Asheville Muslims observe holiday in new mosque

ASHEVILLE — After nearly 17 years, Islam has found a permanent place in the mountains.

Sitting on the floor of their newly built mosque after the daily night prayer, community leader Zacharia Abuasba and Samuel Muhammad Abdul-Allah recounted the journey it took to get where they are today.

“Every night I come here it’s just an honor and a blessing,” said Abdul-Allah.

This past Tuesday, the community celebrated Eid al-Adha, a major Islamic holiday that observes the order God gave Abraham to sacrifice his son. The holy day also occurs during the hajj, an event when Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Even though there is temporary carpeting on top of the concrete-slab floor, the driveway is unpaved and the deep red of construction mud still accents the site, both men were grateful to be sitting where they were.

The new mosque is perched on an unassuming piece of land behind the Home Depot on Fairview Road. Green, metal siding covers the simple, square-shaped building. Inside, there is one large room that is used for prayer, gatherings and a weekend religious school for children.

“We were in a holding pattern for 10 years,” said Abuasba, who moved to Asheville in 1997 but had been visiting the area since 1991. “We were too big to rent and too small to own.”

Previously, the Muslim community had been meeting in rented spaces, moving from one place to another as their leases expired or property owners sold their buildings.

Abdul-Allah, an Asheville native, remembers the first time he encountered the Muslim community outside Biltmore Hardware in 1989.

“I recognized some foreign-looking people going upstairs,” he said. Those going upstairs were mostly immigrants who started Asheville’s first organized Muslim community. They met in a space on top of the hardware store, adjacent to a shop that was owned by an immigrant Muslim businessman.

Roots of Islam in WNC
Although mainstream or orthodox Islam did not appear in Asheville until the late ’80s, Abdul-Allah was involved in the area’s Nation of Islam movement.

He said the Nation of Islam movement, which had borrowed ideas from mainstream Islam, garnered a following among some of the city’s African-Americans.

“It was more or less mingled in with black identity,” he said. He remembered meetings at the YMI cultural center and helping to establish the Shabazz Restaurant, now The Ritz, in the Eagle-Market Street district.

After the death of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and changes in the organization, Abdul-Allah converted to orthodox Islam. He said the Asheville Muslim congregation has a large number of African-Americans, many of whom were at one time members of the Nation of Islam.

Fund drive for local mosque
Abdul-Allah said he saw the Muslim community grow from about 10 people who met above a hardware store to nearly 100 people with their own mosque.

But getting to where they are today wasn’t easy.

“We literally carried our socks and went from one community to another,” said Abuasba about the fundraising effort. Among other places, they visited Raleigh, Durham, Greenville, S.C., and even cities in Florida to gain financial support from larger Muslim communities.

Abuasba said taking out a mortgage or a loan was not an option because of Islam’s stance against paying interest. They had to have the funds in cash and by 2001 they had enough to buy a piece of land with a dilapidated house on it. After unsuccessfully trying to repair the house, the city condemned it, and it was demolished.

In 2004, the decision was made to build a new structure and looking forward to five to 10 years of growth, the community raised more money to build their mosque.

The mosque opened its doors in October, just in time to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan — a month on the Islamic calendar during which Muslims are prescribed to fast.

Unlike Muslim populations in major metropolitan areas, Abuasba said Asheville is a transitional area for Muslims. He said it seems that many people move to Asheville but eventually move somewhere else.

But since Abuasba has lived here, he said he has seen the Muslim population double.

Now with a new mosque, the community has room to grow and a place to call their own.

“People are still in a state of daze that this is theirs,” said Abuasba.

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Taken from the ISNA website 1.20.06