The Islamic Society of Boston hit by management turmoil following the resignation of its directors

“The result has been the departure of vital organizations, a decline in community engagement, and a reduction in fundraising,” the letter states. “Board meetings have become hostile and transparency has deteriorated. »

The current chairman of the board of trustees, Dr. Mir Shuttari, has downplayed tensions at the mosque, saying it is prosperous and has a solid financial foundation. He also offered an olive branch to board dissidents.

“We are willing to sit down and work things out,” he said.

The Islamic Society of Boston oversees two mosques: one in Cambridge, between Inman and Central squares, and one in Roxbury, located across the street from the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center. The Roxbury site, a structure that combines a traditional New England red brick exterior with a minaret and dome, is the region’s largest Islamic house of worship: about 1,500 worshipers attend its weekly prayer service on Friday, according to the organization’s website.

Shuttari, president of the seven members of the BSI board, said the friction was based on budgetary conflicts, that the trio of resigning board members wanted certain projects or initiatives to move forward quickly, while the rest of the board wanted financial stability to be the priority. Their goals, he said, “just didn’t align with the rest of the board.”

Shuttari said he was surprised by the resignation letter, adding that the suggestion that the BSI had strayed from Islamic principles was “a serious accusation”.

From his point of view, the mosque is flourishing. During a 25-minute telephone interview, he repeatedly stressed that the mosque was more financially stable than it once was, although he did not give concrete figures.

Kazmi and Ismail disagreed over Shuttari’s characterization of the breakup. It’s not about the budget, they said, but rather about the governance of the mosque. They said the mosque’s leadership had moved away from the Islamic principle of shura, which refers to collective decision-making.

“People feel like they have very little say in what happens,” Kazmi said in an interview in his Brookline office. “They feel disenfranchised.”

Ismail, a Medfield resident, said she resigned because she felt “almost hypocritical” to remain on the board if his presence could be seen as tacit approval of his decisions and directions.

“There’s a lot going on that I really don’t agree with,” she said.

Nichole Mossalam, former executive director of ISB Cambridge, said the current division of the ISB is the culmination of years of tensions. In recent years, she said, several imams, employees and members of the board of trustees, a separate committee of trustees, have resigned due to frustration with the mosque’s leadership. Additionally, Islamic organizations that have partnered with the mosque and in some cases used its space have either been forced to leave or asked to leave in recent years, including an Islamic school, an Islamic funeral services agency, and an organization nonprofit that runs halal food pantries and a women’s shelter, she said.

“Despite attempts at mediation, many members of the (mosque) community have been driven out over the years,” Mossalam said.

Mossalam described the ongoing conflict at the mosque as sad and heartbreaking.

“It’s a tragedy,” she said. “This mosque is the beating heart of our community.”

She added: “You have to understand something about the Muslim community, we are a very private community. The preference is always for mediation and resolution between us.”

For tensions to reach this point, she said, “everything has been exhausted before.”

Over the years, the mosque has been the subject of controversy. Its planning, development and construction was an arduous process that lasted more than two decades and was fraught with legal and financial challenges. The project, intended to become a spiritual home for the state’s burgeoning Muslim population, began in November 2002, after 10 years of planning. At the time, prayer space was so limited and overcrowded that worshipers at some area mosques were sometimes forced to kneel in parking lots, according to a previous Globe article. The mosque was not officially opened until more than six years later, in June 2009.

Before the recent resignations, any public friction involving the mosque was external, with the center for years rejecting accusations of links to terrorist extremism, dismissing the allegations as racist, Islamophobic and unfair.

Certainly, there were moments of unity. In 2019, Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders denounced white supremacy and expressed grief and horror during an emotional mosque prayer service, hours after an attack on two mosques in New Zealand killed at least 49 faithful.

Zareena Grewal, a professor of religious studies at Yale University in Connecticut, said that in many Muslim-majority countries, mosques act as “essentially a prayer space where people gather to perform ritual worship.” .

“In the United States, it serves many functions beyond that,” she said. It can be the place where people go to socialize, the host of Sunday school programs, or even weekend basketball games. It is crucial to ask a mosque to speak on behalf of a broader Muslim community.

“In this context, it is very important to know who is the boss of the mosque,” ​​she said.

EIB, she said, serves a very heterogeneous community in terms of the racial, ethnic and class demographics of its congregation.

“Just because they pray next to each other doesn’t mean they understand each other,” she said.

Indeed, according to Mossalam, former executive director of the Cambridge ISB, part of the tensions at the mosque depend on race. In recent years, Mossalam said a handful of black worshipers contacted her to mediate a discussion with some board members about perceived racial bias in the mosque’s leadership. Some black churchgoers feel like their voices aren’t heard, she said. The mosque is located on Malcolm X Boulevard in Roxbury, historically the heart of Black Boston.

Said Ahmed, who worships at the mosque and lives nearby, said there is a disconnect between the board and Roxbury.

For Ahmed, who immigrated to Boston from Somalia at the age of 12, it is disappointing that there is not a single Black trustee on the board that currently oversees the mosque, and that too many Board members live outside of Boston.

“How do you run a facility in a place where 99% of the residents are black and you come from Walpole and Foxborough? » he said.

Shuttari, the board chairman, said BSI leadership will be sensitive to the need to reflect the community it serves when appointing new board members. There will be a continued focus on appointing African Americans to leadership positions within the mosque, he said.

Jeremiah Manion of Globe staff contributed to this report.

Danny McDonald can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.