The Islamic Center of Bloomington is seeking land expansion and looking to purchase the vacant Indiana University land adjacent to the mosque. Regular mosque attendance rates is more than triple its capacity.
The Islamic Center, on East Atwater Avenue, has served the Muslim community for about 33 years. The center offers a place to pray and practice religious holidays such as Ramadan.
The center created a petition in December to seek community support for the land expansion. Imam Mohamed Sayed said they plan to submit the petition to IU in the next couple weeks.
This will be the first time the mosque will be officially contacting IU. Sayed said they reached out to IU unofficially a couple years ago.
He said that everything changed after the Covid-19 pandemic. In these last several years, the mosque has become more populated with the increase in IU students. The mosque has about 1,000 in its congregation and over 750 regular attendees, while its capacity is 250 in the main prayer room. The mosque consists of a main prayer area for men and women, a smaller prayer area only for women and a library room.
The mosque’s main service on Fridays has been split into two services to have enough space for prayer and parking but has still been overcrowded. Sayed said he commonly must interrupt services to announce that a car is parked in an unpermitted area. People also complain about not being able to attend because of no parking spots, he said.
In an attempt to improve the situation, the center has shared parking with the Korean United Methodist Church across the street, Sayed said.
For Ramadan, the mosque provides meals. Sayed says they have placed tents outside to be able to serve food to about 450 people which has had its own issues due to weather and tent stability.
Despite the main prayer area being able to hold 250 people, food is not allowed, he said.
“It is not holding and one of the tents like, you know, two days ago fell down, and now we have to squeeze people inside, like, you know, the hallway is here to share them,” he said.
He also said students have no place for activities. Some students play in the parking lot which is not safe, he said, or activities are delayed until the main prayer area opens up.
Sayed said the hope is to have a large enough space to comfortably accommodate the congregation during services, have a dedicated space for activities and have enough parking spaces.
Expanding to the lot IU owns adjacent to the mosque would be the best option as it would keep it accessible to students who don’t have cars and walk from campus, he said. Other options would be leaving the current location and rebuilding somewhere else.
“And our goal is also to be welcome for everyone, especially the students who need this help, especially those who are away from home,” he said. “Like I would say, almost all the students here are away from home. And for them, this is a second home, especially during this month of Ramadan.”
Before the mosque’s current location, it was on Eighth Street, a property which IU purchased from the Muslim community. Sayed said the potential from that is the hope that they can work with IU to purchase the adjacent lot.
“The ideal is to have a permanent thing there where we can host those kind of activities and offer the service and continue offering the service that we offer for IU-affiliated students and staff and faculty.”
Affordability is a concern, but the center is trying to handle one issue at a time, Sayed said. He said if IU agrees to sell, then they will see how the community responds.
