New mosque desperately needed in St. John's

At the mosque in St. John's, hundreds of Muslims squeeze tightly into the main prayer hall. It's midday on Friday, time for the most important prayer of the week. People sit shoulder to shoulder, but there still isn't enough room.

As the adhan, the Muslim call to worship, rings through the hall of the mosque, new arrivals look for space in the hallways, in the library, even in the basement where live video of the service upstairs is projected onto a screen.

By the time the prayer begins, the mosque is nearly full to its fire-code capacity. Men on the main floor, women in a private viewing room upstairs. 

It's like this every Friday.

Click below to see a time-lapse video of the mosque filling up, and the entire Friday afternoon prayer service.

'Mosque is packed'

"We get about 600 people, so mosque is completely packed," said Haseen Khan, treasurer and senior member of the Muslim Association of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Khan arrived in St. John's in 1990, when the mosque was still under construction.

"When mosque was built, there were hardly 15 Muslim families," he said. "So you can appreciate that the mosque, which was built for 100 people, now the population is over 2,000, so it's a challenge."

The challenge grows on special occasions, including during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which begins May 26. And it's more than a matter of comfort inside the mosque.

"Parking is a big issue, especially on Fridays," said Eman Ahned, who has been coming to the mosque since 1995. "Lots of people, either they come carpooling, or they have to walk big distance. Especially in the weather, when it's winter and snow, it's quite hard."

The Muslim Association wants to build a new mosque on a piece of land it already owns, only about a kilometre away.

But that's where religion is clashing with politics.

'Our needs are growing'

"It's not that far away from here, and that's the whole thing," said Mansoor Pirzada as he pulled out of the parking lot of the mosque on Logy Bay Road, and made a right turn towards Sugarloaf Road.

It's one of the last undeveloped areas in the east end of St. John's, and it's zoned for commercial use. Developers are currently sizing up the area for businesses and subdivisions.

Pirzada, the president of the Muslim Association, helped the association acquire the land and put together an application to construct a new mosque and community centre. But the application was rejected by the City of St. John's.

"I think it's high time the city realized that our needs are growing, every passing day." he said.

Coun. Danny Breen, who represents the neighbourhood on St. John's city council, said the application was rejected because the area has no water and sewer service, and the road is too narrow for emergency vehicles. The Muslim Association would have to pay for both before it could build on the land.

"I wouldn't be able to guess, but it's a significant dollar value," Breen said. "And the city's requirement is that's done by the developers of the property. It's difficult to go outside of that because once you make one exception, you certainly set a precedent for others."

But Pirzada doesn't buy that explanation. With the Muslim Association's land surrounded by commercial lots, he says it's only a matter of time before the required infrastructure is built by developers, the city, or both.

He said it's unreasonable to expect a church and charity organization to foot the bill, just because it would be the first to break ground in the area.

"We hope and pray that the city will understand that we don't have that much money and we don't have the paying potential." Pirzada said.

"If city can do it on their own, we will be very happy and we will really, really appreciate it. But if city says no, we have no other choice but to wait it out."

The association could sell the land and look to build somewhere else. But that would mean fracturing the Muslim community in St. John's, and diluting its influence.

"Our community is settling down and has settled down in the east end, because of the mosque." Pirzada said. "But also, if you think about it, our voting bank has increased in this area. Because we want our representatives to solve our problems."

In the meantime, Muslims will spend this Ramadan, and every Friday afternoon, worshipping in an overcrowded mosque. It's a problem, but one that many faith communities would love to have.