Mosque visited: Masjid Muhajireen
Address: 185 Folsom Ave, Hayward, CA 94544
Date of mosque interview: November 1, 2013, 2:30pm
Contact: Qari Safiullah(Imam) & Abdul Tutaehil
Transcribed Interview
Q: When was your site founded?
A: “It was founded in 2001.”
Q: Who was/were the founder(s)?
A: “It was founded by brother Haqim and Qari Safiullah."
Q: Any people of importance?
A: “Of course, brother Haqim and Qari Safiullah (Imam) is one of the board members. And then we have Imam Haqim. The most important person is Qari Safiullah, and he’s the one who call for prayer, so there is usually a call for the prayer before we start the prayer itself, so we call it Muazzan Haji Mehtabuddin. He is usually the person who usually call for prayer. And as you know that we have a five time prayers starting from the sunrise, the first one. The second one is around the midday and the one follow after a few more hours. There is one toward the sunset and one is in the late night. So the five times, he is usually here for the Azaan, and then he is needed for the imam, the usual prayer.”
Q: Is that every day?
A: “Yeah, that is pretty much every day.”
Q: How did the mosque derive its name?
A: “The name of the mosque is Masjid Muhajireen. The word Muhajireen means immigrant. We have approximately a hundred different Masjids in the bay area itself. This is Masjid Muhajireen because mostly it is dominant over here by Afghani people. Like you see ninety percent of the folks here are from Afghanistan. And maybe like ten percent is folks from Fiji.”
Q: What demographic do they serve? (a mix of different backgrounds, primarily ethnic such as Arab/Pakistani/Fijian, African-American, convert, youth?)
A: “As I said, we pretty much open to any ethnicity, any culture because Islam is open for any ethnicity, any culture. So cannot specifically say but if you want to know the primarily ethnic, it’s Afghani again. If you come at different time, you’ll find from five year old to ninety year old, it’s like mix.”
Q: What size is the community, how active is it? What is unique about the community? (Is it immigrant, new, established, refugee, alternative?)
A: “The size of the community is like 500,000 people and we get like 500 people over here. It is pretty active. From sunrise to sunset, we are pretty much active.”
Q: How many people would you say would come in and out of the mosque?
A: “So Friday is the most important congregation as I keep repeating myself. But usually in any given day we have anywhere between 25 folks, but it depends. When it is working hours, then we don’t have that many. In the evenings, we also have the student, like for the youngster’s session for the school. We call it Madrasa. So there is usually school for the youth. It is taught by the Imam himself. They get a lesson about how to pray and they get to know the history of Islam.
Q: What is unique about the community?
A: “Everything is unique about the community. We welcome anyone to learn about Islam. We did quite a few things for volunteering. Depends. We usually volunteer for the homeless, depending what they needed. We also do donations. There’s different things we do, but we do volunteer a few things.”
Q: Is your site affiliated or partners with any other mosques?
A: “No. This is independent.”
Q: Are there any articles or press from outside sources regarding your mosque, hyperlink out to those articles as you speak about them.
A: “There are tons and tons of website that you can get all the details about it.”
Q: What kind of structure is your mosque (a storefront, converted house or building, corporate space, strip mall, former church, built from the ground up)? Is their any information they can offer about the location and prior occupants? Is their historical information you can research on the address? What is the area like (residential, commercial. etc?)
A: “So what you see is a facility that it is over here. And it has been like this, and we accommodate anywhere between 500-700 people. The place is pretty big; for the ladies is upstairs, downstairs is over there, then we have another room over here. But usually during the month of Ramadan, there would be more folks, they can stand outside, somehow we just like manage to do it. But that is only in given days. What we do, we also take in the house sometimes for bigger congregations. Before 2001, this was a church.”
Find out about any projects your mosque is involved in (feeding the homeless, literacy, women's shelter, voting poll site etc)
A: “Depend on the activity, we are usually volunteering in any activity that is out there in the community. We are pretty active in the community. Whatever there is to facilitate, we do it.”
Q: What language is used during prayer?
A: “The prayer session has to be in Arabic.”
Q: What events do they have or have participated in?
A: “We are really active in community as I said.”
Q: What services do they offer? (is their an onsite Islamic school, do they offer health, legal, marriage,death, services, counseling, Boy Scouts, youth programs etc?)
A: “Yes, we do offer all these things. We do have onsite Islamic school, just for the kids basically. Yes, marriage. Yes, we do provide marriage ceremony. As well as the dead, we do provide funeral services that is acquired. Counseling, yes. We do have a couple of youth programs. We involve our youth in our sports activities.”
Q: Have their been any significant milestones (purchase of a bigger building, zoning permit anything else?)
A: “Yes. We are looking to grow and we are planning to buy a bigger facility within the area. Depending on the geography, the location that we facilitate people. So this location is pretty much facilitating this zip code, so it all depends.”
Q: Have they published any materials? Find out title, obtain some.
A: “Yes we do have a few things published. For example, how to pray. Like something that need to be given. For example, if someone who wants to convert to Islam, then we will give them detail of how we pray and stuff. I can give you handout, we do have a handout in English. This is mainly dominant by Afghani, so our written language is Pashto, native language. The classes for the youth is held in English because it’s a new generation that is brought over here. So we do give them a flavor of Pashto as well as our mother tongue as well because they need to know too about where they are coming from.”
Q: Do they have an documents to share? Maybe they have proposed building plans, or architectural works, photos of construction from beginning to end, any historical items that you can scan, copy or photograph as part of your community narrative)
A: “Yes, we do have documents.”
Q: Have they been involved in any important legal cases?
A: “No.”
Q: Have they as a mosque/community experience discrimination? Hate crimes?
A: “No. We are pretty much friendly with anyone.”
