Islamic Society of Baltimore
The Islamic Society of Baltimore is a Muslim community center located in Catonsville, Baltimore County, Maryland, consisting of Masjid Al-Rahmah, Al-Rahmah School, and several other services. The society was founded in 1969 by three Muslim physicians and is known for President Barack Obama's visit on February 3, 2016. The society serves around 3,000 people.
History
Several Baltimore mosques may have helped in the founding of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, including Masjid Al-Haqq and Masjid As-Saffat, founded in 1947 and 1971, respectively, in which early members of the society attended.The Islamic Society of Baltimore was founded in 1969 by three Muslim physicians, one of whom was Mohamed Z. Awad, an Egyptian-born physician at Towson, Maryland. Awad co-founded the society due to Muslims' concerns to "maintain their religion for themselves and to pass on their Islamic heritage to their children in the face of strong pressures toward assimilation," as reported by The Baltimore Sun in 1978. The society began with several families who met every Sunday at Shaffer Hall in the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University to pray, discuss scriptures, and study Arabic. The organization was registered in the state of Maryland on September 2, 1969.
Efforts to raise funds for the construction of a mosque were made by the society as early as 1970, in the form of fundraising bazaars. Bazaars were also held in the years 1971 and 1972 on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, as announced in The Baltimore Sun. According to co-founder Mohamed Awad in 1978, the society consisted mostly of foreign-born Muslims from India, Pakistan, and Middle Eastern countries. By the end of the 1970s, the society served around one hundred families.
The society purchased an 8-acre lot on Johnnycake Road, where Masjid Al-Rahmah was constructed from 1982–83. The mosque was built with a capacity of around 180 people, but, despite this, held around 300 people during Friday prayers. In 1985, the society's mostly foreign-born membersip had around 475 families. In 1987, a gymnasium was built, along with a full-time K-12 primary school, Al-Rahmah School, established with 27 students in its first year. The campus also includes a housing complex. The Al-Rahmah Quran Academy was opened in 1999–2000 by Qari Muhammad Zahid.
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001 by the Islamist militant group Al-Qaeda, the Islamic Society of Baltimore condemned the attacks in The Baltimore Sun, and had an open house for the public on September 23. The open house was attended by Baltimore mayor and later Maryland governor Martin O'Malley. In the weeks following the September 11 attacks, no incidents of discrimination or harassment were reported at the mosque, according to imam Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh.
In 2003, El-Sheikh, who had been an imam at the mosque from 1983–1989 and 1994–2003, left the mosque.
In April and May 2015, the society received two threats from anonymous callers. The first call occurred on April 28 to the school facility, in which the caller asked the time at which the school closes, before reportedly saying, "It's the perfect time to bomb the bus." The second call occurred on May 5, in which the caller threatened to "spill Muslim blood." The Baltimore County Police Department does not believe either of the two threats are credible, although they improved security on the society's campus in response to it.
Barack Obama's visit
On December 12, 2015, the White House held three meetings with Muslim leaders to discuss concerns about rising hostility toward religious minorities. They pressed officials to consider then-president Barack Obama to visit a mosque, preferably with former president George W. Bush, which has been requested for years.On January 28, mosque officials were informed of a possible visit by Barack Obama., and plans for the visit to the mosque were made official and announced by the White House on January 30, 2016. White House officials stated that its purpose is "to celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life," which is likely related to the combat of Islamophobia.
Barack Obama visited the mosque on February 3, 2016, marking his first presidential visit to a mosque in the United States. He held a round table discussion with community leaders and made a speech, in which he rejected political rhetoric and violence directed at Muslims, and talked about the role Islam has played in American history.
Several people have derided the visit, such as Muslim Zuhdi Jasser, who said, "As a Muslim American I’m just insulted, this is disgraceful that this is one of the mosques — or the mosque — that chosen to visit", during an interview on Fox & Friends. Jasser described the mosque as radical, extreme, and not representative of modern Muslim Americans.
2019 expansion
County officials issued a mandate to remove the temporary classroom trailers, as there are too many on the campus. Around ten Al-Rahmah School classes are held in the trailers due to lack of space in the main building. The society developed plans for expansion from older proposed expansion layouts. The society was given permission by the county to start the expansion, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held in October 2018. The expansion plans to add a library, more classrooms, larger prayer areas for major events, and move the Al-Rahmah Quran Academy closer to the main building. The cost is estimated to be around $2 million and was projected to be completed by August 2019, coinciding with the society's 50th anniversary. The 50 Strong campaign celebrated both the society's 50th anniversary in 2019 and the expansion project. The society collected artifacts such as old photos and documents from its early past, which was to be presented in a multimedia project on the society's anniversary.Controversies
Following the announcement of Barack Obama’s visit to the mosque in 2016, many conservative media outlets accused the organization of having "historic" and "deep" ties to extremism or radical Islam, including Fox News, The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, and Breitbart News.Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh
While Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh was an imam at the mosque in 2003, he told The Washington Post, "If certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle." The comment stirred controversy with several media outlets. ThinkProgress, however, commented that these "right-wing outlets omitted that fact that the quote was a specific reference to the uptick in violence between Israelis and Palestinians — not Americans — and that Sheikh immediately added that 'condemnation of indiscriminate killing of civilians' was widespread in his community."El-Sheikh is also a former imam of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Virginia. Anwar al-Awlaki, who was allegedly centrally involved in planning terrorist operations for Al-Qaeda, preached at the mosque in 2001. Despite the statements made by news outlets, El-Sheikh "never delivered those sermons himself," as noted by ThinkProgress. The mosque was also served by imam Mohammed al-Hanooti in the 1990s, who was "named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing."
El-Sheikh was a member and "leading figure" of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan before moving to the United States in 1978. However, as he told The Washington Post, he the cut relations with the group in 1992.
El-Sheikh was also a co-founder of the Muslim American Society, a group controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. He had worked with the Fiqh Council of North America, which "has issued several condemnations of terrorist ideology and attacks," according to Fox News. El-Sheikh was also a regional director for the Islamic American Relief Agency, whose parent organization has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department for connections to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Other controversies
The Islamic Society of Baltimore is reportedly connected to the Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim organization "named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2008 criminal prosecution in which several individuals were convicted of funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas," according to The Washington Times.In 2011, Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa, a Muslim cleric, prison chaplain, and imam, gave a two-week course at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on the Islamic teachings of marriage. However, in the years leading up to 2016, he has openly endorsed ISIS on Facebook, condemned American mosques as un-Islamic, declared that homosexual acts should be punishable by death, and criticized Muslims who assisted authorities in terrorism investigation. According to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court, in June 2015, he supplied $1,300 to Sebastian Gregerson in Detroit, who used it to expand his arsenal of firearms and grenades, although Bengharsa claimed it was intended to be for charity. Gregerson was arrested in July and indicted on explosive charges. The FBI suspected the two men of plotting terrorism.
In a 2013 YouTube video, Yaseen Shaikh, an imam at the mosque and formerly in Plano, Texas, "characterized homosexuality as a psychological disorder that has no place in Islam or society," and "lamented that gay rights groups have 'hijacked' political discourse," which received negative feedback from news media such as The Daily Caller and The Washington Times.