In August, in what the local press called "street naming season in Patterson," the Patterson, New Jersey City Council renamed a section of Van Houten Street on which the Jalalabad Jam-E-Masjid mosque is located as Alhaj Forman Ali Street to honor a local Muslim who was said to have played an instrumental role in the founding of the Islamic Foundation of New Jersey that built the mosque. The seemingly innocuous resolution however has become extremely controversial in the Bangladeshi Muslim community of Patterson.
According to yesterday's Patterson Press, leaders of the mosque say that they were not consulted on the ceremonial resolution, and that the renaming violates their religious beliefs. They say that it is a fundamental principle of Islam that the mosque belongs to the entire community, and no one person or family may be honored above others in connection with their contribution to the mosque. They say that many members threaten to leave the mosque because it has been tainted as a place of worship by the naming of the street in front of it in honor of one person. They also claim that Councilman Mohammed Aktraruzzman who proposed the ceremonial resolution did so to repay his political supporters, and that the resolution exaggerates Ali's contributions to the Muslim community. City Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to rescind the August resolution. Ahead of that vote, on Sunday, mosque leaders filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the actions of city officials violated their free exercise rights.
