By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Local Muslims, faced with $100,000 in repairs to their Lisbon Street mosque, could find themselves looking for a new place to pray.

State fire officials closed the third floor of the 23 Lisbon St. building after an April 7 inspection. That’s space set aside for Muslim women to pray, according to Imam Ruh Iman, the leader of the mosque.

Muslim men in the mosque perform their prayers on the building’s first floor, behind the 23 Lisbon St. storefront, and that was not affected by the state’s inspection.

State fire marshals inspected the building on April 7, saying it needed fire alarms and sprinklers and a new exit for the upper floors before the third floor could be used.

“There is a fire escape, but it’s old,” said Lewiston Building Inspector Gary Campbell. The city had an engineer review the fire escape, which connects the upper floors to the alley behind the building. It didn’t pass inspection, he said.

“The problem with using some of these old buildings is that they weren’t built to pass today’s fire codes, and fixing the problems can be expensive,” Campbell said.

Mahmoud Hassan, treasurer for the mosque, said the work could cost as much as $100,000. That’s money the mosque doesn’t have.

“It doubles the cost of the building,” Iman said. It makes more sense to find a new place for prayers.

“But that’s expensive, too,” he said. “We have looked, but we haven’t found anything yet.”

Lewiston’s Somali Muslims purchased the building in 2003. They paid $50,000 upfront and agreed to pay another $70,000 in installments. Since Islamic law forbids paying or charging interest on loans, the installments are interest-free.

Hassan said the mosque paid its final installment earlier this year and now owns the building outright.