Mosque has heart and soul

IT'S NOT UNUSUAL to find a doctor in the house during Friday services at the Zubaida Foundation mosque in Lower Makefield - or several doctors. "We have two heart surgeons, for example," said mosque administrator Mohammed Husain.

The largely professional, mostly second-generation immigrants who worship at the Bucks County mosque tend to be accomplished people.

That's why America opened its doors in the first place to the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi families who are the core of the congregation (now joined by some with roots in the Middle East and South Africa, along with American-born Muslims). "In the time when we came here, America would not let just anyone in," Husain said. "My engineering degree was my key."

During the school year, you'll also find preteens at the mosque on the occasional field trip from Charles Boehm Middle School across the street. The Zubaida Foundation is big on community outreach, holding blood drives, manning soup kitchens and awarding $20,000 annually in scholarships to students in the Pennsbury, Council Rock and Pennridge school districts.

The neighborliness flows in the other direction, too: When the mosque applied to the township recently for a 6,000-square-foot expansion, "the neighbors came in to support us," Husain said. "That doesn't happen everywhere."

The official groundbreaking this spring got the full ceremonial-shovel-brigade treatment in community newspapers, with state Rep. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bucks, on hand to man a shovel.

Who we are: Zubaida Foundation is a mainstream Sunni mosque. For Friday prayers, "150 to 200 people pop in," Husain said, "depending on the weather."

Where we worship: The mosque is an all-purpose, one-room building at 855 Big Oak Road in Lower Makefield. Signs in Arabic with English translations list some of God's attributes - including "Al-Rahman, the compassionate" and "Al-Raheem, the merciful" - taken from the Quran.

Visitors leave their shoes on a rack in the vestibule. The congregation's women stand beside a partition for prayers.

What we believe: Islam has six major beliefs: belief in Allah (God), belief in angels, belief in God's prophets, belief in God's revelations (in Holy Scriptures), belief in an afterlife (following a day of judgment) and belief in God's divine will and knowledge.

The region's major practices, known as the Five Pillars, are the profession of faith (namely, that there is one God, and that Muhammad is his messenger), five daily prayers, giving alms to the poor (2.5 percent of one's excess wealth), fasting during the daylight hours of Ramadan (July 8 to Aug. 7 this year) and making a pilgrimage to Mecca once in your lifetime.

Something that might surprise people: Husain pointed out that, like Christians, Muslims revere Jesus Christ (as a prophet) and believe that he was born to the Virgin Mary. Like Jews, Muslims don't eat pork, and men are circumsized.

"We are closer to both religions than they are to each other," he said. While they consider both the Bible and the Torah to be divine, for Muslims the Quran is the definitive word of God.

God is . . . eternal, absolute, the one and only, and compassionate. "The Quran mentions God's compassion and mercy 192 times," Husain said.

Mohammed Husain, middle name: Uncle Sam. Both as Zubaida's administrator and as a Bucks County real-estate agent, Husain often finds himself spelling out his email address to new contacts.

His last name is part of the address:

"H," he says. Then "U-S-A." Last two letters: "I-N."

If you visit the Zubaida website, at zubaidafoundation.com, the first image you see is a streaming video of an American flag.