Islamic Center searching for a new home

It's Friday afternoon, just after 1 p.m., and the Thompson Center auditorium is packed. White sheets blanket the linoleum floor, and hundreds of empty shoes sit by the door. A white barrier sits in the middle of the room, dividing kneeling men and women praying quietly in Arabic while a student leads them in a teaching.

For the past 25 years, the NYU Islamic Center has offered a spiritual base to more than 200 practicing Muslim students who use the facilities for five daily prayers, the weekly Jummah prayer held on Fridays and Iftar dinners during Ramadan, where Muslim students broke their daily fast.

But in just a few months, this may become a thing of the past.

The Islamic Center's lease for its Thompson Center location expires in mid-May, and Muslim students are struggling to gather the funds necessary to acquire a space of their own.

Since the center moved from the Loeb Student Center to the Thompson Center seven years ago, NYU has paid for the lease on the space, which is owned by the Archdiocese of New York, said CAS senior Mohammed Umar, the president of the Muslim Student Association.

But two years ago, the Office of Student Affairs told Umar that to be fair to other campus religious organizations, which are required to pay for space from private funds - NYU would no longer subsidize the center's rent.

"They said that they couldn't pay for the prayer space anymore," he said. "The Bronfman Center [for Jewish Student Life] and the Catholic Center are paid for by outside sources."

Now, Umar is overseeing a massive fund-raising drive with a long-term goal of collecting $10 million over six years to secure a permanent prayer and community space for dinners and social activities in a separate building. The money will also help pay for a full-time security guard, as well as maintenance and upkeep fees for a permanent location.

With help from the NYU Office for University Development and Alumni Relations, the center is reaching out to campus Muslims, and the local Muslim community for financial support.

"We're having speakers come into the mosques to target people of that community," Umar said.

Plans are also in the works to reach out to non-Muslim NYU students. Members of the Islamic Center will be handing out brochures citing the group's goals at future campus events, Umar said.

The NYU alumni Web site even offers a page where donors can contribute online. However, The Islamic Center Alumni Association is only two years old, and its members, all recent graduates, aren't yet in a financial position to donate much, Umar said.

"Right now the alumni are paying off their own loans and trying to get good jobs," he said. "We have to wait until they can get established with high-paying positions. That's when we can kick the fund-raising drive into high gear."

Though the drive won't raise the $10 million by the time the Thompson Center lease runs out, he said he at least hopes to have enough money to pay for a temporary space, which NYU has also offered to secure, Umar said.

Returning to the Thompson Center space would be fine, he said.

"In the Thompson Center, we don't lack anything," Umar said, noting that its auditorium is one of the largest gathering spaces on campus.

Umar said he's worried about whether Muslims at NYU will be able to carry on their religious and community life while the center is between spaces.

"People need to pray," he said. "We're religiously obligated to pray five times a day."

Without a space, Muslim students would often need to pray in public stairwells or hallways, Umar said.

This was a troubling thought for CAS junior and Muslim Student Association secretary Masooma Hussain.

"You don't want to attract attention when you're praying," she said. "That takes away from it. I don't want to worry about what's around me."

Also, the lack of a permanent space would also force the Islamic Center to find a new location for nightly Iftar dinners.

"We would probably have to go through [the] Kimmel [Center] to find a space for the Iftars, which could be quite a hassle," Umar said. "It would be difficult to have a constant space there for 30 days."

Some Muslim students said the loss of a permanent space could disrupt the campus community.

CAS sophomore Zayed Qamer, who just transferred to NYU this year, said the center helped integrate him into his new surroundings.

"There are so many different types of people at the Islamic Center, but all us of have a common bond," he said. "If we didn't have this space, the community would be broken up a little. You would lose the closeness and the tight-knit unity."

Father John McGuire, the chaplain of the Catholic Center in the Thompson Center, said he wouldn't let the Islamic Center go homeless.

"I have a very high respect for our Muslim students," he said. "I have always promised to take care of them. And if they are left adrift, I will take care of them." €¢