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Featured in Region
Groton Mosque Thrives On Diversity
By TED MANN
Published on 11/9/2003
Groton — More than 30 men bowed in the
front of the carpeted room, praying toward
Mecca, about an hour before sunset
Saturday afternoon, when they would dine
on dates, juice and water to break the
daily fast of Ramadan.
And then: a cell phone, ringing in
someone's pocket, playing the theme song
to Gilligan's Island.
If Imran Ahmed needed a metaphor —
and he didn't — for the interplay of pop
culture, national allegiances and orthodox
Islam that challenges Muslims in America,
he might have chosen such a moment.
Suzanne Ouellette
Homaira Rasool, 15, left, of Norwich, and
Rabia Malik, 14, of Old Lyme, look through
the guest book as they greeted visitors with
Aysha Mansour, 13, of Groton at the Islamic
Center of New London on Fort Street in
Groton Sat., Nov. 8, 2003 during an open
house inviting the public to visit their
mosque and celebrate the holy month of
Ramadan.
Ahmed, a chemist at Pfizer Inc., is
president of the Islamic Center of New London, the region's only full-fledged
mosque, which held an open house Saturday, inviting neighbors to join Ramadan
ceremonies, mingle with the faithful and learn about the organization's mission.
The center is small, Ahmed said, not nearly as populous as its larger cousins in New
Haven and Hartford, but it is strikingly diverse. The congregation includes
immigrants from across Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, as well as
American-born Muslims.
The mosque has not catered to a single ethnic or national group, Ahmed said. “We
have really been able to break down those barriers,” he said.
The center's leaders were trying to break down other barriers Saturday, inviting
neighbors and non-Muslims to learn about Islam in a way Ahmed and others said is
especially necessary today, when media coverage of his religion centers on violent
fanatics rather than the millions of ordinary people who make up the vast majority of
the faith.
Visitors, including Groton Mayor Dennis Popp and U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd
District, sat on folding chairs to hear remarks by the center's imam, Mahmoud
Mansour, and Patrice Brodeur, a religious studies professor at Connecticut College.
Once the sun had set, shortly before 5 p.m., worshippers broke their day-long fast
with the traditional meal of dates, water and juice.
During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn through sunset, and refrain from other
temptations, including cigarette smoking and lovemaking.
The Islamic Center, which was incorporated in 1993, grew out of the Muslim
community that first took root in New London in the 1950s, and served as an outpost
for the Nation of Islam as that group expanded rapidly in the 1960s and early 1970s,
Ahmed said.
Following the death of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad in 1975, some
Nation of Islam followers began a transition toward the orthodox Islam that was
being practiced separately by immigrants from Muslim countries.
Despite that transition, Ahmed said, many Muslim immigrants to the region chose to
worship at larger mosques in Hartford and New Haven.
“Had we not come in, the New London (Muslim) community would have withered
away,” said Ahmed. “In '89, they were ready to pack their bags.”
But a flurry of hiring in the early 1990s, particularly at Pfizer, led to an influx of
educated immigrants like Ahmed from predominately Muslim countries, and
indirectly to a revitalization of the city's Muslim community, he said.
“Pfizer did not even know they were doing it,” he said.
The organization bounced around, inhabiting storefront spaces on Connecticut
Avenue and Bank Street before members raised the money to buy the former
Church of the Nazarene on Fort Street in 2001. The group has rehabilitated the
space, which features a kitchen and classrooms behind the mosque.
Islamic Center members say the combination of diverse strands of Islam has
strengthened their organization, and will help them in their efforts to separate the
perception of Islam as a religion of violent extremists from its reality.
“Struggles with Islam in America have been peculiarly race-driven,” said Ahmed,
referring to the role played by Muslim organizers in the struggle to win basic civil
rights for African-Americans.
Ahmed contrasted that political involvement with what he said was complacency on
the part of some Muslim immigrants, who he said were often content simply to be in
the United States, and so did not actively fight the denigration of their religion and
culture.
“Immigrants were very laid back,” he said. “We were so happy to be here.”
The Nation of Islam “had a lot to teach us,” he said, “not in theology, but definitely in
the civil rights and activism part. Orthodox Muslims were very reclusive and
detached. That's not good enough anymore.”
Hamza Collins, a stationary engineer at a local power plant, said he converted to
Islam after years of searching for a faith that made sense to him.
Collins has heard sarcastic remarks about his faith, the cracks about terrorism.
“I just smile,” he said. “I know it's not true.”
Collins was married at the Islamic Center in October, and many of his guests
stepped into a mosque for the first time. One experience, he said, was all it took:
“They know we're not radical extremists.”
The center's ability to bring diverse groups together one of its greatest strengths,
according to Ahmed.
“These people never would have come together if it were not for this mosque,” he
said.
© The Day Publishing Co., 2003