SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) – It’s about 20 minutes into a Friday afternoon prayer service and Rasul Seifullah, the leader of Springfield’s small community of Sunni Muslims, is putting some passion in his sermon.

He’s wound his way from the pitfalls of idol worship to talking about his congregation’s mosque, a converted school that was burned down last month – the target, police say, of teenage vandals.

The region’s interfaith community has offered to help raise money for the Al-Baqi Islamic Center and give the congregation space to hold its services until the mosque is rebuilt. On this day, they’re praying at the Nation of Islam’s mosque. The week before, services were held at the Jewish Community Center.

But Seifullah, Al-Baqi’s 56-year-old imam, isn’t about to let his people be carried by others.

“We can’t sit back and have other people fund-raising for us and we’re not raising anything for ourselves,” he tells the 28 people sitting in front of him on prayer rugs.

The goal, he tells them, is for the congregation of about 100 people to raise $250,000 to help rebuild a mosque that looks like a mosque, not an old building that’s serving as a house of worship.

“When people drive by it, they’ll know what it is,” Seifullah said. “They won’t have to ask Is that the mosque?”‘

However obscure the building may have been at its inner-city address, Al-Baqi’s congregation has been visible in Springfield’s religious community. The offers of help aren’t merely a knee-jerk reaction to a needy cause.

During his six years as imam, Seifullah (pronounced SYE’ foo lah) has steadily built ties with other faiths.

“What has always impressed me with Al-Baqi is that the congregants are very present in the community,” said the Rev. Karen Rucks, executive director of the Council of Churches of Greater Springfield. “If you look up, you will always see them represented in community gatherings or promoting religious understanding. Imam Seifullah has done a lot to encourage that.”

For Seifullah, it’s been a mission that reflects his own yearnings for religious connections.

Born in New York City as Anthony C. Francis, he was grew up in Harlem as a Catholic. He was proud to serve as an altar boy, and happy to attend a Catholic high school where he was just one of a handful of black students.

But as the civil rights debate came to the forefront of America’s social landscape in the 1960s, he become more aware of the color of his skin and how he fit in with the world around him.

He was 16, and felt out of step with Catholicism.

“I never saw any pictures of black saints or black prophets,” he said. “I never really saw the pope take a stand against racism at the time. So I wound up exploring things. I explored every religion you could think of.”

He even thought about atheism, believing for a time there was no God.

“That didn’t last too long,” he said.

In 1969, he enlisted in the Army and went to Vietnam, putting his spiritual quest on hold.

He returned to Harlem a year later, disillusioned with the war and how he saw blacks being treated in America.

“I hated white people,” he said. “Even though I fought in their war, I was still just a nigger to them. I know my hatred was misguided, but it was easy to feel.”

Still searching for a place of spiritual comfort and social acceptance, he found it in the Nation of Islam.

“I sat down with a can of beer and a plate of pork chops one night, put on the TV, and there was Louis Farrakhan,” he said. “He was fascinating.”

The minister drew him in with an articulate message of black nationalism.

“I was asking God, Why am I black?’ and Why am I catching hell for being black?”‘ Seifullah said. “I found the Nation had a rationale for why we were catching hell – it was because white people were giving it to us.”

He was a devout follower in the Nation of Islam until the mid-1970s. After its leader, Elijah Muhammad, died in 1975, his son and successor, W.D. Muhammad, shifted his followers from what Seifullah calls a “race-based religion” toward traditional Sunni Islam. Muhammad’s group and the Nation of Islam – which is now led by Farrakhan – parted ways.

W.D. Muhammad “taught us the universal message of Islam,” Seifullah said. “He taught us it wasn’t about our skin color. Islam involves everyone – all people, all cultures. When you look at true Islam, you see people from every place in the world. And that was amazing to me.”

A chemical engineer, Anthony Francis moved to Springfield in 1978 when he took a job with the Monsanto chemical company. A few years later, he began attending services at the Al-Baqi Islamic Center.

“When I first met him, he was searching,” said Rashad Fardan, one of Al-Baqi’s earliest members and one of the mosque’s former imams. “But he took it all in. And I watched him develop.”

His involvement with the mosque grew steadily.

In 1994, his life hit a rough spot. He keeps the details private, but says the time was a turning point in his faith.

“I made a promise to Allah that I would never leave the faith,” Seifullah said. “And as long as I was in Springfield, all my support would go to Al-Baqi. And my life has turned around since then.”

Anthony Francis took the name Rasul Faheen Seifullah, meaning “messenger,” “learned,” and “the sword and defender of Allah.”

Four years later, the congregation elected him as its imam. Seifullah, who is married, retired from his job at Monsanto and accepted the full-time, no-pay job as Al-Baqi’s religious leader.

“They chose him because they knew he was sincere about his commitment to Islam,” Fardan said.

But Seifullah also was committed to finding a place for Islam in the larger community. He encouraged his congregation to become more involved. Within the mosque’s congregation of about 100 is a core of about 50 highly active members, twice the number since he took over.

“My biggest challenge was to break the tendency of people staying to themselves,” Seifullah said. “I wanted to build a warmer, more engaging community.”

He began inviting other religious leaders to Al-Baqi and going with his congregants to their services.

When Minister Yusuf Muhammad, the local leader of the Nation of Islam mosque, was attacked in 2002 by a group of alleged drug dealers, Seifullah joined a neighborhood protest to tell drug dealers they would no longer be tolerated.

“He provided consultation as well as guidance during what was a very difficult time,” Muhammad said. “And not just for those involved in the incident, but for the city of Springfield. He stood with us. He was there from the beginning.”

And Seifullah has collaborated with Jewish groups to promote religious and cultural tolerance, speaking and organizing programs at a youth summer camp sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.

“The only thing that divides people is when they live in their own contained world,” said Rabbi Robert Sternberg, director of the Hatikvah Holocaust Education Center in Springfield. “He’s not comfortable with that happening, so he pushes people’s comfort barriers so they learn new things.”

Since the fire at the Al-Baqi mosque, the congregation has benefited from its community involvement. Other religious groups immediately offered worship space, and the Council of Churches has spearheaded a fund-raising effort to help Al-Baqi rebuild – something Seifullah expects to take about two years.

Police say the mosque was burned by a group of seven 15-year-olds who broke into the building to steal money and candy, then decided to cover their tracks by lighting the fire. The boys have denied arson charges, and authorities say the crime wasn’t motivated by religious hatred.

But Seifullah is worried there might be more to their motive than cash and sweets.

If the boys are held responsible for the crime, he hopes to play a role in whatever sentence they receive.

Not for vengeance, he says, but for the chance to reach out to another group that is unfamiliar with the city’s Islamic community.

“I’d like to see them have to do some community service under my supervision,” he said. “I want to see if there’s a way to reach these kids. Maybe they’ll learn something.”