As Muslim community is growing in Sherwood Park, a community center and worship place is increasingly becoming a important need for this community. It has been designated as a specialized municipality and there are many features that make it a great home for young families who are looking for community spirit. For many years, the community in Sherwood Park has been brainstorming about a project t
hat would be fitting for the community. We scoped out scores of acreages, looked at farmland, and dreamed about a place where we could have a unique center. Some of us even wanted to run a bed and breakfast to support an acreage mosque. We looked at rental possibilities, we looked at houses that could be converted into a masjid. So when we talked about what we wanted to see in our masjid, a few key points kept coming to the forefront again and again. Everyone mentioned lots of natural light. Everyone wanted to see a place of beauty, but they didn’t want to necessarily just replicate a typical masjid design. We wanted to have a place that was representative of Canadian Muslims here in Alberta, that was also in keeping with the principles of traditional understandings of beauty and harmony. We all wanted to ensure that there was equal access for women and children and the elderly. http://www.studiosenbel.com/ believes greatly collected consensus from the community and had everyone involved in the design process. It was a great learning experience for us working with him and we would have two day sessions with him, just going over what everyone wanted. It was hard at first – our opinions were really all over the place. Some of us wanted “bathrooms out of this world” and others wanted to build a masjid that looked like an igloo. But through this collaborative process, our own vision started to become clearer. Because we were focused on the next generation, who would have their roots here, we decided on a name that was reflective of the local community. If you drive through Sherwood Park, you might see the “Center in the Park” which is an urban development trying to create a sustainable local community, located near the county hall, offices, the library, shopping, groceries and everything needed for community life. One of our younger people came up with the name : “Masjid in the Park”. This appealed to all of us because of its connection with the Park-like nature of our community, but also for its alluding to a garden that we are all working for in Paradise. We decided to use the word “Masjid” instead of mosque, not necessarily because it is the Arabic word, but because strangely enough, the word “mosque” has connotations associated with it and images that we do not want to conjure up. The original word masjid, gives us a chance to share the real meaning of our place of gathering, - to make Sujood, to worship, to pray together.
