KUALA LUMPUR 26 Ogos – Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin berkenan merasmikan Masjid Asy-Syakirin, Menara Berkembar Petronas (KLCC) di Jalan Pinang di sini hari ini.

Seri Paduka turut menunaikan solat Jumaat bersama 12,000 jemaah di masjid yang lebih dikenali sebagai ‘Permata di Dalam Taman’ itu kerana kedudukannya yang strategik dan mempamerkan ciri-ciri bina Islam yang indah termasuk mendapat sentuhan pengukir dari Uzbekistan.

Ketibaan Yang di-Pertuan Agong kira-kira pukul 12.45 tengah hari disambut oleh Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom; Ketua Pengarah Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim), Othman Mustapha dan Pengarah Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (Jawi), Datuk Che Mat Che Ali.

Jamil Khir berkata, Masjid Asy-Syakirin dibina bagi memberi kemudahan kepada komuniti setempat serta keprihatinan kerajaan melalui Jawi dan Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (MAIWP) sebagai penggerak dan ejen utama dalam pembangunan serta pengurusan hal ehwal Islam.

Katanya, Masjid Asy-Syakirin kini dijadikan pusat sehenti bagi komuniti setempat untuk menyemarakkan lagi aktiviti keagamaan selaras dengan peranan masjid meningkatkan syiar Islam.

”Justeru, barisan kepimpinan dan pengurusan masjid adalah diharapkan dapat memainkan peranan lebih proaktif dalam menggerakkan aktiviti masjid yang dapat menterjemahkan semangat ukhuwah untuk membina masyarakat madani yang lebih komprehensif.

”Semoga dengan pengisian program-program seperti keagamaan, ia dapat meningkatkan kegiatan pengimarahan masjid supaya ia dihayati oleh setiap individu,” katanya ketika berucap pada majlis perasmian.

Masjid Asy-Syakirin pada mulanya didaftarkan sebagai sebuah surau pada 12 Julai 1999 untuk kegunaan petugas Petronas, sebelum dinaik taraf sebagai masjid yang ditadbir oleh MAIWP.

Sementara itu, Tuanku Mizan berkenan mencemar duli bersalaman dengan jemaah yang hadir sebelum meninggalkan majlis kira-kira pukul 2.10 petang.

Keadaan itu menyebabkan ahli jawatankuasa (AJK) masjid berusaha mendapatkan dana bagi menyiapkan masjid baru di belakang masjid sedia ada.

Tinjauan mendapati, keadaan masjid sempit yang hanya memuatkan kira-kira 500 orang pada satu-satu masa memaksa pembinaan masjid baru disiapkan segera.

Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Kemajuan dan Keselamatan Kampung Persekutuan (JKKKP) Kampung Kubu Gajah, Abdul Kadir Mohd Geroh, berkata selepas mendapat kelulusan Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais), pihaknya segera menyiapkan pembinaan masjid berkenaan.
“Projek yang dimulakan pembinaannya awal tahun ini sepatutnya dijangka siap September depan, namun disebabkan kurang peruntukkan menyebabkan ia dilakukan secara perlahan-lahan.
“Selain mendapat kelulusan pelan, kami meminta dana daripada Jais bagi mempercepatkan proses pembinaannya, namun tiada jawapan diberikan mereka sehingga kini,” katanya.

Berikutan itu, Abdul Kadir dan AJK masjid berusaha mendapatkan bantuan mana-mana pihak selain bantuan barangan mentah yang diberikan oleh orang ramai seperti batu-bata dan simen.

“Kami berharap sasaran menyiapkan masjid ini mengikut tarikh ditetapkan terlaksana demi memberi keselesaan penduduk sekitar yang semakin bertambah,” katanya.

sumber: Harian Metro

Jumaat lepas, 29hb Julai 2011, merupakan hari pertama masjid yang baru siap dibina di Taman Jaya, Kuala Terengganu, melakukan solat Jumaatnya. Ianya dibina atas tapak lama Surau Taman Jaya di tepi Jalan Pusara (Jalan Wireless).

