Religious head of Islamic Center of America resigns and will start new mosque
The longtime religious leader of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn has left the mosque and now says he intends to open a new mosque in metro Detroit.
Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, who led services at mosque for 18 years, said the board of the Islamic Center failed to reform as he and his supporters had asked for, leaving him no choice but to resign.
The iconic mosque on Ford Road is one of the biggest in the U.S. and known globally as a center of Islam in North America, but divisions between supporters and opponents of Al-Qazwini have split the congregation. The center’s youth group, the Young Muslim Association, has also left, holding gatherings outside the mosque.
“With your support, with your help, we will find another place,” Al-Qazwini said recently during Friday prayers at the Detroit mosque that was the previous building of the Islamic Center. “What makes a true masjid (mosque) is the congregation, the youth. That’s why we’re focusing in the new place, mostly on the youth. We don’t want to lose the youth.”
Al-Qazwini had become a nationally known Muslim leader since he started at the mosque in 1997; he’s met and spoken with Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Born in Iraq, he comes from a long line of Shia clerics and is a descendant of Islam’s prophet.
In his remarks last month, Al-Qazwini blasted the board, saying it lacked term limits, promoted nepotism, had no female members, and failed to discipline those who acted improperly. Al-Qazwini, who is of Iraqi descent, and his supporters also say the board wanted to limit the mosque membership to Lebanese-Americans.
Ron Amen, a board member, told the Free Press Friday that he wished Al-Qazwini well, but that the mosque would continue without him.
“This is just a bump in the road,” Amen said. “Imams come. Imams go. The Islamic Center of America has been around since I was a young boy in the ’50s, and I fully expect it to continue and grow. I see a very bright future. This is the biggest Shia Islamic center in America. We’re not locking the doors because a charismatic imam decided to go someplace else.”
Amen said that a fundraiser held last month was so packed that they had to turn people away.
“It was the biggest turnout we ever had,” Amen said. Al-Qazwini’s “campaign to delegitimize the board has pretty much fallen on deaf ears,” he said.
In a statement, the board of the Islamic Center of America said that “after agonizing months of attempts to bridge the gap between…Qazwini’s demands and what the Islamic Center of America can offer, both parties reached an impasse.”
But Al-Qazwini said his were not personal demands, but demands made by the community looking for reform. He criticized the center for having board members who serve for life and hiring employees who are board members.
“Becoming a board member for life, no power on earth can remove him — Is this Islamic? Is this democratic? Is this American?” Al-Qazwini said.
“It doesn’t make no sense to import the Saudi style of governance to the Islamic Center of America,” he added. “We establish another monarchy, where a board member became a board member for life. Before dying, he would bring his son to be his heir, to take his seat.”
Al-Qazwini also said the board needs female members.
“We talk about Islam being progressive, but…in the heart of America, in the largest Islamic Center of America, women have no role at all.”
Amen said that the board had been working on reforms before Al-Qazwini had asked for them.
Facing what he said were unfair accusations of financial irregularities, Al-Qazwini said in January that he would resign unless reform was made.
In February, the board of the Center suspended Al-Qazwini for two months as they tried to work out their differences. Part of the dispute was over where donations went. Al-Qazwini had sent some of the money to a center in Iraq set up by his father, also a religious leader, that helped orphans and the sick. Critics of Al-Qazwini wanted the money to help pay off the mosque’s debt and the needy in metro Detroit.
“We still have a slightly over a million-dollar loan we’re still trying to pay off,” Amen said.
Last week, Amen lost re-election to continue as chair of the board.
Al-Qazwini currently leads Friday prayers at the Az-Zahra Center on Joy Road in Detroit, where the Islamic Center was located until it moved to its current location on Ford Road in Dearborn.
He said that his new mosque would focus on education and not on fancy designs, referring to the interior of the Islamic Center.
“Some believe that Allah only exists where there are chandeliers and mahogany doors,” Al-Qazwini said. “No. Allah is everywhere…The number one priority for any masjid (mosque) is to educate.”
He also said that a mosque should be open to all backgrounds and nationalities, not just those “who come from a particular geographic” area.
Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Follow him on Twitter @nwarikoo
Source: www.freep.com