A Prayer for Acceptance : Muslims Hope Islamic Center Serves as a Beacon of Understanding

When Shazia Mohiuddin looks at the partially completed mosque, she ignores the rooms without doors, the dusty floors, the spackle-striped walls.

To her, the walls are exquisite canvases painted with hope.

“We started with nothing. Now we’ve gotten to the point walls are surrounding us,” she said. “This is a place we’ve been working 10 years to have.”

Mohiuddin’s excitement Sunday came as members of the Islamic Center of Northridge celebrated a milestone: Their mosque is more than 75% complete.

Several hundred people milled about, their conversations echoing off bare walls. Women in turquoise, gold and teal hovered near toasty samosas , the spicy hors d’oeuvres filled with potatoes and ground beef. Men in crisp Nehru jackets mingled with others in button-down shirts.

They were celebrating a permanent foothold in the community, a mosque of their own. The center will be the first permanent mosque in the San Fernando Valley.

Then, shortly before 1 p.m., the conversation’s echoes ceased, and the knots of people engaged in small talk moved silently to the main hall for prayer.

Shoes set to the side, the men in the front and the women in back, they knelt toward Mecca on makeshift carpets of cardboard.

“We can pray anywhere,” said Misbah Elderieny, an imam for Southern California. “But this is what gives us pride of living here and praying the way we like to do.”

Having a home and the acceptance of a dignified place in society is critical to Masood Rana, president of the Islamic Center of Northridge. Battered by misconceptions about their faith, U.S. Muslims like Rana find themselves constantly explaining their religious beliefs.

“What we have seen in the building of our center is a complete lack of understanding,” Rana said. “We need to change our image.”

Particularly painful were the initial news reports from Oklahoma City, which blamed the bombing of the federal building on Middle East militants.

But misconceptions continue. At the moment, Rana and others are patiently explaining that there is no connection between them and the Nation of Islam’s Million Man March to Washington, D.C., today.

The community hopes its new mosque will help dispel the untrue notions and act as a neighborhood symbol of what their faith is about.

The more the community learns about Islam, says Kathryn Alaf of Hollywood, the more “they’ll realize [terrorism] has nothing to do with what this mosque represents.”

Not that the construction was simple.

Confronting a variety of restrictions, the center skipped traditional domes and put in a skylight. A minaret, the traditional identifying symbol for mosques, will be added after the building opens. Rana insists it will be visible only from the freeway near the site on Encino Avenue in Granada Hills.

But in the excitement of the open house, Rana skipped mentioning the complications as he toured the 16,800-square-foot building. He used one hand to sweep the vast main room, its arches reminiscent of traditional Islamic architecture and its expansive ceiling bathed in natural light.

He gushed about the multipurpose room that will be available for PTA and other neighborhood meetings. He used a pointer that cast a tiny red light to point out the vast spaces and stairwells.

But he quickly came to what is clearly one of his favorite aspects of the premises.

“Look,” he said, scurrying to a door opening out over piles of dirt. “Parking!”

The Islamic Center has spent $1.8 million so far on the structure, and Rana estimates that $500,000 more will be needed.

The arduous fund-raising ahead was overshadowed, though, by the unchecked pride of people like Mohiuddin.

The UCLA senior remembers canvassing the proposed site of a mosque nine years ago in Northridge. The mosque was never constructed.

Though she was only 14 at the time, she came to believe that the objections of neighbors in Northridge to the proposed center went beyond concerns about traffic and the like.

“That was the first time I realized it was not the same for us,” she said. “All I can remember is that it was OK to have a church, it was OK to have a school. But somehow, if you add a mosque, it was not safe.”

She and her family lobbied hard for the Granada Hills site. In an appeal to the Los Angeles City Council, Mohiuddin said she had often been invited to other religiously inspired social events, like bar mitzvahs, but she “was never able to return the favor.”

As she looked around the incomplete building, she noticed that its neighbors were not present. Vowing to correct the omission, she promised to personally invite them when the building is formally opened. Community leaders hope that will be in the next six months.

“Thank God,” she said, “it’s almost done.”