Taman ini merupakan kawasan kediaman yang diasaskan lebih 40 tahun lalu, kini menjadi di antara pemusatan penghuni yang bergelar “Datuk/Dato” paling tinggi di negeri ini. Ianya terletak bersebelahan dengan stesen telekomunikasi utama suatu masa dahulu untuk bandar ini yang mana nama asalnya, Jalan Wireless itu diperolehi.

Permandangan masjid baru di Taman Jaya dari persimpangan utama Jalan Pusara

Masjid yang mula dibina dengan mengalihkan surau lama kurang dari dua tahun lalu siap dengan sempurna dalam tempohnya berbanding dengan dua lagi masjid yang dibina di bandaraya ini di atas tapak runtuhan masjid lama yang bersejarah di Chendering (klik) dan Bukit Besar (klik di sini atau di sini) yang masih belum siap selepas beberapa kali terbengkalai.

Pintu ke ruang solat utama

Pada anggaran saya, masjid ini mampu memuatkan sekitar seribu orang jemaah. Ruang solat utamanya mampu memuatkan lebih 300 jemaah, manakala kedua ruang sisi sebelah kanan dan kiri masing-masing boleh mengisi sekitar 150 orang. Di belakang ruang solat utama, terdapat ruang solat tambahan yang lebih besar dan mampu memuatkan sekitar 400 lagi jemaah.

Ruang solat utama yang boleh memuatkan sekitar 300 orang

Warna hiasan dalamannya amat mencerahkan dengan warna putihnya. Kipas yang banyak pada lokasi-lokasi strategik (walapun ada beberapa unit yang tidak berfungsi) tidak memerlukan sistem penghawa dingin tetapi mampu memberi keselesaan kepada para jemaah kerana dibantu dengan tiupan anigin dari pantai Batu Buruk yang tidak jauh dari situ.

Ruang sisi sebelah kiri

Ruang sisi kanan dan kiri berwarna kuning coklat dan disesuaikan dengan warna lantai ber”tile”nya turut dilengkapi dengan kipas walaupun angin dari luar nyaman bertiup.

Pintu dan ruang sisi sebelah kanan

Rata-rata terpapar kegembiraan di wajah para jemaah sambil bersalaman selepas solat dan bercerita pasal masjid baru mereka. Ramai dari hadirin bukan penduduk sekitar Taman Jaya atau pun Jalan Pusara. Ada yang datang menjangkau beberapa khariah lain semata-mata untuk merasakan sendiri persitiwa bersejarah sebagai jemaah solat Jumaat yang pertama ini.

Hiasan lampu amat mencukupi. Dengan siling yang tinggi dan dibantu dengan kemasukkan cahaya dari atas tidak memerlukan lampu dipasang pun di waktu siang.

Corak menarik dan warna permaidani yang sepadan dengan warna luaran masjid turut memberi suasana yang nyaman untuk beribadat kepada penduduk sekitarnya sempena menyambut ibadat tarawih.

Ruang wudhu

Tempat wudhu khas yang baru lagi bersih diharap dapat dikekalkan kebersihannya.

Laluan bertutup ke tandas di bangunan berasingan

Tandas masjid dibina di bangunan berasingan sebelah timur masjid dengan disediakan tempat laluan yang beratap.

Pandangan luar dari sisi kanan selepas memasuki pintu pagar utama masjid

Persekitaran luar masjid yang dibina dengan kos bernilai RM4 juta ini masih lagi belum sempurna. Kerja-kerja senitaman masih lagi giat dilakukan. Malah papan tanda nama masjid belum lagi tertulis nama rasminya.

Pandangan luar dari sisi timur masjid

Walaupun baru sebulan diguna, seorang bilal yang baru bertugas di masjid ini menjadi orang yang pertama meninggal dunia di dalam masjid ini beberapa hari lalu. Arwah bersama beberapa ahli jemaah lain sedang memadamkan lampu dan kipas rebah terduduk lalu menghembuskan nafas terakhirnya sebaik selesai solat subuh.

