BOLTON MUSLIMS CREATE INTERFAITH HAVEN

Bolton, 15 Jumadil Awwal 1436/5 March 2015 (MINA) – Taking a decision to renovate an abandoned 18th-century church ten years ago, the Muslim community in Bolton in North West of England was able to create an interfaith community center, which shines as a peak of harmony and integration in a diverse community.

“What it needed is a place where people could meet, people can come to, people can socialize,” Inayat Omarji, who was the head of the local council of mosques, told NPR on Tuesday, March 3, as quoted by On Islam and Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

The project started a decade ago after Muslims bought Bolton’s All Souls Church which drew exclamation marks from neighbors. There’s a bearded young Muslim chap involved in a church! Whoops! He’s gonna turn it into a mosque!” he recalled the reaction.

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But, Muslims’ decision was to turn the church into a community center for everyone, preserving the name of the place. “A no-brainer, actually, because the name just said it all: All Souls,” says Omarji.

“If somebody says ‘oh, is this, is it just for the Muslim community?’ … No, just think about the name: All Souls. For everybody.”

The renovation cost 5 million pounds, or around $8 million. Some of the money came from national lottery funds, with matching donations from individuals and charitable foundations. Inside the building, elements of an ornate 18th-century church remained in a place that offers meeting spaces, activity rooms, and a cafe.

Moreover, the center offers after-school activities for students, knitting and gardening groups, and a Lego club that constructed a scale model of the church using the plastic bricks.

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It also offers touch-screens along one wall which play videos where former church congregants tell their stories. “My happiest childhood memory was being picked for Rose Queen, and what an excitement that was,” a senior citizen named Jean recalls in one of the short films.

Brilliant

Returning one decade later to see his old church, Rev. Gerald Higham, once a vicar of All Souls in the 1970s, praised Muslims’ idea of community center. “I think it’s been brilliantly done,” he said, as he and his wife sipped cappuccinos on one of the new couches.

“It could so easily have just been gutted.”

Higham peered around the hall at details that he recognized from almost 40 years ago, a memorial to war dead on the wall, the central altar that has been kept intact, and the pipe organ that may yet be restored to working order. Amid increasing ethnic tensions around the UK and Europe, the center blended all cultures together under one roof.

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Nevertheless, in a halal café, some problems appear related to wine and pork which reserve a key place in the British cuisine. “We had to turn people away,” says Asif Timol, owner of the café, called Room Four Dessert.

“The whole issue of cohesion and integration is very close to home — being British-Asian, I’ve got young children who I’m raising in this country, so it’s very important to me.” (T/P011/R04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)