The Islamic Center of the Capital District will soon open a community center in addition to a mosque that has been around since 1979
A brand new community center will be formally unveiled by the Islamic Center of the Capital District on Saturday, Sept. 25, providing a much-needed daycare center for those who attend prayer, a banquet room and recreational facilities.
After years of only using the mosque, which is located on 21 Lansing Road in Schenectady, Tariq Niazi, president of the center, said the area was too small for the much larger prayers, prompting the need to expand.
To accommodate the number of people who come to the center during Ramadan, which lasted this year from Aug. 11 until Sept. 10, Niazi said the community center was made available the last two weeks of Ramadan. Niazi said organizers had hoped to make the new facility available at the beginning of the holy month, but they were met with some delays.
This place [the mosque] becomes small for bigger prayers, he said. `During the month of Ramadan we get a lot of people for the night prayer.`
He said the influx of worshippers at the mosque on Friday afternoons ` especially the Friday that marked the end of Ramadan ` is comparable to a typical Sunday at a church, and the banquet room was opened to provide a place of prayer for those who could not fit in the mosque.
Niazi, who has been with the community for the past 20 years and president for the past seven, referred to the community center as the next step for the organization. He said it will better serve members looking for a place for recreation, social events such as banquets or weddings, and a daycare center for parents to drop off their children so they can pray.
The center was funded completely by donations.
`Probably we got somewhere between $2.5 and $3 million in donations,` he said.
Karima Rasoully, owner of Kabul Night, a restaurant on Union Street in Schenectady, and a member of the Islamic Center, said she is grateful for the new facility and its benefits.
`It is such a blessing we had it for Ramadan,` she said.
She said the addition of the daycare has been a bonus for her family.
`Now we can bring the children along with us instead of leaving them home,` she said. `We can drop the kids off where they’re able to play with other kids, and we can have peaceful prayers.`
Despite national debate over the Cordoba Mosque, which is slated to be built two blocks from where the World Trade Center buildings stood, and a Quran-burning threat posed by Florida Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones, Niazi said the center has received an outpouring of support from surrounding community members.
`I have complete faith in our neighbors, in our friends, that things like that will be completely rejected,` he said. `We have gotten phone calls of support on this Florida issue.`
He said the center also received a phone call from representatives from Skidmore condemning the issue.
`I’m telling my own people that we can look at our friends, if you are Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist, this is the act of an extreme group that has, as reported, 30 or 40 followers,` he said. `So he does not speak for the mass majority of people of other religions who are condemning this action and who are supporting Muslims and their right to exercise their right to practice their religion.`
Niazi said politicians such as Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Rick Lazio used the mosque issue as a means to be noticed by the people of New York. He also referred to comments made by former Speaker of the United State House of Representatives Newt Gingrich railing against the proposed New York City mosque as `extreme` and `unfortunate.`
Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, who will be in attendance at the formal ceremony for the opening of the community center on Sept. 25, said the mosque’s expansion is a positive thing.
`It’s a big deal,` he said. `It’s a community that’s going through the journey so many groups have gone through when coming to America.`
McEneny spoke against the actions of Jones and other extremists who pigeonhole Muslims into the same category as the terrorists who piloted the planes during the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and said the act of burning Qurans would only hurt the United States.
`It is a propaganda tool that is being handed to Al-Qaida,` he said. `The pastor will have blood on his hands.`
The community center will have a formal grand opening in what is being referred to as an interfaith ceremony, where Niazi said he hopes to see Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, of the Albany Diocese, in attendance.
Niazi said he is very thankful to be in the Capital District, an area that has been very welcoming and friendly.
`Our community, when I say our community I mean the Capital District community, has been very inviting,` he said. `Our neighbors have been wonderful, and we’ve never had an incident, and I hope that it will continue like this.`
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