Islamic Council of Washington State

Last spring (March 03) administrators representing the Puget Sound area masajids (Kent, Seat-Tac, East Side; Abu-Bakr, Cham, Everett, West Seattle, Omar Farooq and Idris Mosque) met and decided to create “Islamic Council of Washington State” with the following Mission Statement:

UNITE all Muslims in Puget Sound area and expand to include all Muslims in Washington State. Have one voice/representation for all Muslims in Washington State.

The outcome of the meeting, that all agreed to, was:

1. Each mosque is the focal for the local community in which they exist and not to get involved with the internal affairs of individual mosques.
2. All mosques opinions are equal (one vote for each) and each mosque will have a representative (the representative can be the Imam of the mosque)
3. Idris mosque to have the responsibility of representing the Muslims in the political arena (i.e. to be recognized as the focal for all media, city, state and federal government contacts.)
4. Work with Muslim organizations/groups to better enhance the unity of the Muslims.

The council met again on Thursday Sept. 18, 2003 and area Masajids administrative representatives, now termed as council members, present at the meeting were Kent, Sea Tac, Abu-Bakr, Cham, West Seattle, Omar Farooq, Everett, and Idris Mosque, re-affirmed the responsibilities of each Masjid as above. In addition the council members present concurred with the following and adopted the Joint Masajid Agreement.

All Masajids agree to follow the method of local sighting in North America and to start the month of Ramadan and the month of Shawwal together on the same day.

Since the Day of Arafat and Hajj are acts of worship associated with specific places, all Masajids agree to follow the dates of Arafat and Eid al-Adha as observed in those places.

Council members suggested to post the above decision on each Masjid web site and to publish it as part of the brochure at a later date.