According to Rahyafte(the missionaries and converts website):For many years the Muslim living around the Pleckgate neighbourhood in Blackburn would take half an hour’s journey on foot to travel towards the centre of the town for their daily prayers.
On May 12, Moughees Abdul Hakeem, 20, a student at Blackburn College, joined a horde of men as they took off their shoes, assembled in queues behind the imam on the newly-marbled floor of a Taqwa mosque to offer midday Asr prayers.
What made Hakeem even more excited was the fact that the mosque was once a church.
“I was really passionate about it because it was the first time that I ever went into a mosque that was turned from a Church into a Mosque, so it was really pleasant for me,” 20-year-old Blackburn resident Moughees Abdul Hakeem tells TRT World.
The young student from Blackburn College attended the inaugural ‘asr prayer’ on 12th May at the newly converted Mosque called Masjid-e-Taqwa that lies in the Northern Industrial town of Blackburn – once made famous for lifting the coveted Premier League title in 1995.
Previously known as St Chad’s Church and located on Pleckgate Road in the British county of Lancashire, the building was a single-level stone construction built around 1870.
It was eventually turned into a school while local reports say the building continued to function until the 1970s.
Previously plans had been afoot to change the abandoned church into housing, reportedly for 7 new homes, which never came to fruition – as the local volunteers united to restore the building under a new guise – a mosque.
Funding for the project was donated by locals while the renovation work to the inside and outside of the building got underway around a year ago.
Hakeem says the first prayers to take place at Masjid-e-Taqwa were attended by a wide number of the community while a number of attendees prayed outside the mosque.
He said the worshippers were enthused by the new instalment after there had been no mosques in the area for a number of years, while the local community in the area previously had to travel by car to pray due to the distance to their homes.
Reflecting back on the day, Hakeem, who attended the occasion with his uncle and cousins, believes that the mosque will not only serve as a place of prayer but also as a community centre, fostering deeper ties among the Muslim community in Blackburn.
“I could see people all over from Blackburn celebrating the first prayers and also their staff were really nice. They had sweets and had everything arranged for the community. There was a talk after the ceremony and they talked about how the Masjid will bring us together as a community,” he says.
Others in the local community have come out in favour of the initiative, expressing their enthusiasm for the mosque.
Zahid Muhammad, a local resident and Facilities Manager, says he is “very excited to support Masjid-e-Taqwa”.
“It was empty and lying derelict. It was put on the market to be sold with the hope of a housing developer purchasing it,” he tells TRT World. “Luckily for the community, that didn’t go ahead, and it was purchased to be used as a mosque.
Once operating as a church, Muhammad is pleased to see it restored in keeping with its tradition as a place of worship once again for the community.
Following the recent renovations, Muhammad says, “the quality of work is of an excellent standard, and it is a beautiful mosque to look at internally and externally.”
A mosque spokesperson told the Lancashire Telegraph that “we tried to keep to the original features of the building and attempted to incorporate these into the new design.”
“Most notably inside the prayer hall, the wooden beams make up the most defining feature,” added the spokesperson.
Masjid-e-Taqwa now has space for around 180 attendees and for Wudu, the Islamic process of cleansing parts of the body.
Nevertheless, for the community in Blackburn, the Masjid-e-Taqwa, they say, has been a unifying force, fostering togetherness for those that may have settled in the UK from overseas.
Hakeem, who has familial ties to Pakistan, says “the thing that I like about the UK is that we have our own Muslim community here and especially in Blackburn and it doesn’t feel like you’re away from your home in countries like Türkiye, Pakistan, India and you don’t feel away from there because you find that community. ”
Source: TRT World
