Welcome to the Islamic Cultural Center

The Islamic Cultural Center was established in 1999, more than 25 years ago, to fulfill the religious obligations of the West African Muslims in the county of the Bronx. This immigrant group only started coming here in significant numbers in the mid-eighties. Before we bought the center, we all used to pray in our homes, or in Guyanese, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Masjids if you lived close by any. There were very few Masjids in the Bronx.

We started getting concentrated in the Bronx in the late eighties and early nineties. By this time, we had a handful of elders with Islamic knowledge. These people started to organize Dhikr sessions to remind us of our Deen. If any one of us had a religious ceremony such as a naming ceremony, marriage ceremony or burial ceremony, or received a message of a loved one's death from back home, these individuals stood up and gathered the community to preside over the event.

As the community grew larger, we decided to get a center where we could fulfill all our religious and social obligations. We rented an apartment on the ground floor of a building on Jessup Avenue for a few years, which was called Masjid Deyau. A few years later, as the community kept growing, we decided to get a bigger place. Some of our brothers inspired us to buy a place that we could call our own. We found and bought an old building, which we renovated ourselves with the help of our whole community. At this time, the Islamic Cultural Center was born.