Islamic Society Breaks Ground in Roxbury
On this day in 2002, the Islamic Society of Boston held a ceremonial groundbreaking in Roxbury for New England's largest mosque and Islamic cultural center. The Society had grown from a handful of Cambridge-based students in the 1970s to more than 250 families. The effort to build a new facility met with controversy and delay. In 1999 the city sold the Society a piece of land, but it took years to complete the permitting process, overcome neighborhood resistance, and find a way around the Islamic prohibition against borrowing money with interest. After the events of 9/11, accusations that extremists were backing the project caused suits, counter suits, and delays. The Islamic Society defended itself, persisted, and celebrated the opening of the cultural center in 2009.
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