Mosque Calls the Faithful And the Curious

May 30, 2010

Author: Laura Elder

Source: The Daily News

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=4a7ba47a268078d8

This blue-collar town in the Bible Belt isn’t a place most people would expect to find a mosque under construction. 

But Friday, crews wielding shrieking power saws and pneumatic hammers were working to complete the small, unassuming building at 2611 FM 1765, near Union Street, on the edge of a working-class neighborhood. 

The place of worship — Masjid Al-Fattah — will become the first permanent mosque in the county’s mainland. There are no large domes or minarets to embellish this mosque, a gray metal building surrounded by a cyclone fence. 

There is nothing to indicate that five times each day — at daybreak, midday, midafternoon, sunset and nightfall — the faithful will be called to this building where they will remove their shoes, wash their hands, face and feet, kneel on a clean spot and pray toward Mecca.