Muslims and Mosques in New Castle

Muslims and Mosques in New Castle

Dr. Mozammel Haque

Out of one million total population of New Castle, there are, according to 2002 census, 12,000 Muslims excluding the asylum seekers and students. Most of the Muslims are from the Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage; but there are many Arabs, most of them are students. New Castle is famous for students. There are two big universities in New Castle: i) New Castle University and ii) Northambria, New Castle College and New Castle Business School. Most of the Arabs are students.

In terms of education, very few Muslims in New Castle are very highly educated. There are some who have completed GCSE and some of them have done degrees in history and in other subjects. There are, of course, few professionals, such as doctors, engineers and technicians. According to Haji Mustafa, who has been living in New Castle for more than 40 years, five to ten percent of Muslims are highly literate and the rest are from the labour class.

So far as the economic conditions of the Muslims in New Castle are concerned, some of them are really very rich and they are businessmen, like groceries. Most of the Muslims are from the labour class.

So far as the Mosques are concerned, there are twelve mosques, including the Shia mosque and Sufi Mosque. Out of 12 Mosques, three are purpose built and among the three, two are Brelvis, one Deobandi. Then two universities have two mosques run by the Islamic Students Society. Out of the rest seven, three mosques belong to Bangladeshis and two to Shia community, one to Sufi group and another to very strong Sufis-Pakistani community.

The oldest mosque in New Castle was the mosque known as Brelvi mosque. According to Haji Mustafa, it was as old as thirty/forty years. This mosque is the oldest mosque in New Castle built around 1960s.At that time there was only one mosque in New Castle – presently known as Brelvi Mosque. Basically in the beginning, it was not a mosque; it was a Muslim community centre. Then Muslims of different schools of thought started building this mosque and everybody shared and contributed to the building of this mosque - Brelvis, Deobandis, Ahle Hadis and everybody and everybody used to pray there, like Brelvis, Deonandis and others. Later on, they split up.

The purpose-built mosque has their own Madrasah, only the Imam teaches, sometimes, about fifty students. All the Madrasahs are in the afternoon after the school hours, except the weekend schools. The weekend's schools are from 10 O'clock to one O'clock. Only some of the mosques have weekend school, not all the mosques. Muslim Welfare House and New Castle Central Mosque have weekend schools. One weekend school at the New Castle Central Mosque belongs to Libyan students; they run that and they have their own course.

So far as the Muslim organizations and associations are concerned, there is no representative body of the Muslims of New Castle. There are many associations. Bangladeshis have their own associations which have its head office in London; Islamic Forum for Europe has their branch in New Castle. All the Brelvis have their own organizations; they are associated with the British Sufi Council. Pakistani has two organizations, some of the Pakistani is associated with the UK Islamic Mission in London and other is associated with Jamiat-e- Ahle Hadis, Birmingham. New Castle Central Mosque is associated with Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadis, Birmingham. These are the four kinds of associations. There is another Mosque which is associated with the Muslim Welfare House, Finsbury Park. They have branches here as well.

Besides the Mosques and Madrasahs, there is a need for Islamic centre to perform some of the community activities such as marriage, divorce, burials etc. Muslim Welfare House used to do almost all of these activities before 2002. Islamic Shari’ah Council deals with marriage and divorce. Now the Islamic Shari’ah Council of Birmingham has their own branches which deal with this sort of activities. New Castle Central Mosque refers most of the cases of divorce and marriages to Islamic Shari’ah Council of Birmingham. Whatever the divorce and marriage related issues and problems is usually referred to Abdul Hadi, Imam of the Green Lane Mosque, Birmingham and the Birmingham Shari’ah Council.

Need for a Central Mosque in
New Castle
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Harbi, the former Director of the Muslim World League, London Office, along with Dr. Khaleel al-Khaleed, Director of the West London Muslim Heritage Centre and Dr. Mozammel Haque, Media Advisor of the Islamic Cultural Cenre, London, visited New Castle Central Mosque: al-Tawheed Mosque, and prayed at the prayer room of the Mosque five times and found the necessity of the Mosque in the surrounding area and also the number of worshippers attended at the mosque.

