Our call to prayer...

I read this article today and was amazed. I think I've been naive about Islam in the US. Many of the Africans, therefore Muslims, I met last fall didn't pray to Allah five times a day or fast anymore. But apparently many of them still do.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/22/05

By BRIAN FEAGANS
Photos by Nick Arroyo



As Ismail Massally launched into his sermon Friday, stragglers removed their loafers and squeezed onto the prayer deck at Masjid Abdullah.

Once again, an overflow crowd of more than 300 Muslims packed the tiny plant nursery-turned-mosque off Dickens Road in Lilburn. Massally's words echoed from the microphone clipped to his flowing white robe as he faced men wearing brightly colored kufis from Africa and south Asia.

"It is he, the almighty Allah, who has created different languages," said Massally, the imam at Masjid Abdullah. "Almighty Allah is the only being who understands each and every language."

He needs to at Masjid Abdullah. The men who press their foreheads against the mosque's gray carpet collectively have touched their brows to every continent, save perhaps Antarctica. Many who pray here say it is the most diverse mosque in metro Atlanta.

At Masjid Abdullah, a Somalian college professor prays next to a Puerto Rican mechanic who prays next to a Pakistani hotel manager who prays next a Haitian teacher who prays next to an electrical engineer from the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.

"I don't need to know if you're Malaysian or from Norway," said Yahya Dominguez, a Puerto Rico native who converted to Islam six years ago. "I just get in line next to you and pray."



The popularity of the mosque, which has undergone two expansions since it opened three years ago, speaks to the rapid growth of two groups in Gwinnett County: Muslims and Africans.

Gwinnett is now home to at least seven mosques and Islamic centers, including three that have opened since 2002. And the number of Gwinnett residents born in Africa jumped more than 30 percent between 2000 and 2003, from 5,834 to 7,628, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The African population has grown quietly as Gwinnett, where one in five residents is foreign-born, has evolved into a hub for immigrants from all over the world. Africa natives have few religious institutions or commercial businesses in the county, even though their numbers don't lag far behind more visible ethnic communities such as Koreans and Vietnamese.

Massally estimates that about 40 percent of the people who pray at Masjid Abdullah are originally from Africa. The faithful come from Chad, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and countries in between.

Massally, 41, is from Sierra Leone. He was born the same week that his father was named to the West African nation's Supreme Court. Now, the theme of Massally's sermons often fit his middle name: Justice.

'As teeth in a comb'

Friday, the words rose from his rounded belly, through the gap in his front teeth and into the human rainbow standing in neat rows at Masjid Abdullah. He implored Muslim doctors to take their skills to the starving poor in Africa. He urged those in attendance to attend a Norcross benefit for victims of genocide in India. And he sounded the call for peace everywhere.

"[Allah] made you into different nations and different tribes not so you become enemies of each other," he said over the whir of nine ceiling fans. "You are all created equal as the teeth in a comb."

The message has proved magnetic. The number of people going to Masjid Abdullah continues to swell, despite its location less than mile from Masjid Omar bin Abdul Aziz, another growing mosque.

During the first prayer at Masjid Abdullah in the spring of 2002, a few dozen men gathered in the living room of what was originally a ranch home and, later, a nursery. Soon after, Massally had to knock down the interior walls to clear a larger spot. The congregation built a separate building for women. And last year, when both those spaces filled up, the congregation constructed a giant, open-air prayer deck. Now it, too, grows so full during juma'a prayer some Fridays that people have to pray on the ground.

Ibrahim Njie, a Gambia-born resident of Lilburn, said he strayed from his religious moorings a bit while living in Maryland partly because many Muslims there put their jobs before Islam. But he said the religious community at Masjid Abdullah is different.

"Here, the jobs walk with the people," said the landscaper who takes care of the mosque's grounds. "What I mean by that is people don't go to the mosque only if work allows, they go to mosque first and work follows.

'Learned so much'

Many of the worshippers who live or work around Lilburn say the mosque is the most convenient one for them. Others, such as Khalid Sheriff, say they come specifically to hear Massally.

"I've learned so much here," said Sheriff, an Ethiopia native who works as a valet at a downtown Atlanta hotel. He moved from Chamblee to Lilburn so he could more easily attend weeknight study groups focusing on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad.



Massally, who has studied at various mosques around metro Atlanta, discounts his role in the Masjid Abdullah's growth. Muslims are moving to the suburbs for the same reasons everyone else is — schools, jobs and safer neighborhoods — and the mosque is absorbing some of that growth, he said.

The father of four is preparing for many more people to hear him deliver the word of Allah, however. Massally said he plans to tear down the existing structure and replace it with a larger mosque. The facility will house a certified Islamic studies program, he said.

The mosque's ascendancy reminds Massally of the story his mother told him as he left Sierra Leone for America nearly two decades ago. His grandfather, she told him, had a vision that Massally would be born with six hands. He was a bit off — Massally has a tiny, sixth finger on one hand.

But there was a second piece of the vision. The grandfather dreamed Massally would grow into a religious leader. And that part is coming true along Dickens Road.