Wednesday, August 01, 2007
LIZ ELLABY
News staff writer
Hoover residents left a meeting Tuesday evening content that members of an Ismaili Muslim congregation will be good neighbors if they build a worship center bordering neighborhoods on Sulphur Springs Road.
They said they remain more concerned about traffic congestion than religion.
“Hoover is horrible enough as it is, as far as traffic goes,” said Julia Copeland, who lives in the Birch Tree subdivision.
Ismaili members said issues including traffic counts and turn lanes will be discussed at an Aug. 13 public hearing before the Hoover Planning Commission.
Tuesday’s meeting at the Prince of Peace Catholic Church was to inform the public about their faith, a branch of the minority Shiite Muslims, and to assure residents they will be part of the fabric of the community.
The congregation’s proposed worship center, called a jamatkhana, is planned on a 4.7-acre wooded tract at the northeast corner of Al Seier and Sulphur Springs roads. The property is currently zoned for neighborhood business. Under their proposal, the property would be developed by Louis Passarella of Georgia, who would lease it to the Ismaili group.
A sketch showed a one-story brick structure like a professional building. University of Alabama at Birmingham oncologist Mansoor Saleh, a member and spokesman, said jamatkhanas worldwide are designed to fit local environments.
In a DVD presentation, he showed a center in Beijing that looked like a pagoda, and a sand tower design in Mali.
“We decided not to choose the pagoda version for Hoover,” he joked.
The Ismailis have allegiance to the Aga Khan, a “living guide” said to be the 49th imam and a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed.
Their worship centers include a lobby and a prayer room, facing east, but don’t have distinctive domes or minarets of a mosque, and there are no called prayers, Saleh said.
Prayer times are daily from 4 to 5:30 a.m. and from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Friday prayers may attract 300 people, but it is after peak traffic times, he said.
Residents opposing the center met in June to organize a petition, citing traffic concerns. A few residents Tuesday said they came to learn more about the religion.
Residents Angela and Scott George said reports that traffic concerns were just a way residents could mask religious bigotry were bogus.
“The Preserve hasn’t been built out yet and there are other developments going on,” Scott George said. “Everyone is worried about traffic.”
Ismailimail 