Papan-tanda di pintu pagar belum tertulis nama rasmi masjid

Walaupun terdapat beberapa masjid berdekatan dengannya, seperti Masjid Ladang dan Masjid Batu Buruk, diharap ianya dapat menjadi satu lagi pusat penyebaran agama Islam serta menzahirkan syiarnya.

http://akarimomar.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/masjid-baru-taman-jaya-jalan-pusara-dibuka-untuk-solat-jumaat/

The world’s northernmost mosque is on its way to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories — by barge.

A truck carrying the prefab mosque arrived in Hay River, NWT, late Thursday, just in time to make the last barge of the season carrying supplies, equipment — and the mosque — down the Hay and Mackenzie Rivers to Inuvik.

Had the mosque missed Friday’s barge, it would have had to wait until the river shipping season resumes next June, CBC News said. There are only three barge runs each summer.

The mosque was built by a Winnipeg-based Islamic charity for the small Muslim community in Inuvik, which has used a converted one-bedroom trailer for prayers for the past decade.

The town, located in the Mackenzie delta about 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, has about 100 Muslims in a total population of about 3,500.

The Zubaidah Tallab Foundation spent about $300,000 to build the mosque in Winnipeg and ship it north. The building fund is still short about $76,000 short, foundation spokesman Hussain Guisti said last week.

The mosque began its 4,000-km journey on Sept. 1 and went by road first to Edmonton and then to Hay River before being loaded on the barge for the final 1,850-km river leg of its odyssey.

When it reaches Inuvik and is set up, the 1,554-square-foot building will be the world’s most northerly mosque.

Most Muslim families in Inuvik had previously sent their children south to live with family or friends because there had been no mosque or Islamic education centre in town.

Earlier this year, Guisti said Inuvik’s Muslim population includes architects, engineers, business owners — and cabbies.

“Every single taxi driver is a Muslim,” said Guisti, who said he had counted 24 cabbies in Inuvik.

The Zubaidah Tallab Foundation was established to build a mosque for the Muslim community in the northern Manitoba city of Thompson.

Since then the foundation has branched out into a broad range of charitable activities, but returned to its mosque-building roots when a board member heard about the Inuvik Muslim community’s need.

photos sourced from google images

Mosque travelled 4,000 kilometres from Manitoba to Inuvik, N.W.T.

Muslims in Inuvik, N.W.T., pray inside the new Midnight Sun Mosque during its official opening on Wednesday. (Philippe Morin/CBC)

One of the world’s most northerly mosques has opened in Inuvik, N.W.T., where the Arctic town’s growing Muslim community is celebrating its new place of worship.

Affectionately being dubbed “the little mosque on the tundra,” the Midnight Sun Mosque and community centre officially opened at a ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

The beige mosque has made a 4,000-kilometre journey by road and river from Manitoba, where it was built, through two provinces and the Northwest Territories to the Arctic town.

While not the first mosque in Inuvik, a town of about 3,200 people, the new building is a significant improvement from the small one-bedroom trailer local Muslims prayed in during the past decade.

“It’s a very personal achievement for all of us because we were in a small building, the old one, and now we have this one,” Ahmed al-Khalaf, who helped organize fundraising efforts for the mosque, told CBC News.

“For the whole town of Inuvik, it’s another new building in town, and everybody’s welcome here,” he added.

More room for prayer

The new mosque sits next to a 10-metre minaret topped with a crescent moon. (CBC)

The 1,554-square-foot mosque has room for a kitchen, a library and a children’s playroom. Unlike the old trailer, the new building has a room for women to pray in.

The main prayer hall, which is divided into sections for men and women, has a luxurious red carpet, which was donated by a man in Dubai.

News of the mosque’s arrival inspired Fathallah Faragat, a carpenter from St. Catharines, Ont., to travel to Inuvik to help with final preparations to the building.

Faragat even designed and built a 10-metre-tall minaret, with a crescent moon on top, next to the new mosque.

Dozens of Muslim families in Inuvik have had to send their children to live elsewhere in Canada because there was no mosque or Islamic education centre in town.

While Inuvik’s Islamic community is small — only about 100 members — it is growing, prompting the need for a bigger mosque.

The Zubaidah Tallab Foundation, a Manitoba-based Islamic charity, raised more than $300,000 to build and ship the structure north. That saved Inuvik’s Islamic community tens of thousands of dollars in labour and material costs, which tend to be higher in the North.

