Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware’s Muslim population has steadily grown over the past few decades and now numbers about 7,000 people. As that community has grown, its visibility in the community has grown as well, opening mosques and schools in the state.
For 30 nights in March, everyone gathered. No matter the occupation, schedule or occasion — everyone convened.
The Masjid Ibrahim, a mosque in Newark, would often overflow with people assembling for nightly prayers during the holy month of Ramadan in March. It brought hundreds of Muslims together in Delaware, with many breaking the day’s fast side by side.
Also for many, thoughts were on fellow Muslims facing wartime violence in Palestine and other humanitarian crises in Lebanon and Sudan. During Eid al-Fitr on Sunday, which celebrated the end of Ramadan, a man waved a Palestinian flag near the front of the morning prayer.
“Yes, we do celebrate, but there is a sense of sadness over what is happening,” said Abdelhadi Shehata, imam and religious director of the Islamic Society of Delaware.
Zumana Noor, who helps coordinate and lead ISD youth events, said Ramadan is a beautiful thing, saying it is “really about what it means to be a Muslim and be a part of the community.”
The sense of community is exacerbated during moments of prayer when people who may not know each other are “standing shoulder-to-shoulder, foot-to-foot,” said Zahra Ali, an ISD youth board member.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is considered one of the holiest months of the year for Muslims. The month commemorates the revealing of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad and is observed, in part, by fasting from sunrise to sunset.
It’s a month that members of the Islamic Society of Delaware have commemorated together since the organization was founded with a few dozen worshipers in 1977.
Over the subsequent decades, Delaware became home to thousands of more Muslims, who come from 70 different nationalities. With that growth, the Islamic Society of Delaware expanded from a standalone structure in Newark to a sprawling campus with locations in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
It also has plans to open a Middletown mosque by the end of the year.
“It is the heart and soul of the Muslim community in Delaware,” Shehata said.
The organization also runs a full-time Islamic school – the Islamic Academy of Delaware – which itself expanded last fall, into a new, two-story building in Newark.
And the community is not done growing.
In 2020, there were over 7,000 Muslims in Delaware, accounting for about 0.7% of the state’s population, according to World Population Review.
Moustafa Hassan, president of the Islamic Society of Delaware, said his community has been growing rapidly since then, with many Muslims moving into Delaware from New York, Maryland and New Jersey, following the COVID pandemic.
“You see a lot of new faces every day,” Hassan said.
Thousands celebrate Eid al-Fitr in Delaware
On Sunday, thousands of people gathered in Newark to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Muslims stood, bowed and prostrated beneath large, white tents as the celebration began with a morning prayer.
The joyous holiday is typically celebrated amongst the community with family visits, feasts and new clothes.
But, for many, Sunday’s celebration held a sense of sadness over the celebratory mood. Dire humanitarian situations in Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have encouraged local Muslims to aid the international Muslim community, according to Noor.
“This month has really taught us a lot more about what it really means to be Muslim and standing firm in our beliefs,” Noor said.
The holiday is also the second Eid al-Fitr that’s been celebrated since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and the first since Israel broke a mid-January ceasefire last month with a bombing campaign that the Associated Press said “turned into one of the deadliest days in the 17-month war.”
In Palestine, Sunday was labeled as the “Eid of sadness” following the Israeli airstrikes and after Israel denied food or humanitarian shipments to enter Gaza for a month.
This latest conflict in the Middle East region was sparked after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of roughly 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of an additional 251 people. Israel’s military campaign has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
“We are grieving as a community over what is happening in Palestine,” Shehata said. “We are against aggression, oppression, regardless of who’s doing it.”
The joyous, and at points somber, holiday convened Delaware’s sprawling Muslim community during a time of international war, violence and humanitarian crises. The international afflictions toward Muslims worldwide have spurred Delaware’s community to fundraise locally — further uniting the community during the end of the holy month of Ramadan.