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Grand Opening of Recent ICRM Building<br />
T<br />
he grand opening of the<br />
Islamic Center took place on<br />
January 20th, 2012. Working<br />
with Muslim Student Association (MSA),<br />
the ICRM committees and the members<br />
invited all friends and families of Rolla and<br />
the neighboring cities to attend the grand<br />
opening. Guests were welcomed by offering<br />
them a cup of Middle Eastern and<br />
Turkish coffee and dates. Gifts baskets were<br />
also distributed to the guests. MSA members<br />
offered tours to the building. Question<br />
sand answer and social gathering were also<br />
Anan Takhrori<br />
provided in addition to lunch and desert.<br />
Over 400 people attended the event including<br />
the Mayor of Rolla. Also, students from<br />
the Missouri S&T campus including Greek<br />
Houses and other clubs and organizations,<br />
campus staff, Rolla business employees, and<br />
the construction crew were also glad to get<br />
a chance to join everyone in celebrating the<br />
grand opening.<br />
The purpose of the grand opening was to<br />
invite the Rolla community to learn more<br />
about the new center where five daily<br />
prayers are offered in addition to Sunday<br />
school and Arabic classes for kids and<br />
non-Arabic speakers. In addition to learning<br />
about the building, the guests had a<br />
chance to watch a documentary about the<br />
construction process and the challenges<br />
faced during the years of hard work. Movies<br />
about Islam, Muslim countries, and Muslims<br />
around the world in general were played<br />
in the classrooms. Guests had a chance to<br />
ask questions and get to know the Muslim<br />
Community of Rolla and their Muslim<br />
neighbors.<br />
Interview with Dr. Salah Taqieddin<br />
By: Tarique Ahmad<br />
One of the founding members of the Rolla Masjid is Salah Taqieddin,<br />
so to learn more about him and the founding of this masjid we<br />
conducted an interview with him. A summary of that interview is<br />
attached below.<br />
Dr. Salah Taqieddin was born in Jordan in 1944. During his time in<br />
Jordan he finished a mining engineering degree and worked with<br />
a large mining company in Jordan. While working he was able to<br />
gain a scholarship to go back to school and gain his master’s degree.<br />
As he was completing his master’s program he saw an ad to come<br />
to the Colorado School of Mines to get a PhD through Yaramouk<br />
University. He pursued his PhD there until he his advisor unfortunately<br />
passed away, which lead him to search for a new advisor and<br />
ultimately led him to Rolla, MO and the University of Missouri Rolla.<br />
He arrived here in 1979, just a few days before Eid al-Adha and at<br />
that time there were only ten or so Muslim students. Since it was<br />
so close to Eid he and the other students asked the foreign student<br />
advisor for help finding a place to make Eid prayer. The advisor was<br />
able to find them a church that allowed them to make Eid Salaah.<br />
As some more time passed they gained a Muslim student advisor,<br />
Ibarahim Adawi, which pushed them to find a place that they could<br />
make salah. This was when one of the students suggested renting<br />
a one bedroom house and using it as a mosque. They were able to<br />
find such a house and began to hold jummah prayers there until<br />
they were asked to leave by the landlord. At this point they began<br />
to go to a friend’s home and hold salah there, marking the end of<br />
1979. In 1980 Dr. Salah graduated and returned to went back to<br />
Jordan until the summer when he returned as a visiting professor.<br />
As a visiting professor he was given a guest room in a guest house<br />
with a lot of vacant rooms at the time, so he would invite the other<br />
Muslims during Ramadan to come and join him. After that Ramadan<br />
he returned to Jordan again. When he was leaving for Jordan the<br />
Muslim Student Association was forming with Omur Tag as their<br />
advisor. He didn’t have much contact with Rolla again until two or<br />
three years later. He had heard that a couple of Muslim brothers had<br />
bought a home with the intentions of turning it into a mosque and<br />
had started praying there.<br />
Dr. Salah returned to Rolla in 2006 as a visiting professor in Civil<br />
Engineering. When he arrived he was astonished to see that the<br />
Muslim population had grown from 10 to almost 60 with a small<br />
home where they all prayed. The growing community was becoming<br />
too big for the house so they decided to build a new mosque<br />
in the same location as the old one. This lead to the creation of the<br />
construction committee that consisted of Dr. Salah, Dr. Assad Ullah<br />
and his wife, Dr. Abdul Jalel bil Arabi, Dr. Fethi Fenish, Dr. Chaudry,<br />
and Dr. Walid Assadi with Adul Aziz as their elected manager. They<br />
would meet every Saturday on the upper floor of the old mosque to<br />
discuss the building of the new mosque.<br />
Continued in Page 11<br />
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