In September, the completed mosque travelled by flatbed truck through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, then up to Hay River, N.W.T., where it was put on the last barge of the year and floated down the Mackenzie River to Inuvik.

PADANG RENGAS 6 Mei – Sultan Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah hari ini berkenan mencemar duli merasmikan Masjid Ihsaniah Iskandariah di Kampung Kuala Dal yang telah melalui proses konservasi oleh Jabatan Warisan Negara.

Baginda kemudiannya menunaikan solat Jumaat bersama pemimpin negeri dan rakyat jelata di Masjid Al-Wahidiah yang terletak berhampiran masjid berkenaan.

Turut hadir Menteri Penerangan, Komunikasi dan Kebudayaan, Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim dan Menteri Besar Perak, Datuk Seri Dr. Zambry Abd. Kadir.

Masjid Ihsaniah Iskandariah mempunyai keunikan yang tersendiri kerana dibina tanpa menggunakan paku selain dinding diperbuat daripada anyaman buluh.

Masjid setingkat berlantaikan papan itu mempunyai 13 anak tangga dan dibina pada 1936 oleh Sultan Perak ke-30 iaitu Almarhum Sultan Iskandar Shah bagi menunaikan nazar setelah salah seorang putera baginda sembuh daripada gering.

Masjid itu dibina dengan kos RM8,000 di atas tanah yang diwakafkan oleh seorang bangsawan, Juragan Abdul Syukur Mohamad Ali dan dirasmikan oleh Sultan Iskandar Shah pada 11 Februari 1938.

Rais dalam ucapannya berkata, Jabatan Warisan Negara menjalankan kerja-kerja konservasi ke atas bangunan masjid itu termasuk menukar anyaman dinding daripada buluh minyak dan ukiran kerawang pada tingkap masjid.

This Saturday, a $5.5 million Moorish-style mosque and Islamic center will open to the public across from American River College.

The 21,000-square-foot, two-story, ochre-colored center features arched entrances and a 54-foot-high green dome with a crescent on top.

“The architecture is a mixture of what’s in the Prophet Muhammad’s mosque in Medina (in Saudi Arabia) and the Moorish mosque in Cordoba, southern Spain,” said project director Javed Iqbal. “It blends well with California Spanish architecture.”

The new Masjid and Center for Higher Islamic Learning was built by SALAM, the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims.

SALAM, which began as a P.O. box in 1987, now holds Friday prayer for 800 people from 25 nations, including about 40 converts to Islam, said founder Metwalli Amer.

The new center houses a gift shop, school and educational programs, with an 8,000-volume library planned. It will be open “to all members of the community, regardless of religion or gender,” said Amer. “This will truly be an American Islamic center – it’s moderate, it reaches out, it works with others.”

Saturday’s grand opening comes in the face of growing Islamophobia. Many Americans are angry over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero in Manhattan. Last month Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, launched hearings on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response.”

Builds community ties

But SALAM has been able to expand because it has condemned acts of terror and hatred against all people, hasn’t shied away from tough questions and pioneered open relationships with Jews, Christians and the full range of Sacramento’s ethnic groups, Amer said. “We’re accepted, not just tolerated.”

California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg vigorously protested a recent speech at SALAM by Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer, who compared what happened to him and other Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But “I’m still proud we are a community that respects and welcomes all faiths,” Steinberg said. “The fact a mosque can grow and expand without the kind of rancor we saw in New York City speaks very well of Sacramento’s Muslim American community and Sacramento in general.

“Muslim leaders here are very active in building community ties,” Steinberg said.

Rashid Ahmed, a Pakistani American who founded the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that while there’s no doubt that Islamophobia fueled by Glenn Beck and other talk show hosts is rising, “SALAM has done a wonderful job of maintaining a moderate, tolerant path showing we can live together with others. It’s easy to fall into the extremes.”

Some conservative Muslims have criticized SALAM’s willingness to embrace all cultures and dialogue with Jews and other non-Muslims – as well as its progressive views on divorce and male-female interactions, Amer said.

