Construction of the New Mosque

As the community grew, the existing centre at Ducie Street was no longer able to meet the needs of the members. At the same time the site was not big enough for redevelopment. Therefore the Society had to look for another block of land to build a new mosque.
The Society purchased a block of land at 219 Douglas Street, Oxley and immediately started planning for the construction of a new mosque. The cost of the project was estimated to be around $1.5m. To raise this money was no mean task considering that the overall population of the Muslim community in Brisbane in the 1990s was very small.
At a General Meeting in April, 1999 the members, at the suggestion of the newly elected President (Mohammed Yusuf), it was decided to build the mosque as “owner builders” in stages as funds became available.

The Old Darra Mosque/Centre at Ducie Street

Members of the Mosque Project Committee

The Mosque Project Committee decided to build the mosque in stages as funds became available. The committee met regularly to work out strategies and a group of volunteers worked tirelessly to implement them. At this stage the society had only about $8,000 in cash and had a debt of about $50,000 to repay.

A concerted effort was made to collect about $40,000 to pay off the debts and a further $35,000 to pour the slab for the ground floor. This was achieved within three months and in July 1999 the ground floor slab was laid.

Once this was completed, construction work began in earnest with our volunteers doing as much as possible, generally over the weekends and what we could not do ourselves was contracted out. Simultaneously a team of volunteers were door-knocking for donations to ensure that sufficient funds were available for the work to continue unhindered.

A lot of brothers volunteered their time, skill and equipment during the construction stage. Many sisters also worked hard in providing breakfast, lunch and refreshments.

Construction Stages of the New Mosque

The mosque was completed in October 2003 at a cost of about $1.4m. About 70% of this cost was collected in cash and in kind from the community in Brisbane, whist the remainder came from donors from other parts of Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Canada, USA and RABITAH in Saudi Arabia.

Celebration to mark the completion of the New Mosque

A large number of members of the Muslim community attended the function on 7^th December 2003 to celebrate the opening of the New Mosque. The Guest of Honour was the Premier of Queensland, Hon. Peter Beattie.  Other dignitaries included the Leader of the Opposition, Lawrence Springborg, State Member for Inala, Mr Palaszczuk, Lord Mayor Tim Quinn, President of AFIC, Dr Ameer Ali and Commissioner of Police, Mr Robert Atkinson.