California’s Vacaville Muslims Face Hurdles in Bid to Grow Their House of Worship
Now, an expansion project meant to accommodate a growing congregation has turned into a flashpoint, with some community members voicing objections that mosque leaders say cross the line into bigotry.
According to KCRA 3 Sacramento, the Islamic Center in Vacaville wants to address the growing Muslim community in the city by building a 6,600-square-foot, three-story mosque. The current center is in a greenhouse.
“As our community has grown, so has the need for a larger and more accommodating mosque,” Rob Sesar, the project’s architect, told KCRA 3 Sacramento.
But some residents in Vacaville want to see plans for the mosque scaled down or even eliminated altogether. During a community meeting on March 18 at a senior center, several residents voiced their frustrations about the proposal and even made Islamophobic comments.
“Islam has no place in America,” a man named Matthew said, per FOX 40.
Other residents echoed his sentiments.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, anti-Muslim “activists” also handed out white sheets of paper comparing Islam to the Antichrist. The Islamophobic response to the mosque proposal has disappointed and surprised long-time Muslim residents in Vacaville. The San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed Abid Ahmad, who told the publication that the meeting was worse than he had “ever imagined.”
“I really love Vacaville, which is what made all those Islamophobic comments hurt,” Ahmad told the Chronicle. “You can’t help but kind of wonder: Does the community I love actually hate me, and I just never really knew it?”
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Ahmad used to work for the Vacaville Parks and Recreation Department and had held community meetings at the senior center before.
“It was so strange to get attacked for what you believe, in a room where you’d made a lot of fond memories,” Ahmad said. “Hopefully we can use this current situation to make our community better. After all, Vacaville is where many of us realized the American dream.”
Sunny Baig told FOX 40 that Muslim community in Vacaville just wants a place to come together and worship.
“We’re not here to do outlandish things like impose Sharia Law and all these other things that you see on TV,” Baig said. “We’re just normal people that want to live a normal life.”
Source: asamnews.com
