South Florida News as of May 4

Broward School holds annual community festival

The Broward School of Islamic Studies and Salah Tawfik Islamic school held their annual community festival and bazar at the grounds of their future mosque off of Commercial Blvd. alongside I-75 in Broward County on Sunday, April 30. Hundreds were in attendance for the event, enjoying food and merchandise stalls and childrenís rides, arrayed on the rough terrain of the construction site, with the ever-developing new mosque structure looming in the background. Wooden planks now cover the gray-cement block of the building which will be South Floridaís physically largest mosque when completed. Hundreds were in attendance throughout the day. A one dollar entrance fee was charged.

Community leader Zahid Qureshi said the festival is held more as a simple community gathering than a fundraising event. It’s a chance for people to get together and enjoy themselves, said Qureshi, adding that the event very well. Qureshi said that the BSIS hope to have the construction project finished by July.

Dinner raises 100K Cash for Masjid Noor Expansion

In what organizers are calling an unexpected success, the Masjid Noor and Islamic School of Miami community in Miami-Dade County were able to raise $100,000 at a fundraising dinner held in the mosque’s current building in Kendall in southern greater Miami area.

Young mosque volunteer and up and coming community leader Rehan Mirza said the Saturday night event was an inauspicious gathering of a few hundred regular mosque attendees and Friday-prayer goers, but the results were anything but.

When the volunteers went to pick up the first of the audience donations following the night’s simple fundraising appeal by a visiting speaker—a friend of mosque Imam Zakariya from England—to their surprise the money came in a check rather than a pledge. And so did the next, and the next. Before the night was done $100,000 in cash was collected keeping the mosque well on track for the expected June/July completion of its substantial expansion project.

Mirza says that the actual facility being up and visible has spurred on community members to help push the project to completion and Saturday night was evidence of it.

Also onhand was Islamic School of Miami leader Tasmin Uddin, recently out of hospital. Uddin was admitted to Baptist General Hospital earlier in the month following discovery of a growth on his liver. A community leader since the inception of the South Florida Muslim community, active in various mosques and Islamic efforts, Uddin is well-known and well-respected throughout South Florida. His three daughters have also been community leaders in local college work, the youngest, Sarah, currently serving as president of the Islamic Society at the University of Miami.

Uddin will be going under treatment in the coming months.

Masjid Noor has grown from humble beginnings over the past decade. First a store-front mosque in Kendall and then eventually moving into its current home—formerly an car emissions testing center—and expanding to include the Islamic School of Miami—formerly the Islamic Sunday school housed in the Chemistry Building at Florida International University in the 1990s.

Nurul Islam Holds Successful Bazaar

The Nurul Islam Academy in Cooper City held its annual Bazaar on Sunday May 7th.
The event included kids activities such as a bounce house and children’s rides, races, arts and crafts. Stalls at the bazaar featured food, cultural and religious wares and painting of henna tattoos.

There was also a “Shooting Stars Basketball Shooting Contest” possibly reflective of the presence of new NUIA sports coach Kent Williams, who has been on-staff at the full-time Islamic school this past school year and is helping to organize its basketball team and sports programs. A $5 entry fee was charged.

For information about the school call 954-434-3288.

Muslim Company takes part in major Ft. Lauderdale Opthalmology Conference
Student enjoys stay

A California-based, Muslim owned Medical company took part in a well-known medical conference held in Fort Lauderdale this past weekend, which also featured a number of Muslim participants.

Dr. A. Mateen Ahmed’s New World Medical company displayed its Ahmed Glaucoma Valve at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Opthalmology (ARVO) held at the Broward County Convention center.

The valve uses state of the art technology to control intraocular pressure, lowering the chance of hypotony, and reducing drug use. The product is effective in all types of glaucoma due to its unique valve system, “Exhibiting a level of control only a true valve can offer.” The product took Ahmed fourteen years to invent.

Clinical testing and approval by the FDA was an important milestone for a small privately held company. Finally, on the 12th of November in 1993, the FDA granted approval for the sale of the Ahmed Glaucoma Valve in the United States and around the world. New World Medical, Inc. has been granted more than twenty patents on the glaucoma valve as well as other valves.
Muslim college student and conference attendee Aasim Hasany, 20, of Toronto, Canada, said the presence of some Muslims at the world-renown opthalmology conference was a good sign.
“It shows that Muslims are going beyond nominal positions in medicine into world-renowned research with far-reaching effects,” said Hasany, who is a junior at the Univesrity of Toronto studying biology and anthropology.

A reflective young man interested in Islamic spirituality, Hasany was on-hand to present a poster on infantile eye disorders. He said he enjoyed the city’s calming beaches and weather and also enjoyed visiting the area’s mosques while here.