The Islamic Center at 1925 East Atwater, on the corner of the Indiana University campus
is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in Bloomington, the woodland
of the Hoosier State. The dream of hundreds of Muslims to have a mosque took
more than a decade of hard work to come to light. For a few years, the MSA
used the International Center and other places to perform Friday prayers.
It proved very inconvenient for Muslims. In December 1975, the MSA bought
a house on East 8th Street from a local church and converted it into an Islamic
center. The two prayer halls, library and basement were used to their maximum
but not without problems. Though the center was in a prime location, it was hard to
maintain and had only 8 parking spaces for almost 500 students. In June 1984,
the MSA made a historic decision when it bought property for the purpose of
building a mosque. The money was provided by Dr. Abdullah Naseef, the secretary
general of the Muslim World league.
A committee for planning and fund-raising was formed. The vision of early
members to build a high-tech spacious Islamic center with classrooms was realized
in a design produced by an architectural firm. Although the community donated generously
and MSAís alumni sent large donations from overseas, it was difficult for
many students to finance the new project. The money was therefore invested
with the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) until 1992, when a decision was
made to modify the old plan and build a smaller center that was within the financial
ability of the organization. In 1989, the lowest bid for the old plan was
at $850,000. Construction of the new center, which consists of two prayer
halls, a library and an office, could not be financially achieved without
selling the old center. After spending almost half a million dollars, the
center, or the house of God according to the Qur'an, was opened for congregation
the first Friday of August 1993.
As-salaamu Alaykum! Welcome to the new website of the Islamic Center of Bloomington, Indiana! This new site is a fully featured online community, with announcements, online forums and various other features. We'd like to invite you to look around at the new things we have to offer the community.
One of the really cool new features is the ability for community members to submit articles or links to other websites or news stories to be posted on the front page on the website. If you come across something you think our community members would be interested in, click the contribute button at the top of the page, and you can submit the story to icob.org. If you see a link to another website that would be beneficial to our members, you can permanently add it to our collection of useful links by clicking the Web Resources button at the top of this page, then clicking 'Add Link'. You must be registered as a member to use these features, but registration is free and easy and we promise never to send you any spam. :-)
We'll be rolling out many new features as time progresses, and your feedback on these changes will be most valuable to us. If you have comments, please feel free to register and leave a comment on this story by clicking on the 'Post a comment' link below or sending an email to president@icob.org.