LEWISTON – Lewiston Muslims are looking for a new home, having outgrown their Lisbon Street mosque.
“We need someplace where everyone can pray, where we can do some religious education – and some place with parking,” said Abdi Sheikh, a member of the Lewiston-Auburn Islamic Center.
They put their current 23 Lisbon St. mosque on the market late in December, soon after the end of their holy month of Ramadan.
Muslims mark Ramadan with fasting and special daily prayers. Crowds at those prayers proved to be too much for the storefront mosque.
“It’s the way it is with any religious holiday – more people come and attend,” Sheikh said.
The mosque now has about 700 members and needed to rent temporary space in Auburn through Ramadan for daily prayers. Members agreed then they needed to find a better space.
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.
The mosque paid its final installment earlier in 2005 and now owns the building.
The space appeared perfect at first. It includes a ground floor storefront and two upper floors. They planned to make the ground floor the men’s mosque and establish a prayer area for women on the second floor.
State fire officials closed the upper floors after an April 7 inspection, saying it needed new fire alarms, sprinklers and a second fire exit.
The repairs would have meant about $100,000 in renovations and the mosque couldn’t afford it. They put up a partition in the back of the first floor to create prayer areas for Muslim women, but it isn’t sufficient.
“What we really want now is a place that can accommodate a large number of people,” Sheikh said. “We are looking for a place, wherever it is, that be appropriate for us now and for generations to come.”
They’re looking in Lewiston and Auburn, but would prefer a place downtown in Lewiston. Most live in that area, he said. They hope to find a new place before Ramadan begins this year, in October.
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