Growing Turkish Community Plans Mosque

Faruk Gulseren has been working for over a year to help build a mosque in New Haven. When tragedy recently struck the local Turkish community, he found another reason to keep up his efforts.

Gulseren, who’s 33 and Turkish native, is the secretary of the Turkish American Religious Foundation, a group that formed one year ago. The 300-member organization is in the process of converting a crumbling apartment building on Weybosset Street in Quinnipiac Meadows into a new mosque for the area’s growing Turkish community.

Tragedy touched that community when a West Haven man, Selami Ozdemir, killed himself and his wife Shengyl Rasim in an apparent murder-suicide on Jan. 17. Ozdemir, who ran Whalley Avenue’s Pizza Empire, was one of many area Turkish pizzeria owners.

Gulseren is another. He runs Panaro’s pizza in Bridgeport.

Gulseren knew Ozdemir and his wife well, he said on Tuesday. Before the events of Jan. 17, Gulseren had been working hard to help the couple with their marital problems, he said.

His efforts failed. But the creation of a new mosque might help to address such problems in the future, Gulseren said.

The new mosque will serve as a religious and cultural center that will strengthen community bonds and help local Turkish immigrants to look after each other, he said. Then struggling couples and victims of domestic abuse will be able to find organized support.

On Tuesday morning Gulseren provided a tour of the vacant apartment building that will soon be a mosque. His organization’s plans found approval from the City Plan Commission at its monthly meeting last week. Gulseren said he needs to finalize a few details before they can get a building permit. After that, the building will be transformed in one year, he said

The building renovations are being funded by donations, he said. He declined to estimate how much it will cost.

On the first floor, plywood covers the building’s windows. Gulseren plugged in a lone ceiling bulb and unrolled some plans on a table.

The plans call for a complete renovation of the building, floor by floor. First, the ground floor will be converted into a temporary area for prayer. It will later become a lounge and function room. The second floor will hold offices and a small apartment for the mosque’s resident imam. The third floor will be a large prayer room.

Atop the building’s flat roof, there will be a large dome, with smaller domes on each corner. A minaret tower will be added to the west side of the building, with a handicapped-access elevator inside it.

Out in the hallway, Gulseren pointed out a picture of what the finished building will look like. A sign — written in Turkish — was taped to it, announcing that the City Plan commission had given its approval.

Help

Gulseren said he knew that Selami Ozdemir and his wife Shengyl Rasim were having difficulties. He visited Ozdemir at his pizzeria and talked to him for hours. He spent more hours on the phone with Rasim. He tried to mediate, he said. He tried to help them to separate. ​“I did as much as I could.”

Then came the murder-suicide. The family’s children were taken by the Department of Children and Families. Gulseren said he would come home to his three children and think about the Ozdemir kids. He went to DCF, but he wasn’t allowed to see the children, he said.

It’s only natural for members of the Turkish community to reach out to each other, Gulseren said. The creation of the mosque is an extension of that.

“That’s why we’re here. We’re trying to help people,” he said. Creating a mosque is about more than just bricks and mortar. ​“It’s not only buying a building and praying there.”

Building a mosque creates structures for helping members of the community, Gulseren said. It’s a way to build a network of support. Helping each other is one of the foundational teachings of Islam, Gulseren said.

Kids

Gulseren mentioned another factor motivating him. He said he wants his kids to carry on Turkish religious and cultural traditions. ​“They can learn their religion in here,” he said.

He said he hopes going to the mosque will teach his children good values, and keep them away from drugs. ​“I’m in this,” he said, ​“because I have three kids.”