From Al-Jazeera America
DES PLAINES, Ill. — Sitting in his car with his prayer rug beside him, Imam Senad Agic took another call on his cellphone. This time it was a frantic father whose son was sick in the hospital.
Life on the road might seem the norm for a sales executive or a pizza delivery person, but not necessarily for a member of the clergy. And it’s not just Senad traveling between various mosques, community centers, banquet halls and college campuses, where space is rented or donated, to fulfill the needs of the Muslim community he serves in this part of the sprawling Chicago suburbs.
A zoning dispute with the city of Des Plaines has left the entire congregation of the American Islamic Center (AIC) a little nomadic and put the community at the center of the sort of thorny dispute that is popping up all over the U.S. — where a non-Christian religious community insists it is being discriminated against while local government officials argue that they are just following the rules.
The majority of AIC members are Bosnian-Americans who came to the United States during the 1990s under refugee status. Today, many are professionals who own their own trucking and restaurant businesses or work as engineers and IT professionals. They mostly live in suburban Chicago.
But Senad said the lack of a permanent mosque of their own is painful for some members of the congregation.
“They feel embarrassed. After 20 years in Chicago, they have to rent facilities to meet their religious, social and spiritual needs,” he said. “They’ve renewed their lives and regained what they lost in Bosnia. But not a mosque yet.”
Senad does have a “dream property” in mind. It sits on Des Plaines’ Birchwood Avenue and includes a pair of two-story concrete buildings totaling 28,000 square feet. It took more than two years to find after looking over numerous other possibilities, including churches, manufacturing facilities, office buildings and warehouses. In order for it to become a mosque, AIC needs to get the area — currently a manufacturing zone — rezoned to a mixed-density residential classification befitting a religious institution. But after it passed various hurdles, the City Council failed to approve the measure by a 5–3 vote last year. Alderman Dick Sayad, who voted against approval, asked AIC representatives why they no longer wished to attend their previous mosque in the far northern suburbs of the city.
“Why are you coming here?” Sayad asked.
For Senad, the question had an obvious answer. About a quarter of AIC members live in Des Plaines, and the new location would cut travel time for most remaining members by 20 to 25 minutes.
“The central location is perfect,” Senad said. “To this day, no official has offered alternative options or convincing reasons for refusing us.”
