A Central Avenue storefront mosque is planning an expansion that will double its size.
Masjid As-Salam has purchased the former grocery store next to its building at Central and North Lake avenues in an effort to keep up with its growing congregation and provide female congregants, who traditionally worship separately, a more pleasant place to pray.
“Our population has increased over the years, and we have been feeling constraints of the space we have now,” said Shamshad Ahmad, president of Masjid As-Salam and a physics professor at the University at Albany.
The mosque opened in a rundown storefront in July 2000. Since then, attendance has increased alongside Muslim immigration to the Capital Region. Often, more than 300 people crowd into the space for Friday noon prayers.
Women, who are not required by Islamic law to attend mosque prayer, go there less often and to a smaller, cramped prayer space in the back of the mosque. The 5,000-square-foot addition will change that.
“Basically, it will be relief to women’s participation,” Ahmad said.
In the past decade, the mosque has been the scene of some tumult. The mosque’s former imam, Yassin M. Aref, and local pizza maker Mohammed Hossain were found guilty of aiding a fictional terrorist plot in 2006 and are currently serving 15-year federal prison sentences. The case against them began in 2004 when the mosque was raided by the FBI in connection with the alleged plot.