Dunfermline Central Mosque opens its doors

Dunfermline Central Mosque opened its doors on Sunday to members of the West Fife community from all faiths.

The community cohesion event was organised by members of the mosque in an effort to show people of other faiths how Muslims practice their faith and in order to promote tolerance and understanding.

Those who attended also took advantage of stalls selling food, scarves and even providing henna tattoos.

The Chair of the mosque, Ajaz Mohammed, reported that: “[i]t was well attended and we had great support from the local community.

“We had mentioned it to the Church of Scotland presbytery so we had a few churchgoers but it was also a good opportunity to meet people of non-faith and let them see what we do.

“There is a negative press on Islam at the moment so we felt we need to do something to allay people’s fears and show them that we are people who practice our faith and are part of the community. 

“We had a Q&A about how we practice our faith; I think there’s maybe a lack of knowledge about Islam.

“We’re trying to get people to realise there’s not a million miles of difference between Islam and Christianity and Judaism; the syllabus teacher (Samarh Haq) did a presentation and a lot of people were surprised that the prophets are the same as those who show up in the Bible and Torah.

“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback and the stalls we had made it more fun.

“Everyone on our side enjoyed it and, if there’s enough demand, we could do it more than once a year.”

According to Douglas Chapman, who is the SNP candidate standing for re-election in next month’s General Election, “[t]he mosque plays a central role in the faith of the West Fife Muslim community and it was great to find out more. The day was shared with a wide range of churches and faith groups with the key theme aimed at promoting tolerance, respect and understanding of the Islam faith.”