Haji Mustafa was the pioneer for building up this mosque He acquired and bought this property for the New Castle Central Mosque, in 2002. Basically what happened, Haji Mustafa was split from the Brelvi mosque and then used to go to the Muslim Welfare House. Even in the Muslim Welfare House, Haji Mustafa did not like the way they do things, their methodology. Haji Mustafa was Ahle Hadis and Muslim Welfare House followed the Ikhwan methodology. Though on point of Aqida, both are the same, Haji Mustafa and Muslim Welfare House had a little bit of disputes for buying the new mosque.

Basically almost all the Muslims from New Castle, Muslim Welfare House collected money for buying this property at the beginning. But the building where the Muslim Welfare House located was also bought by Haji Mustafa. Later on, Haji Mustafa and his friend Haji Yaqoob left that building and bought this one. Haji Mustafa bought this one and did not involve anybody in this building.

Haji Mustafa bought this property in the name of a Trust, Jamiat-e-Markaz-e Ahe Hadis. He is one of the Trustees, Jamiat-e-Markaz-e Ahe Hadis. New Castle Central Mosque. This is the name of the property and the Mosque. It was registered for Markaz-e-Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadis. New Castle Central Mosque:al-Tawheed Mosque under the supervision of Markaz-e- Jamiat-e- Ahle Hadis . Haji Mustafa bought the property in 2002. It costs 550,000 pounds sterling. Basically at that time Haji Mustafa took Qarz-e-Hasana, Haji Mustagfa puts some and some of the money came from Saudi Arabia and still there are some outstanding Qarz-e-Hasana due to be paid back for this building. Since the building was bought there was no improvement actually.

In the beginning, the New Castle Central Mosque had half of the present prayer hall. Then people started coming and more rooms were needed to accommodate the worshippers. In the beginning, only one or two rows of people were praying. The surroundings are all Muslims. The prayer hall was extended and brought the two rooms which were outside the prayer hall inside. At the beginning, there used to be 70 or 80 people during Jumah prayer but now around 400 people praying. In the present prayer hall more than 300 people can pray. Around 400 people pray every jumah prayer. In daily prayer, two rows between 22 and 30 people prayer at the Fajr prayer time. In Zuhr and Asr normally 30 or 40 people pray and Maghreb and Essa, around 70 to 100 people.

This area is called Fenam. The whole area is Muslim populated area. The next building is a Red Cross NHS office in that building. This building used to be NHS offices. The next one is Red Cross and nursery next to it. Muslims are 10 per cent of the New Castle population. Most of the Mosques are here, only in Fenam. In New Castle, majority of Muslims are living in Fenam. There are Muslims in other areas but no Mosque. In Hetton, there is only one mosque belonged to Brelvi group, the very old Mosque. The rest of the mosques are here. Shia Mosque; Ahle Hadis Mosque, Deobandi Mosque, Brelvi Mosque – all are here in Fenam. Three mosques run by Bengali are in Fenam also. May be 7/8,000 Muslims are living in Fenam. Most of them are students.

Imam al-Sudais at the Islamic Cultural Centre, London

Imam al-Sudais at the Islamic Cultural Centre, London

Imam Al-Sudais urges Muslims to engage
proactively and positively


Dr. Mozammel Haque

Unfortunately, in different parts of the world, including in this country, Muslims stands to start Ramadan and end Ramadan in different times. Probably this Ramadan will be an occasion to bring people together, said Shaykh Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, the Imam and Khateeb of the Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah al-Mukarramah while addressing a part of the cream of the Muslim leaders of various organisations, schools, centres and NGOs before the Issa prayer in the Library Hall of the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC), London, on Friday, the 7th of August 2009.

Those who were present at this meeting, among others, were Dr. Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB); Mr. Sayed Ferjani, President of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), Mufti Aslam, Mr. Shoaib, Councillor Lutfur Rahman, Councillor of Tower Hamlets.

The Imam, famous for his beautiful recitation of the Qur’an, urged Muslim leaders to hold regular meetings to exchange ideas between them. He expressed hope that the coming Ramadan will be an occasion to bring people together. He congratulated Muslim organizations for their efforts towards Muslims in Britain.
Imam Al-Sudais prayed to Allah the Almighty to make strengthen us, to make us attempt to be more united, Insha Allah, for the future. He said I suggested before regular meetings for Muslim leaders and Muslim communities in this place and other places so that people can exchange ideas and Allah the Almighty helps them to bring their hearts together.

Shaykh Al-Sudais said, I am not an expert to address you with regards to things probably you know better but I will be attempting to impart some knowledge with regard to what I think be useful for you as leaders of the Muslim community in this country.

