Christians Under Attack

Charlotte,NC- A small group of Muslims working for Charlotte’s biggest banks has been spearheading efforts to find space downtown where Muslims can gather to say their daily prayers.

For Muslims, praying five times a day — including two or three times during work hours — is one of the pillars of their faith.

Right now, many downtown Muslims working as professionals, cooks and cab drivers have to duck into a vacant conference room, retreat to their car or even wait until they get home to combine the day’s prayers.

Two Bank of America employees have joined with a former vice president at the bank to launch a nonprofit corporation in hopes of renting officelike space that could be used for prayer as well as cultural and volunteer activities.

And in a pioneering move for Charlotte, the city’s other big bank, Wachovia, has agreed to start offering its downtown employees what bank officials call a “quiet room” early next year.

The small room in Two Wachovia, the bank’s atrium tower, will not be just for prayer or just for Muslims. But after hearing from Muslim employees such as Anika Khan, an economist who works uptown, Wachovia is including a “wudu” — a sink where Muslims can purify themselves for prayer by washing their hands, face and feet.

Bank of America also provides space “whenever possible” for Muslims and others who want to pray, said spokeswoman Kelly Sapp.

In bigger cities where Muslims have lived and worked for years, there tend to be mosques or other places for prayer near work.

“But this is a new concept in Charlotte, and it’s still a sensitive topic,” said Richard Lyda, one of the Bank of America employees behind the search for a prayer location for all downtown Muslims.

Before Wachovia decided on a “quiet room” for employees, the bank looked at what other corporations are doing to accommodate their religious workers. Among Raleigh-Durham employers, IBM has an area for Muslim prayer and GlaxoSmithKline has a series of nondenominational quiet rooms on its campuses, said Sharon Matthews, Wachovia’s director of work force policy.

“Muslim employees do have a special need because of the frequency of their prayer,” Matthews said.

But Matthews stressed that the Wachovia room — unused office space that’s being retrofitted — will be available to any of the bank’s employees.

Reading room, too

“That could be for prayer, for personal reflection or if the person is feeling unsettled because of a migraine headache,” she said. “It would not be inconceivable to me that somebody would be in there reading a book.”

Unlike Christians, who can sit at their desks, fold their hands or quietly read a Bible verse, Muslims in prayer must stand, bend at the waist, kneel with their foreheads and hands on the floor. Former Bank of America Vice President Shaun Ahmad, who prayed in a conference room provided by the bank, said many Muslims who work in the city have to figure day to day where they might pray.

“When you don’t have a place to pray, you have to figure: Is there a conference room open? Will somebody come in?

“A lot of [Muslims] may feel uneasy,” said Ahmad, who sits on the board of Mecklenburg Ministries.

Charlotte, NC-how long before a minaret appears on the skyline?

Muslims who don’t work in offices have fewer options on where to pray.

Ahmad, 30, and Lyda, 37, have been working with Assim Mohammad, 31, a vice president at Bank of America, to find 700 square feet of office space that could become the Islamic Cultural Center of Charlotte.

They’ve received offers of financial help from others Muslim professionals in Charlotte. But so far, they have not come up with a place. They chalk it up to the lack of office space in the area, their own busy schedules and maybe wariness by some about renting space to Muslims for prayer.

Things were going well in negotiations for space on a 10th floor spot along South Tryon, said Lyda, “until they found out we were going to use it not only as a place of business but also as a place of prayer.”

The three are willing to consider joining people of other religions to create an interfaith prayer room — similar to nondenominational chapels at airports and hospitals.

The group has even discussed — but not pursued — renting space from one of the Christian churches lining Tryon Street.

“What we need is a place where we can take a moment out of our day to express gratitude to God and worship him,” said Mohammad, who heads the Charlotte chapter of the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals.

Prayers can be brief

The prayers themselves, which include recitations from the Quran, the Muslims’ holy book, can take only a few minutes.

And Muslims, who follow a lunar calendar on such sacred matters, have some leeway about when they can say them. A prayer schedule for last month from the Islamic Center for Charlotte said the second prayer of the day could said between 1:07 p.m. and 4:06 p.m.

If Wachovia’s tryout works, Matthews said the bank could add quiet rooms to many of its other locations — starting with its campus in the University City area.

Wachovia employee Anika Khan, who has been helping her company’s officials understand the needs of Muslims, has a two-word reaction to the prospect of a room where she and others will be able to pray:

“Really excited.”

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