in size, is much grander than the original structure, yet both facilities have large social spaces that can accommodate huge community history on video crowds for special events and holiday observances. track 3. Hajj Eide Alawan provides a tour of the new Islamic Center, Islamic Center of America. The first Friday Prayer held at Photo by Sally Howell. the new Islamic Center of America. Photo by Sally Howell. under construction, on track 4