Mosque Generates Range of Opinion

It’s clear the Dar-E-Abbas issue — a rezoning request by the mosque to expand its facilities on Lawrenceville Highway at Hood Road — has generated opinion on both sides of the issue.

We collected some of those opinions after Monday’s Lilburn City Council meeting.

Here is what they said:

Angel Alonso, a Hood Road resident, has been one of the most vocal of opponents against the mosque.

-- “It is unjust. They [City Council] are going by what attorneys are saying and really not considering what the people are saying. I have 3,000 signatures from people of Lilburn who oppose the mosque.”

-- “It is not about religion. This is about the zoning laws on the books and we have to stick by them. Not about deals behind closed doors. The people of Lilburn will continue to speak.”

-- “If lawyers are running the city why do we need the Lilburn City Council?”

Hasan Mirza, a founding member of the Lilburn mosque, hopes that next week’s meeting (Tues, Aug 16) will resolve the issue.

-- “I have been in Gwinnett County for 22 years. Our community has been here 13 years peacefully practicing our religion.”

-- “Our community always has five or six kids in PHd programs in Emory, Georgia Tech, Georgia State. We have zero felons. We are a peaceful community.”

-- “We are beautifying the building. We are beautifying the city. Our arms are open. Our doors are open every Friday for worship. You don’t have to be our denomination, race, religion. The doors are open. We are here trying to do everything the way it supposed to be.”

Ray Pritchett has a deal to sell his land (around 2 ½ acres) if the mosque rezoning proposal is approved.

-- “No one else has offered to buy my place, I’ve had it for years. It’s my land. I’ve agreed to sell it. If I don’t sell it to them, I’ll sell it you.”

-- “I believed the issue is racially motivated. People have a lot of problems with Muslims. Are they violent? I don’t know. But they’ve been there for 12 years and I have never had a problem with them. People just assume there will be a problem.”

-- “[The opponents] justify it by saying it is noisy and will create traffic, but they have told me that they ‘just don’t like these people.’ I said, ‘How do you not like those people if you don’t know them?’”