BY HASHIM BADAT
F
or the last two years, Houston has been ranked as the city of the future. Newspapers, research institutes and trade magazines have showered the city with accolades, such as the coolest, most multicultural, best international, and the most business-friendly of all American cities. The world is finally taking notice of what so many have long known about America’s fourth largest city — its diversity is its strength. Diversity and strength are two words that aptly describe the Houston Muslim community. Houston Muslims are strong because they draw from many perspectives and cultural heritages. Houston is home to more than 100 mosques and Muslim organizations, including the ubiquitous Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH), which with its current 19 integrated mosques and Islamic centers is the largest local Islamic community organization in the United States. Houston’s Muslims account for 1.2 percent of the city’s population, making it the ninth most Muslim populous American city, according to an Aug. 10, 2010, article in The Daily Beast. The metropolis’ Maryam Islamic Center New Territory in Sugar Land has a prayer area capable of accommodating 1,300 men and women — bigger than that of the largest mosque in the nation, the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich. ISGH no longer conducts a central prayer service, in part because of the increased accessibility of mosques and Islamic centers throughout the region. The city boasts one of the largest South Asian communities in the nation. It also has a historic African American Muslim community, a rapidly growing Latino Muslim community, along with established Arab and North African populations. Houston enjoys substantial communities from every corner of the Muslim world, including an
active Turkish community along with rapidly growing ethnic African and Indonesian communities. Many of the most active Muslim communities are founded by or have key leadership positions held by converts to Islam. What really makes the Houston Muslim community unique is also what makes Houston special. Houstonians not only get along with each other, but get along together and get together often!
NO ZONING LAWS Houston’s sheer size of more than 600 square miles, and the absence of zoning laws has allowed mosques and Islamic community centers to be peppered across the city. Houstonians are never more than 15 minutes away from a place of worship. In most cities, this would mean that each mosque’s community was, for the most part, culturally or ideologically uniform. Houston has its share of standalone organizations that cater to the specific needs of a particular cultural subset of its Muslim population. Yet, ISGH, with its 19 diverse member mosques and Islamic centers, six full-time Islamic schools, four affiliated medical clinics, and three funeral facilities, helps bind all parts of the Muslim community together. ISGH’s founders understood the potential growth of Houston. And did the opposite of what most Muslim American communities have done. They made a strategic decision to establish new
ISGH’s Masjid Attaqwa and Shifa Clinic are within walking distance of several churches, two Hindu and one Buddhist temple — all neighbors on Houston’s Synott Road. ISLAMIC HORIZONS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
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