Waleed grew up in Egypt. He first came to the US in 1998 as a graduate student and studied in Virginia. In 2002, he became a faculty member at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His wife is a professional in Indiana, PA and he has three children who have attended public schools in Indiana, PA. When we spoke with Waleed in June 2019, he was a professor at IUP and a member of the Board of the Islamic Center (ICI-PA).
What made you decide to go to Virginia for your PhD?
“Fate [laughs]. I had very little experience with the educational system here in the United States at that time. I had actually, I was coming on a full scholarship and basically they kinda selected the school for me. I [briefly] went to University of Pittsburgh, but I didn’t like the…I came at a very bad time, it was very snowy [laughs]. Really, it was very sub-zero temperature which was very very tough. [In Virginia] the weather was relatively close to what I grew up with in Egypt. You know it’s humid, it’s hot in summer, and like southern Virginia, where I lived, it was very, very similar. No snow. Not like here.”
What was the Muslim community in Indiana, PA like when you arrived?
“I came in 2002. We had a mosque at that time, it was a small house on Philadelphia Street. […] I think they acquired that house in 1995 or 1996. When I came, of course, you know there was a Muslim community there and people were practicing like traditionally Friday prayers, so I used to join them. Although first few years it was very unstable for me because my wife and my daughter were still living in Virginia, so I was actually commuting every week […] So I wasn’t really much involved with the community here because most of my weekend and free time was spent out of Pennsylvania.
“When I came back after a leave in 2006, I start[ed] getting very involved in the Muslim community and , we were pushing, my wife and I, for having a mosque here, a real mosque, just a built mosque, build it from scratch. Which is a dream that happened in 2014.”
Interviewer: Was the mosque on Philadelphia street the first mosque in Indiana?
“Yes, to the best of my knowledge, it was the first. I heard at some point of time before that for them to hold like the Friday prayer, they rented a place like a house or something or some time. I wasn’t here; I don’t know the details about that. But I heard that they had some efforts again of just buying a place for some time. It never just materialized. But I think when they bought that house, I think one of the brothers put a very, very large scale of, you know, financial contribution to buying that house. And they are giving it to the community as a center.”
Tell me about the process of building the new Islamic Center.
“We really started, as I said, when I came in 2006. I was telling them, you know, the community is growing, we should actually try to accommodate, you know, the growing. And especially at that time as there was a very large influx of Muslim students coming to IUP, especially from the Gulf area, Saudi students in particular at some point of time.”
“So community was growing, so we were trying to push for a new mosque. We explored all the options, we went to many places for sale, like houses for sale, like churches for sale. And we didn’t really agree on anything and until we, just I think 2007, there was land, a lot for sale, on West Pike Road, which is the current location of the mosque, 2835 West Pike Road. And we bought that land. We bought that land and it was like .8, .9 acres. It was full of bushes and trees, small trees at that time. And we kept that land because we didn’t have the money, of course, to build the center at that time. So we kept actually fundraising for almost 8 years. But with persistence we came up with Islamic Center. We did a lot of fundraising outside actually even in Indiana because it was a very small community. So we did [fundraising] in Monroeville […]. So It was a big motivation for us to move on to the actual construction. And when we did, we did it actually in phases. Because what you see now it was not done in one time. So we did the original prayer area then later on we built the social hall.”
How has the Muslim community changed since you first came here?
“For the professional who lives in Indiana, it didn’t change that much. Because, you know, Indiana is a very small town. I mean, activities here are basically probably IUP, the school, and probably the hospital, few financial institutions, that’s it. So we didn’t have any mutual changes for family living here for good. But for students, as I said, there was like a large number of students who came in the 2000s, mid-2000s, mostly from the Gulf areas. The composition of the community was mostly family living here, which was very few. You can say just counting out that makes up 15, 20 families that lives in Indiana for good here. But students constitute the absolute majority of our actual population and when they start increasing, you know the number of students increased in that time, we have large number and you know, it really was just this is a plan of God. This is when we were actually thinking seriously about the mosque and this influx happen when we start again having our Islamic Center. So it was a perfect timing. But again, most of them are students who used to be actually graduate students because they used to send the very selected number of students. Once you start sending large number of students, they start sending undergraduate student. So globally the composition change a little bit from more mature, again, just like a family-oriented students to more of the undergrad, just like younger, immature, single. Okay. A population, which again is start shifting with winding down of the number of students in the last couple of years.”
How does the mosque reach out to new Muslim students when they come to campus?
“It’s mostly through the MSA [Muslim Student Association] and SSA [Saudi Student Association]. Again, there was a very large number of Saudi students here, especially in the last 8 to 10 years. So, SSA I think and MSA played a very significant tool in making sure that these students are connected, are aware of the Islamic Center, of our celebrations and our ceremonies. In the past […], we have a smaller place, which was that smaller house, we held actually 2 Friday prayers. […] Because for space limitation we held 2 Friday prayer and for convenience too. Since I came in 2006 we have one in the mosque and one in the HUB [Student Union building on campus]. So students again probably have a class conflict with the timing of the Friday in the mosque, we have one in the HUB to accommodate them. And again, if they don’t have like a car or something to go to the mosque, this was something very helpful. So this was, again, one of the way we served the Muslim community especially the student community here at IUP.”
Muslims in PA 