Message from the UMC Feb 25. 2013 | Comments (0)
Dear Community Members,
As announced after Jumaa on Friday February 22nd 2013 the Elected Ummah Masjid Management Committee has resigned, because we are unable to serve the community which elected us to run the masjid. The Maritime Muslim Academy considers the Masjid to be the property of the school and over the past few months we have been met with many barriers from them in our attempts to manage the masjid.
A group of concerned community members, many of whom have been big donors to the Ummah Masjid project from the beginning initiated one final attempt to find a solution with the MMA. A meeting took place between these concerned community members, two members of the Elected Ummah Masjid Management Committee, and Dr. Jamal Badawi on Sunday February 17th. In this meeting the concerned brothers made it clear that they did not know that the money they had been paying for the masjid would go towards a school facility and they asked that the management of the building be given to the elected representatives of the community. These brothers were prepared to donate the funds necessary to complete the construction project if the MMA handed over the management to the community. They also had an official letter from a lawyer which made it clear that there are no legal barriers to handing the management over to the community.
This offer was refused by MMA. They consider the building to be the school’s property and do not see a need to be transparent with the community. As such, we, the Elected Ummah Masjid Management Committee has resigned, Sheikh Saad has resigned in his position as Imam, and the concerned big donors will no longer donate any money to this project and will demand that the money they previously donated be returned. And as an elected committee we reserve the right to approach the authorities, in consultation with the community members, in order to demand the rights that were taken away from the community through the MMAs mismanagement of this project.