March 9, 2010 News

Concordia to stop paying for prayer space

$15,600 annual bill for 800 Muslim students too high for university

by Justin Giovannetti

Eduardo Alves Dos Anjos prays on the seventh floor of the Hall building. Up to 100 people pray in the space simultaneously. PHOTO RILEY SPARKS

After more than two decades of paying for Muslim prayer space at Sir George Williams campus, Concordia University says that it can no longer foot the bill.

Along with providing prayer space on the Hall building’s seventh floor, Concordia has been paying $15,600 a year to rent a room at the Masonic Hall at Sherbrooke Street West and St. Marc Street for the Friday congregational prayer. Nearly 800 students attend the prayer.
“The university has done its best to provide them with space for a number of years, going back to the ‘80s, but the sheer number of people has kept growing,” said Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota. “We’ve gotten to the point where financially we can’t do this any longer.”

Concordia’s Muslim Student Association said if the funding is cut, they will file a public grievance.

“If they do stop providing that space we might file with the [provincial] human rights commission or the Quebec court as they are legally bound by their contract,” said Adbulallah Husen, the MSA’s president.

Husen said that a decade-old contract with the university stipulated that space would be provided for all Muslim students to pray on Fridays. In September 2009, the MSA was given a one-year notice that the university would stop paying for the space.

“It is definitely within the financial capacity of the university to provide this,” Husen said. “It makes no sense that the university would stop accommodating Muslims and push that responsibility on the MSA.”

Although Husen claimed that Concordia had told him the contract was outdated and invalid, the university said the allotted prayer space was only a temporary measure.

“We would like to accommodate them on campus but we just don’t have the space,” said Mota. “The university decided for a short period of time that we would rent space downtown, with the understanding that this was a transitory solution until they organized themselves on a permanent basis.”

Husen said that the MSA did not have the financial or human resources to maintain a prayer space for the university’s Muslim population. Because his organization had yet to recognize the university’s “breach of contract,” he has not begun to look at other options.
No other religious group on campus has asked for similar space.

The prayer space in the Hall building was built to serve only 100 practitioners at a time, leading to cramped conditions.

“During Ramadan we pray there every night,” said Concordia Student Union VP External Aoub Muntasar. “When the room is full it is beyond sweaty, it is nasty.”

The Friday sermon could not be held in shifts at the space, Husen said, as there would not be enough time and it could represent a fire hazard.

“The university is playing footsie with the MSA,” concluded Muntasar.