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This New Jersey City Will Get Its Own Mosque At Last

BAYONNE, New Jersey – Moving from a church basement to a school and even shops, Muslims in Bayonne city, New Jersey, will be having their own mosque soon, after years of struggle and a court ruling granting them the right to have their worshipping place.

“We want to have a home,” said Yaser Eisa, as he left Friday prayers, held for the time being in a room above a row of shops, The National reported.

According to Eisa, this home is finally coming in the form of a disused warehouse which will be converted into a mosque with classrooms, offices and a gym.

But this a product of long years of a bitter struggle of tumultuous public meetings, Islamophobic graffiti and the objections of local officials, the mosque was only allowed after Muslims launched a legal challenge, forcing the city into a $400,000 settlement amid a federal investigation into the local zoning board’s conduct.

“We did everything by the book but we knew there would be resistance because it’s a mosque,” said Eisa, a mechanical engineer.

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The mosque leaders cited the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act which was introduced in 2000 to ensure zoning issues were not being abused to hide discrimination.

In a recent report, the Department of Justice found that although Muslims make up only one percent of the US population, they are responsible for a disproportionate number of investigations under the act’s powers.

Waheed Akbar, a member of their board, said the decision granting them the right to have their first mosque marks the end of a long journey.

“I felt thankful that our congregation is going to have a place of their own in the town they have lived and called home for decades,” he said, adding that Bayonne’s Muslims hope to be in their new mosque by November.