New Haven, 2007 Nov 11, IQNA

Members of Masjid Al-Islam in New Haven, the eyes and ears of the George-Greenwood street block, are celebrating an anniversary.

Twenty years ago, eight men and women established the mosque as a place for Muslims in Greater New Haven to come together and worship.

That core group has grown to more than 300, and since 1995 their permanent home at 624 George St. across from the Hospital of Saint Raphael has helped stabilize an area that 12 years ago had open drug dealing on the streets.

Mosque members fought back, along with the hospital and other neighbors, to form a block watch that is still active. By also keeping on top of blighted properties and encouraging fellow worshipers to move to the area, they made a difference.

"They have been a good neighbor to have here. It's been a great collaborative effort, partnership," said Martha Judd, director of community and governmental relations at St. Raphael's.

By being a seven-day-a-week presence on George Street, the mosque has proved to be a positive influence, Judd said.

This weekend, members of Masjid Al-Islam are holding a fund-raiser and family get-together in celebration of two decades of community service, with a talk by the founding Imam and Muslim scholar, Zaid Shakir.

Jimmy Jones, president of the board of directors of Masjid Al-Islam, said contributing to the welfare of the immediate West River neighborhood has always been an important goal for members.

"Our goal is to make wherever we live a safer, peaceful, family-supporting place for ourselves and everybody who lives with us," said Jones, chair and associate professor of world religions at Manhattan College in New York, who moved to the immediate neighborhood a decade ago.

With men and women walking back and forth for prayer services five times a day, from early morning to late at night, "we have a very high stake in seeing to it that it is a safe environment for people."

"We are not walking for purposes of crime control, but we are eyes and ears" in the block, Jones said.

Mosque members also are active with the Police Department and worked with the Livable City Initiative to see that blighted properties on Gilbert Avenue were cleaned up.

Judd said the mosque members also have worked with the hospital on beautification projects.

Also, by encouraging its members to move here, Judd said this dovetails with the hospital's own employee homeownership program, which it has had in effect since 1994.

The celebrating program started with children's events , with a panel of original mosque members and other area Muslim leaders  and ended by Shakir's speech.

A graduate of American University in Washington with a master's degree in political science from Rutgers University, Zaid Shakir converted to Islam 30 years ago while serving in the U.S. Air Force.

While Imam of Masjid al-Islam from 1988-94, Shakir spearheaded the community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University.

A panelist with the Washington Post's "On Faith" on-line column, Shakir is a scholar-in-residence and lecturer at Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California and a graduate of Syria's Abu Noor University.