The Imam said, this is a very important opportunity for you and I and for all of us to open our hearts to exchange ideas, to remedy the problems, to seek solutions for all of us those who are living in this country. He congratulates all of the leaders of all of the Muslim organization present today for the efforts that they are doing for the Muslims in this country. He said the echo of your positive and an excellent work reaches us over there in the Bilad al-Haramain. So congratulations.

“The news of your excellent work reaches us over there in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques,” he said.

Imam Al-Sudais also said, I want you to outreach more positively with the official bodies of this country, why not the government? why not the civil servant? why not the local council and so on and so forth,

Shaykh Al-Sudais said, we cannot at all outreach to others, the non-Muslims without making the utmost attempt to outreach ourselves, meaning outreach to other Muslims in this country. He said, we need to be more proactive to outreach to other Muslim organizations, other Muslim groups before we think about outreaching to the non-Muslims in this society.

Imam of the Haram said, our mission is indeed very very clear. We do not have any hidden agenda. Why we Muslims are not proactively involved in politics in this country.

The Imam also said, we are very patient and we have confidence in Allah and confidence in the mission that we are holding, that it is a mission of truth. We are looking to guide this society to the truth and to the right guidance.

Imam of the Haram said, Dawah faces these days many many challenges and we Muslims should take this very seriously.

Shaykh Al-Sudais said, Muslims should proactively and positively move very peacefully towards Dawah.

Shaykh Al-Sudais does recommend for the regular meetings among Muslim leaders in this Islamic Cultural Centre, London. He said, the Central Mosque London is the ideal place to hold such meetings which bring together various groups of the Muslim community of this country.

Imam of the Masjid al-Haram also said, I would be very happy to support you in every way I can and I can be very happy to follow from where I am in Saudi Arabia.

After the meeting with the cream of the Muslim leaders of United Kingdom, Imam of the Haram led the Issa prayer at the Central Mosque, London.

Earlier in the morning, the Imam of the Haram led the Jumah congregation of over 10,000 worshippers at the Central Mosque, London and delivered his Khutbah, the Friday sermons to the Muslim worshippers of over 10, 000. In his Friday sermons, Shaykh Al-Sudais was talking about the manners and tradition of Islam. He urged the Muslim community members to be good example of Islam; to be good members of the society where they live in, to listen and obey to the rules and regulations of the country where they live in.

The Imam of the Haram also talked about tolerance in Islam and he also talked about to abide the Islamic law.

Shaykh Al-Sudais urged the Muslim community to take special care of education. The women, fathers and wives should give special care and more care about their children to be good members of the society in future.

Shaykh Al-Sudais is loved by everybody of the community. Wherever he goes, whoever is organising the programme and event for him find always difficulties to control the people and the crowd. Everybody, men, women and children try to say Salaam Alaikum to Shaykh, request him to make Dua for them. And all these people try to do this at the same time. These people do this because they like him they respect him and they respect the Two Holy Mosques where it is.

Shaykh Al-Sudais said, he was overwhelmed by the Muslim community after the Jumah prayer. The Imam of the Haram said, this is indeed a sign of love; a sign of the bond of brotherhood that binds people not only of this country but those who come from different parts of the world. He said that this is also the sign of the Muslim community loving of those who are coming from the Bilad al-Haramain and this has put a responsibility on myself as a Shaykh coming from Makkah that I should play a role like many other leaders to unite the Muslim community or to help the Muslim communities.

Imam of the Haram also thanked Dr. Ahmed al-Dubayan and to the people who took him around in his trips in different places while he was here.

His Excellency Prince Mohammad Bin Nawaf, the Ambassadors of Saudi Arabia came to the Mosque and prayed his Jumah prayer. From time to time, His Royal Highness comes here to pray Jumah prayers and other ambassadors also come in the evening. It’s the Central Mosque of London as well as the Central Mosque for the community; so it is expected that some of the VIPs, some of the visitors to come to pray here.

The Islamic Cultural Centre, London, is well-known throughout the Muslim community of the world. It started its services to the society since 1944. Now, Islamic Cultural Centre is one of the biggest organisations. It gives services to Muslims and non-Muslims in the society. There are different services: educational services through the courses that it offers and delivers here; it has nurseries with about thirty children; the weekend school has about 220 children. The Centre has unit for the interfaith activities and dialogue between Muslims and other faiths, which is very important. The Centre has also academic Journal published every Quarter.