San Francisco Muslim Community Center
4760 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94117
phone: (415) 337-1019
web: http://www.sanfranciscomuslimcommunitycenter.org
SFMCC
Street View
The Story of San Francisco Muslim Community Center

         The San Francisco Muslim Community Center (SFMCC) was founded in the mid 1950s as part of the Lost and Found Nation of Islam in America. It is located in the center of a residential area of San Francisco's Outer Mission (Excelsior) district. It began as a community center based in San Francisco rather than a mosque and thus was founded as the San Francisco Muslim Community Center.  The population surrounding the SFMCC consists of mostly Latinos and Chinese.  Since SFMCC is located on Mission St, it finds itself surrounded by a very busy commercial area with a lot of pedestrian traffic.  There are many convenient stores, restaurants, and office buildings around the SFMCC.  The building utilized was once the “Bienvenidos” children’s center.  The mosque was formed out of the community and had no particular person who could be considered responsible for the founding of the mosque (the community as a whole established it).  The mosque’s Imam is Abu Qadir Al-Amin and its treasurer is Menelik.  Both of these outstanding individuals made the interview possible and assisted our group in the research project. Menelik is also in charge of the renovation and the recent move to the new location on Mission St (which we visited and obtained pictures of).  He has been with the SFMCC for approximately eight years now.  The population of the SFMCC consists of local African American Muslim Converts.  More specifically, the demographic of SFMCC consist of primarily African American Muslim converts numbering approximately one hundred individuals, but also include some Pakistani and Fijian individuals who participate in Friday’s prayers.  The SFMCC offers prayers and recitation of the Holy Qur’an to its participants.

Eid al-Fitr       The San Francisco Muslim Community Center is affiliated with the Berkeley Masjid mosque.  During large events, for instance, such as Eid and Ramadan, the SFMCC goes to the Berkeley Masjid mosque.  The Berkeley Masjid mosque hosts a large population of African American Muslims and thus majority of large events such as the Ramadan Aftaar party are held in Berkeley.  The SFMCC is involved with the local communities by distributing food every Sunday to feed homeless people located in the Mission District of San Francisco. In addition, the SFMCC distributes Qur’an and Islamabad brochures every Friday and anybody can get those and learn about Islam.  While SFMCC hasn’t published extensive materials, they have published brochures that contain information regarding Islam, and subjects such as “rights of women in Islam” and “the concept of Jihad in Islam”.  Unfortunately due to the Imam’s busy schedule, our group was unable to get a hold of any documents from him.  There are a few websites that contain information on the demographics along with the history of the SFMCC.  The Salatomatic database describes the SFMCC as a predominantly African American Sunni Mosque.  A blogger named Zuhair visited SFMCC as part of a 30 Mosques in 30 Nights campaign.  Foursquare, the social location service, lists over 60 check-ins for SFMCC.


        While the SFMCC has not been involved in any important legal cases, they have reached important milestones.  As our interviewee mentions, it is very interesting to know that in an area like the Mission District, where crime rates are typically high due to poverty, this mosque has never faced any hate crimes or discrimination.  This highlights the importance of community-- after all SFMCC is a community outreach organization and was founded as a community center. 
     The SFMCC was able to reach an important milestone by purchasing the upper floor of the building.  With the purchase of the upper floor of the building, the SFMCC is now renovating the upper floor to host large events.  This purchase by the SFMCC was made possible by donations from Muslim Mosques of the Bay Area who knew that SFMCC needed more space and a renovation.  We asked Menelik about the SFMCC's future plans.  He stated that they wanted to purchase the rest of the building to have a secure location.  He mentioned that you might not be aware of when you will have some issue with a landlord and the last thing you want is to be forced to abandon your location, as the SFMCC did previously. Ownership of the building is a very important step in setting the foundation for a vibrant community and religious center-- and establishing permanence in the culture of the neighborhood.
     In addition, they want to open up some bazaar style shopping outlets near the street.  After our visits, conversations, and group pictures, we were glad that we were able to conduct this research and meet these unique individuals and hear their stories.
San Francisco Muslim Community Center Renovations
See below for a video about the relocation of San Francisco Muslim Community Center to its new location. After a big corporation bought out the old location, San Francisco Muslim Community Center moved to the Excelsior district. The video shows the efforts to revive and reorganize San Francisco Muslim Community Center by its members.
If anyone is interested in the San Francisco Muslim Community Center, reach them online with the following:
Web Page , Facebook , Vimeo , Yelp