THAI MOSQUE A DREAM COME TRUE

Phuket, 14 Syawal 1434/21 Agustus 2013 (MINA) – The Muslim community in Phuket Island in south-west coast of Thailand will soon inaugurate their mosque to serve an increasing Muslim minority.

“I would estimate that about 30% of the people living in the area around the mosque are Muslim,” Imam Kitti Islam, deputy chairman of the Phuket Provincial Islamic Council, OnIslam quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

“Many of them have contributed generously to help make the mosque project become reality.”

Getting the government approval, the mosque dream started thirty years ago in Phuket.

Yet, the funding has held Muslims back from constructing Al Madinah mosque, named after the holy city in Saudi Arabia.

Thanks to funding from benefactors in Brunei, work started in October with a budget of Bt. 18m ($574,400) and is expected to be completed in November.

“This is government land, but they have allowed us to build our mosque here,” imam Kitti said.

“We set up a mosque committee to oversee contributions from community members to fund the construction, and we are grateful to some of our generous sponsors that included Bt. 10m ($319,300) from the Royal Family of Brunei and Abdul Aziz Latif.”

The new mosque is being constructed on the outskirts of the Saphan Ruam Community on the gritty east side of Phuket Town.

This area has changed dramatically over the past three decades with more Muslims relocating in the district.

“There was once an Islamic community living on public land in the Poon Pon area in downtown Phuket Town, but the tessaban (Phuket City Municipality) needed the land to build a new municipal school to meet the needs of the city’s rapidly growing population,” said Kitti.

“The members of the community at the time agreed to move to this location.

“There are a lot of Indonesian fishermen living in the area, as well as Burmese and local villagers who work in the local fishing industry. Sometimes they stay here for three months at a time when their ship is in port. Some have married Thais and settled in the area,” he added.

Being deprived of a mosque did not prevent the Muslim community from establishing an Islamic school to offer Islamic teaching to their children. “Six teachers, including myself, take turns leading instruction to some 150 children, who range in age from primary year 1 (age 6) to secondary school,” said Pornchai Matusot Abdullah, a civil servant originally from Krabi who teaches Islam and English on the weekends.

“We also teach languages – Malay, Arab and Qur’an reading, and English.”

The school has filled an important void the Phuket Muslims. “I study English and Malay here on Saturdays and Sundays,” Sufee Lamai, a 10-year-old student at the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization’s Ban Taladneua School.

“When I grow up I want to open my own roti restaurant.”

Her classmate, 12-year-old Tanitta ‘Yubaida’ Techaniyom, is in her first year at Satree Phuket School, widely regarded as one of the island’s best secondary schools. “I come here to study how to read the Qur’an in Arabic,” she said.

“I would like to be a pharmacist when I get older so that I can help people who are suffering.”

Thailand has a Muslim population of about 9.5 million, many of whom live in rural areas.

Thai Muslims, who make up five percent of the predominantly Buddhist kingdom’s population, have long complained of discrimination under the heavy-handed practices by the military.

They have also called for Malay to become an official language and to replace the Buddhist-centric school curriculum with one less hostile to Muslim sensitivities. More than 5,000 people have been killed in south Thailand since violence erupted almost nine years ago. (T/P013)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)