RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Muslims at Shaw University are fighting a plan that could make a weight room or an office out of the campus mosque built when a Saudi Arabian king gave the historically black school $1 million.
School officials say university president Talbert Shaw has recommended closing the mosque because of a lack of space on campus. He did not return repeated calls and e-mail messages seeking comment.
Ihsan Bagby, a professor of international relations at the school and the mosque's prayer leader, told Muslims assembled for worship last week that he considered the proposal a sign that the university no longer welcomes them on campus.
"My feeling is that this is not just a logistical question of space," said Bagby. "It's a deeper problem of certain Christians that do not want to see the presence of another religion."
The mosque was built after King Khalid of Saudi Arabia made the million-dollar donation to the university in 1983. The gift was arranged through Urabi Mustafa, a professor who founded the university's International and Islamic Studies Center and served as an official with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Mustafa helped recruit a sizable Middle Eastern student population to campus and, beginning in 1973, the university began receiving Arab money. In 1981, the Saudi royal family paid for the International Studies Building, which included a mosque on the second floor.
The university no longer attracts as many Middle Eastern students — its roughly 100 Muslim students are mostly West Africans and U.S. converts.