Q: What kind of community engagement do they have? (Interfaith, community outreach, open house?)
A: “We are pretty open and welcome anyone.”
Q: When was your site founded?
A: “It was founded in 2001.”
Q: Who was/were the founder(s)?
A: “It was founded by brother Haqim and Qari Safiullah."
Q: Any people of importance?
A: “Of course, brother Haqim and Qari Safiullah (Imam) is one of the board members. And then we have Imam Haqim. The most important person is Qari Safiullah, and he’s the one who call for prayer, so there is usually a call for the prayer before we start the prayer itself, so we call it Muazzan Haji Mehtabuddin. He is usually the person who usually call for prayer. And as you know that we have a five time prayers starting from the sunrise, the first one. The second one is around the midday and the one follow after a few more hours. There is one toward the sunset and one is in the late night. So the five times, he is usually here for the Azaan, and then he is needed for the imam, the usual prayer.”
Q: Is that every day?
A: “Yeah, that is pretty much every day.”
Q: How did the mosque derive its name?
A: “The name of the mosque is Masjid Muhajireen. The word Muhajireen means immigrant. We have approximately a hundred different Masjids in the bay area itself. This is Masjid Muhajireen because mostly it is dominant over here by Afghani people. Like you see ninety percent of the folks here are from Afghanistan. And maybe like ten percent is folks from Fiji.”
Q: What demographic do they serve? (a mix of different backgrounds, primarily ethnic such as Arab/Pakistani/Fijian, African-American, convert, youth?)
A: “As I said, we pretty much open to any ethnicity, any culture because Islam is open for any ethnicity, any culture. So cannot specifically say but if you want to know the primarily ethnic, it’s Afghani again. If you come at different time, you’ll find from five year old to ninety year old, it’s like mix.”
Q: What size is the community, how active is it? What is unique about the community? (Is it immigrant, new, established, refugee, alternative?)
A: “The size of the community is like 500,000 people and we get like 500 people over here. It is pretty active. From sunrise to sunset, we are pretty much active.”
Q: How many people would you say would come in and out of the mosque?
A: “So Friday is the most important congregation as I keep repeating myself. But usually in any given day we have anywhere between 25 folks, but it depends. When it is working hours, then we don’t have that many. In the evenings, we also have the student, like for the youngster’s session for the school. We call it Madrasa. So there is usually school for the youth. It is taught by the Imam himself. They get a lesson about how to pray and they get to know the history of Islam.
Q: What is unique about the community?
A: “Everything is unique about the community. We welcome anyone to learn about Islam. We did quite a few things for volunteering. Depends. We usually volunteer for the homeless, depending what they needed. We also do donations. There’s different things we do, but we do volunteer a few things.”
Q: Is your site affiliated or partners with any other mosques?
A: “No. This is independent.”
Q: Are there any articles or press from outside sources regarding your mosque, hyperlink out to those articles as you speak about them.
A: “There are tons and tons of website that you can get all the details about it.”
Q: What kind of structure is your mosque (a storefront, converted house or building, corporate space, strip mall, former church, built from the ground up)? Is their any information they can offer about the location and prior occupants? Is their historical information you can research on the address? What is the area like (residential, commercial. etc?)
A: “So what you see is a facility that it is over here. And it has been like this, and we accommodate anywhere between 500-700 people. The place is pretty big; for the ladies is upstairs, downstairs is over there, then we have another room over here. But usually during the month of Ramadan, there would be more folks, they can stand outside, somehow we just like manage to do it. But that is only in given days. What we do, we also take in the house sometimes for bigger congregations. Before 2001, this was a church.”
Find out about any projects your mosque is involved in (feeding the homeless, literacy, women's shelter, voting poll site etc)
A: “Depend on the activity, we are usually volunteering in any activity that is out there in the community. We are pretty active in the community. Whatever there is to facilitate, we do it.”
Q: What language is used during prayer?
A: “The prayer session has to be in Arabic.”
Q: What events do they have or have participated in?
A: “We are really active in community as I said.”
Q: What services do they offer? (is their an onsite Islamic school, do they offer health, legal, marriage,death, services, counseling, Boy Scouts, youth programs etc?)
A: “Yes, we do offer all these things. We do have onsite Islamic school, just for the kids basically. Yes, marriage. Yes, we do provide marriage ceremony. As well as the dead, we do provide funeral services that is acquired. Counseling, yes. We do have a couple of youth programs. We involve our youth in our sports activities.”
Q: Have their been any significant milestones (purchase of a bigger building, zoning permit anything else?)
A: “Yes. We are looking to grow and we are planning to buy a bigger facility within the area. Depending on the geography, the location that we facilitate people. So this location is pretty much facilitating this zip code, so it all depends.”
Q: Have they published any materials? Find out title, obtain some.
A: “Yes we do have a few things published. For example, how to pray. Like something that need to be given. For example, if someone who wants to convert to Islam, then we will give them detail of how we pray and stuff. I can give you handout, we do have a handout in English. This is mainly dominant by Afghani, so our written language is Pashto, native language. The classes for the youth is held in English because it’s a new generation that is brought over here. So we do give them a flavor of Pashto as well as our mother tongue as well because they need to know too about where they are coming from.”
Q: Do they have an documents to share? Maybe they have proposed building plans, or architectural works, photos of construction from beginning to end, any historical items that you can scan, copy or photograph as part of your community narrative)
A: “Yes, we do have documents.”
Q: Have they been involved in any important legal cases?
A: “No.”
Q: Have they as a mosque/community experience discrimination? Hate crimes?
A: “No. We are pretty much friendly with anyone.”
Q: What kind of community engagement do they have? (Interfaith, community outreach, open house?)
A: “We are pretty open and welcome anyone.”