Pillar of Islam: New L.V. Mosque is Foundation for Future

By Erin Walter
The Morning Call (Allentown)

Twelve-year-old Noorulain Shamin of Whitehall Township knelt and touched her forehead to the floor in prayer. Around her more than 150 men, women and children did the same.

It was noon on a typical Friday at the new Islamic Center of the Lehigh Valley in Whitehall, where Muslims come from work, school and play to participate in the Jumah, the most important prayer of the week. Last Friday the sermon focused on kindness.

"It was about how kind the prophet Mohammed was to his followers and how kind they were to each other," said Mohamed Bugaighis, project manager of the new mosque. "The message was that we should also be like that."

As the sermon progressed, more people streamed into the mosque, taking their shoes off and washing their hands, face and feet before entering the prayer room.

Growth at services like this one prompted the Lehigh Valley Muslim Association to build the Islamic Center at 1988 Schadt Ave. The first prayer service was held there March 20.

"It's really big and a lot better than the old one," said Shamin, an eighth-grader whose family moved to Whitehall from Saudi Arabia three years ago. "We won't have to drive to Parkland Junior High for Sunday school classes anymore and our classrooms will be bigger."

The cream-colored building is simple, with only two small green domes on the front of the roof. The light-green, rectangular prayer room contains only two decorations: green tile squares on the front wall symbolizing Allah (God), and Mohammed, the prophet who founded the religion around 600 A.D.

"We chose a design that gives us space and is economical," said Bugaighis, whose daughter, Yasmin Bugaighis, was the project architect. "Its beauty is in its simplicity. We used the most popular color in Islam -- green -- because it reflects life and fertility."

An open house is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, during which the members of the mosque said they hope non-Muslims will come to get a better understanding of Muslims and Islam.

"It's very important to establish dialogue with our neighbors," Bugaighis said. "We are all a part of the same community. We need them and they need us."

The Muslim Association was established in 1982. It opened its first mosque with about 20 active families in December 1984 at 20 N. 9th St. in Emmaus, said Jama Ahmed, an association board member.

But by 1991 the congregation had outgrown the Emmaus mosque. The Muslim Association bought seven acres of land in Whitehall and began the process of zoning approval, planning and fund-raising.

The association broke ground on its new center a year ago. The mosque now has 350 people on its mailing list and 110 active families, the board said.

Built by Serfass Construction, the $1.5 million project was funded entirely by donations from members of the congregation.

"The Muslim community here has been very generous," Ahmed said. "They believed in the cause of having a mosque for themselves and their children."

The prayer room, parking lot, washrooms and offices are finished. The multipurpose hall is expected to be completed by the end of the year, when it will be used for dinners, social events and Sunday religious classes for children.

The hall will include retractable partitions to divide it into eight classrooms. The children were a major motivation for building the new mosque, Ahmed said.

"If we don't learn about our faith, we can't pass it on to our children," he said. "In our home countries it's part of our culture, and if we don't teach them their grandparents or someone else will. Here it's up to us."

Advances in communication, particularly the Internet, have made it easier to become educated and to educate others about Islam, Bugaighis said.

"People tend to associate the conflict in the Middle East with Islam," Bugaighis said. "People confuse politics and religion a great deal, but 80 percent of the world's Muslims are not Arabs."

Members of the Whitehall mosque hail from Cambodia, Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the United States, among other countries. Some are Italian American or African American. A few are Pennsylvania Dutch.

"If anybody needs to translate a document in just about any language, this is the place to come," Faisal Nabulsi of Upper Macungie Township said, drawing laughs from the others.

Their religion acts as a unifying force, they said.

"From day one, Islam was meant not for one group but for a diverse community," Ahmed said.

While Islam teaches that the Old and New Testaments were authentic revelations from God, the religion's fundamental text is the Koran. Muslims follow the creed of Mohammed, who taught morality and is regarded as the final prophet of Allah.

During services at the Whitehall mosque, the prayer leader recites verses in Arabic from the Koran and then repeats them in English.

Muslim women wear clothing that covers their arms and legs as well as a hijab, or head scarf.

It was not the case for all members of the congregation, but Bugaighis said devout Muslims were looked at suspiciously in his native country, Libya. He said he is thankful for the opportunity to worship freely in the United States.

Others, like Ahmed, emigrated for economic reasons and developed a deeper religious devotion while facing the challenges of living in an unknown culture.

"We're not religious scholars," Ahmed said. "We didn't come to the United States to teach Islam. We came to make a living."

But nonetheless, religion has become an important part of their lives. The mosque is open five times a day -- daybreak, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and evening -- for each of Islam's daily prayers. Classes on Islamic law are held Monday nights and women's classes are Thursday nights. The association also holds potluck dinners the third Saturday of the month. The dinners, open to everyone, conclude with a half-hour sermon.

"It's an opportunity for us to talk about the issues of day-to-day living as a Muslim in the United States," Ahmed said.

After almost three months at the new mosque, board members said they are happy with the results of their work.

"We have significantly improved the area," Ahmed said. "It was a wasteland of rocks and weeds."

But the location, directly across the street from the Korean Church of Lehigh Valley, was special to begin with, said Ernestiina Barsik, the association women's representative.

"The man who originally owned the land was a farmer, but he always saved these seven acres as a religious spot," she said.

Shamin, for one, said that spot has made her feel more at home as well as more confident in speaking to others about her faith.

"I'm comfortable around here because there are a lot of other Muslims," she said. "I know I'll have to answer more questions next year when I start wearing the hijab to school. But last year kids used to ask me why I cover myself, and I just told them it's because of my religion."

The Islamic Center of the Lehigh Valley, 1988 Schadt Ave., Whitehall, will hold an open house 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The public is invited. For information, call 868-8776 or 398-4906.

This article by Erin Walter appeared in The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) on July 9, 1998. Permission has been obtained for republication/translation of the text (including for IIP's home-page on the Internet) by U.S. Embassy Public Affairs and press outside the U.S. On the title page, credit author and carry: "Copyright July 9, 1998, The Morning Call, Inc., Allentown, PA. Reprinted with permission of The Morning Call." Please forward one (1) copy of reprint to: Raymond B. Holton, Editor and Vice President, The Morning Call, 101 North Sixth Street, P.O. Box 1260, Allentown, PA 18105.