“They said, ‘How can you sit with non-Muslims who don’t believe in Islam or our prophet?’” Amer said. “But how will others know about the teachings of Islam unless you explain who you are and what your faith is?”

Other Muslims have chastised SALAM for hosting Muslim “speed-dating” events where single men and women chat without chaperones, he said. “If you don’t put women in a climate where young men and women can sit and get to know each other, how could some of our women get married? They need an organization like SALAM to break the ice and bring them together. Our men are allowed to marry non-Muslims but our women are not.”

SALAM’s progressive take on women’s issues is reflected by the fact it has two women on the mosque board – a rarity even in the United States. It supports divorces when one partner feels unfairly treated and extremely unhappy and reconciliation doesn’t seem possible, Amer said.

The center’s new prayer hall – open since September – allows men and women to pray in the same room. “Some Muslims follow the culture rather than the religion and put sisters in a locked room or behind a partition,” he said.

SALAM’s imam, Mohamed Abdul-Azeez, is invited to speak in Boston and other cities. He hasn’t been afraid to criticize the lack of democracy in Islamic states.

65,000 Muslims in region

Sarfraz Anwar, president of Sacramento’s Downtown Mosque – thought to be the oldest mosque west of the Mississippi – celebrated SALAM’s expansion. “We’re very happy because we need more worship space,” Anwar said. He said the number of Muslim Americans in the greater Sacramento area has doubled to 65,000 in the last 20 years.

Despite SALAM’s progressive stance, “there’s no difference in the basic beliefs,” Anwar said. “We worship the same almighty Allah and the same principles.”

Amer, a former accounting professor at California State University, Sacramento, donated $500,000 to the new center, along with his wife, Rosalie, who’s working on the new library.

Bassam Dahduli, a Muslim American real estate investor from Fair Oaks, has pledged $1.5 million and raised $1.5 million more.

“In 1996 I had nothing,” said Dahduli. “I was coming back from a heart attack and bankruptcy. If I had $10 in my pocket I’d give it to the mosque. What I gave came back 120 times. I didn’t have a car and I ended up with six shopping centers I manage and own and several other successful businesses.”

Dahduli believes in the center and the SALAM school, which now has 65 students from pre-kindergarten through fourth grade and will add a class every year.

SALAM “has done a really good job of presenting the true image of Muslims in America,” said Dr. Salam Al-Marayati, president and national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. “Unfortunately, Muslims are often seen for what they’re not – they are not radicals, they are not extremists – and yet’s that’s all we see in the media.”

Of the roughly 1,000 U.S. mosques, SALAM has blazed the trail of civic engagement, Al-Marayati said. “Other mosques fall into the trap of ethnocentrism, becoming centers for homesick Pakistanis, Egyptians, Arabs and South Asians.”

While some of those mosques fall victim to isolation, “SALAM’s going full force into the American mainstream.”

The Muslim community of Sacramento will welcome its new Islamic Center (IC) this Saturday.

The $5.5 million project consists of a Moorish-style mosque with arched entrances and a high green dome with a crescent on top.

“The architecture is a mixture of what’s in the Prophet Muhammad’s mosque in Medina, Saudia Arabia and the Moorish mosque in Cordoba, southern Spain,” said the project director Javed Iqbal. “It blends well with California Spanish architecture.”

The 21,000 square foot Islamic Center was built by SALAM, the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims.

More than a place of worship, the IC houses a gift shop, school and educational programs, with an 8,000-volume library planned.

According to the Sacramento Bee, in a recent speech, California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said, “I’m still proud we are a community that respects and welcomes all faiths…The fact a mosque can grow and expand without the kind of rancor we saw in New York City speaks very well of Sacramento’s Muslim American community and Sacramento in general.”

“Muslim leaders here are very active in building community ties,” Steinberg said.

Most of the funds were collected within the Muslim community, according to the newspaper that gives the example of Amer, a former accounting professor at California State University who donated $500,000 to the new center and Bassam Dahduli, a Muslim American real estate investor who has pledged $1.5 million and raised $1.5 million more.

Around 65,000 Muslim-Americans are estimated to live in the greater Sacramento, a number which has doubled over the last 20 years.