NHIC

A Brief History

The New Haven Islamic Center is located in West Haven city in the Connecticut state in the United States of America. The organization was named as such since it was the only Masjid in the New Haven area when it was founded. We are a legally registered organization. The certificate of formation is included in Item A of the appendix. The following is a brief history timeline:

§ 1978: University of New Haven (UNH) students bought a house to use as a prayer area. The organization was registered under the name of “The Islamic Center of New Haven” and later on switched to “New Haven Islamic Center” for ease of pronunciation.

§ Late 1980s: More students and community members started praying at the purchased house thus establishing a formal congregation prayer area.

§ 1990: The Masjid was remodeled & enlarged to accommodate a bigger number of people.

§ Mid/Late 1990s: West Haven Community was established and the New Haven Islamic Center (NHIC) started offering various services for the community.

§ 2000-present: The community has witnessed an incredible population increase as the NHIC met more and more of their needs.

Current Situation

§ Friday Sermon (Khutba): 300 - 400 persons
Issue: Every Friday we witness a large number of people that come to attend the Friday Sermon. We are unable to accommodate the high number of people that come to the prayer as we are using every space available for the prayer. People usually end up praying outside in the parking lot between cars. Further, we face various challenges with parking since we are located in a residential area where parking is extremely limited and the roads are narrow.

§ Regular days: 50+ (approximately 40 men & 10 women)
Issue: Insufficient parking, especially for Ishaa prayer.

§ Sunday School: 102 students in 2008
Issue: This program started in a very casual manner where children were taught Koran. As the demand increased, we developed a more comprehensive program in which we teach Koran, Arabic, and Islamic Studies. In 2008, our enrollment increased so much that we no longer had enough classes for our Students. We extended our program to neighboring communities and split our classes between two Masajid. It has been very challenging to manage the program on two sites.

§ Ramadan: Approximately 200 men and 100 women & children.
Issue: Ramadan is a very difficult time in our Masjid for various reasons.

1. The prayer area is small and cannot accommodate everyone. People are forced to pray in the parking lot and in the shoes area.

2. The parking is nowhere close to being sufficient for even 20% of the people that attend the prayer.

3. We have an Itikaf program in the last ten days of Ramadan and since the Masjid is so small, there are not two designated areas for people to sleep and people to worship.

4. There is not an area for the children to stay or play which results in them creating a lot of noise and distracting people from their prayers.

5. We host an Iftar program virtually every day during Ramadan. It is again challenging to not have a designated area for meals. As a result, the entire Musalah area is full of people eating resulting in the inability to move around the Masjid and the lack of space for those that wish to worship during this time.

§ Community Events: Eid prayers, Eid parties, School parties, etc... by the hundreds.
Issue: We receive about 800 to 1,000 people for the Eid prayer. We are always forced to rent another location to accommodate this large number of people. Similarly, anytime that we have an event, we are unable to have our community members come to the Masjid due to the lack of space and facility setup.

§ Funeral Homes: We are in need of an area to prepare the deceased.
Issue: As you well know, living in a non Muslim country, things are sometimes very hard to accommodate. We always find ourselves going to funeral homes that do not provide us with what we need to prepare the deceased nor are they adequate for our rituals.

The Target

§ Bigger prayer area: We must have a bigger prayer area to accommodate for both genders during Friday sermons, Ramadan, and Eid. We also need a bigger area for our activities to take place.

§ Bigger parking lot: Our parking lot can only fit approximately 25 cars. As mentioned earlier, this is not enough parking. As a result people are parking in the streets causing the neighbors, university, and police to complain and issue tickets to people.

§ Space for potential full-time Islamic school: Our Sunday School program has proven to be successful as the enrollment continually increases throughout the years. This is encouraging us in thinking about an Islamic school, especially since parents always approach us with the idea.

§ Space for funeral arrangements: We are looking for buildings that will give us the ability to create space for funeral preparation and prayers. This way, we will not be relying funeral homes that are neither familiar with our process nor can accommodate us properly.

§ The center of the community: We are located in the town of West Haven and would like to stay in the same town in order to keep our community together. If we move to a different town, we will lose all of our community members. It is also not a good idea since the money we have saved over the years belongs to the community in West Haven.

§ Affordable: There certainly are buildings that are worth several millions and that could help us resolve our current situation; however, we have a community that is poor and can’t raise enough funds to purchase a big church or building. We have chosen the following church as it is cost is reasonable for its size.

Currently on the Market

It took us many years to find the church listed below and when it was finally for sale, we could not afford it. However, the years have gone by and it is listed for sale again. This is our golden chance to purchase this church. The official listing of this church can be found in Item B and some pictures in Item C of the appendix.

Building Description

§ Type: Church

§ Address: 73-75 Fresh Meadow Road, West Haven, CT

§ Building Size: 1,749 square feet

§ Land Size: 10,700 square feet

§ Bonus: Separate residential home

§ Price: $1,499,900

Advantages

§ Zoning ready

§ Bigger prayer area

§ Bigger parking lot

§ Available space for classes and potentially for a full-time Islamic school

§ Separate house comes with property could be rented for income

§ Vacant land across from property that could be purchased for future parking or expansion

§ Very close to the previous Masjid

What do we do to raise funds?

We work hard to raise money and save it. It is sometimes difficult; however, our community has not given up. We are always trying to come up with innovative ideas to raise funds.

§ Fundraisers in Ramadan: Each year during Ramadan we try to raise as many funds as possible. However, we face multiple challenges such as people not paying their pledges and fluctuation in the economy, to list a few.

§ Friday Sadaka program: Every Friday, we encourage people to donate charity. We use these donations to fund the Masjid and save as much as possible of it.

§ Selling items to raise funds: We are actively thinking and working on new ideas to raise funds. Currently, as well as previously, we have tried a multitude of things anywhere from selling calendars, to Islamic and Koran CDs, to preparing and selling food.

In sum, our community has stretched itself to raise funds to purchase a building or church. Unfortunately, we still have not been able to raise enough funds. Today, we have saved $300,000 which is unfortunately not even enough to pay a down payment on the church that we have listed above. Further, any building that we will purchase will require renovations to transform it into a Masjid. The cost of that is an additional cost that we will have to work hard on to raise.We urge you to help us financially and be as generous as possible.