British Muslims Lead Effort To Turn Abandoned Church Into An Interfaith Community Center

British Muslims Lead Effort To Restore An Abandoned Church
'The church tower and clock at Bolton parish church, Lancashire.'
'The church tower and clock at Bolton parish church, Lancashire.'

Inayat Omarji vividly remembers the worried reaction when he first looked into renovating the abandoned church in his neighborhood: "There's a bearded young Muslim chap involved in a church! Whoops! He's gonna turn it into a mosque!"

At the time, Omarji was head of the local council of mosques, but there already were three or four in his neighborhood in Bolton, England.

"What it needed is a place where people could meet, people can come to, people can socialize," he says.

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