Masjid Juarharatul-Islam, Arizona's first 'built from the ground up' mosque, needs new ACs

Keila Khadijah Gonzalez looked on while seated at Masjid Jauharatul-Islam as her two young sons frolicked about the mosque’s courtyard under the south Phoenix sun.

The 43-year-old house of worship facing South Mountain is one of the first Black American mosques constructed on undeveloped land. The history associated with the mosque appealed to Gonzalez, who is Afro-Latina.

"This is what I’ve been praying for," Gonzalez, 31, said she thought when she first attended Masjid Jauharatul-Islam.

Standing resolute on West South Mountain and South First avenues, the storied sanctuary has weathered troubles as of late. Congregation numbers have dwindled since the founding imam’s death and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Further burdening the approximately 4,000-square-foot, cream-colored stuccoed brick building are its two air-conditioning units which are permanently out of service.

Of little respite from metro Phoenix’s extreme heat, the third AC unit clunks along, barely, with several floor fans providing limited cooling comfort.

The mosque’s prayer room temperature reached 91.4 degrees as the humidity touched 42% during the last Friday afternoon service of July when about 20 worshippers gathered.

Masjid Jauharatul-Islam’s first two words translated from Arabic mean "mosque jewel." The name came to be after colorful Ramadan lights decorating the mosque cast a jewel-like reflection on the 40-foot minaret, the tower where calls for prayer are made. Congregants are committed to seeing their house of worship shine brightly again.

Evoking the sacred

The late Abdu-Rahim Shamsid-Deen envisioned an Islamic beacon rising in the Phoenix desert after traveling in 1978 through a similar landscape in Saudi Arabia while he studied to be an imam.

Shamsid-Deen became a revert, or convert to Islam, in the 1960s and first moved to Arizona from Baltimore in 1973. He set out to build a place of worship for Valley Muslims that would evoke the sacredness of praying at the Great Mosque of Mecca.

The religious education Shamsid-Deen received along with other Black Muslims and a Black mosque instituted in Phoenix were objectives laid out by the American Muslim Mission — a reformed successor to the original Nation of Islam.

The Islamic faith has been a source of empowerment for many Black Americans.

Ihsan Bagby, University of Kentucky associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies, told The Arizona Republic that Black Muslims were at "the very beginning of America" as many were brought to what is now the U.S. during the slave trade. Some retained their Islamic faith for a couple of generations. Black Americans started reclaiming an Islamic identity beginning in the 1920s, Bagby said.

Like Shamsid-Deen, Muhammad Ali was among those who were part of the 1960s surge of Black Americans who took up the Islamic faith. The heavyweight boxing legend funded Shamsid-Deen’s Middle Eastern learning tour and would eventually visit Masjid Jauharatul-Islam in the early 1980s, according to the imam’s daughters, Mahasin Shamsid-Deen and Jameelah Shamsid-Deen.

The two women were teenagers when the mosque was dedicated in June 1981.

Masjid Jauharatul-Islam is situated on eight acres, a little more than half of them donated by Frank Mu’Min, a freed slave’s son, Mahasin Shamsid-Deen stated. The other two acres were added through further donations.

Building the mosque "became somewhat of a nationwide effort, because people from other communities started donating money" until more than $200,000 was raised, Mahasin Shamsid-Deen said.

The mosque houses a Musallah, or main prayer hall, a kitchen, a library and two offices. Tile imported from Sri Lanka adorns the mosque’s mihrab, a small, curved niche signaling Mecca’s direction. Furnishings include Persian rugs, while crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The grassy courtyard takes inspiration from North African mosques, with a spouting fountain at its heart.

Building with purpose

A July 1981 article in The Republic stated Masjid Jauharatul-Islam was the first mosque "built along Islamic design in the United States," and that as many as 300 had attended Friday prayers in its first month.

At the time Masjid Jauharatul-Islam was first established, the vast majority of American mosques were refurbished storefronts and most Phoenix-area Muslims congregated at homes or the Arizona State University campus, Mahasin Shamsid-Deen shared with The Republic.

"Not a lot of mosques, even today, are built from the ground up," Mahasin Shamsid-Deen said.

Masjid Juaharatul-Islam was Arizona’s first purpose-built mosque, meaning its original intent as a structure was Islamic worship. Masjid Juarharatul-Islam is one of the earliest purpose-built mosques by African Americans, according to Bagby.

"It was unique," Bagby said about the mosque, remembering visiting it in the 1990s as part of his research and having met Abdu-Rahim Shamsid-Deen. "He had a big personality."

Mahasin Shamsid-Deen left Phoenix in the late 1980s. Imam Abdu-Rahim Shamsid-Deen remained at the helm until he died at 81 in 2018. Then came COVID-19.

Many congregants perished from the virus, Jameelah Shamsid-Deen said. Services at the mosque were suspended for a year and a half due to the pandemic, and several other congregants never returned.

"People just got lost," Jameelah Shamsid-Deen said.

She and 72-year-old Imam Malik Abdullah, only the mosque’s second imam, are the last remaining congregants from the mosque’s earlier days. As many as 50 congregants come and go, according to Abdullah.

Valuing heritage

Despite the mosque’s woes, congregants are steadfast. Masjid Jauharatul-Islam has a $14,000 fundraising goal to help offset AC repair costs. Donations may be sent to Masjid Jauharatul-Islam, in care of Sister Jameelah Shamsid-Deen, P.O. Box 8161, Phoenix, AZ 85066. Further inquiries about donating may be made by calling 602-326-2962 or visiting masjidjauharatulislam.com .

To fulfill charitable works expected within the Islamic faith, members this summer fed nearly 600 people in need through different mosque-led efforts, according to Jameelah Shamsid-Deen.

A mosque that would instill a sense of leadership in her children, ages four to 12, was important for Gonzalez.

"I look forward to my sons and my daughters who are so little now being able to be here, be older and hopefully one day run things," Gonzalez said.

Of value to the mother was connecting her kids to their Black Muslim heritage.

"I wanted a place where they could grow, come as they are, feel love and accepted," Gonzalez said. "When I came here, it was just like family."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Masjid Juarharatul-Islam, Arizona's first 'built from the ground up' mosque, needs new ACs