Islamic community at odds over post

Imam Talal Eid, well known for his interfaith work and for speaking out against terrorism, lost a legal bid yesterday to win back his longtime job as religious director of the 1,500-member Islamic Center of New England.

The struggle at the center, which has mosques in Quincy and Sharon and members from two dozen countries, has divided one of the largest Islamic communities in New England.

Eid resigned, effective June 30, after a dispute over duties with a newly elected board of directors. He later changed his mind and, after the board refused to rehire him, sued in Norfolk Superior Court on the day his resignation took effect. That lawsuit was dismissed yesterday.

Eid, reached while on vacation in Lebanon earlier in the week, had said he wanted the court to let the center's members decide whether he should stay or go. Eid's backers said the board has treated the imam shabbily after all he has done for the center in his 23 years there and in promoting an understanding of Islam. Eid worked at the Quincy mosque, which was built in 1964.

Mohiuddin Khan, president of the board, was just as adamant that Eid not return as religious director.

''He changed his mind, and we did not," Khan said this week. He said the board clashed with Eid over which imam would lead services on which days.

Some center members also said Eid had been spending too much time on outside activities -- he also has served as a chaplain at area hospitals and officiated at weddings and funerals -- and not enough on religious education at the mosque or on services.

''This is an employee-employer issue," said Khan. ''It has nothing to do with anything else." A search committee is ready to recommend someone for Eid's job, he said.

Internal disputes within religious congregations usually attract little attention, but Eid has a reputation in the Greater Boston religious community and has spoken frequently at churches, synagogues, and civic organizations about interfaith issues. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he denounced the terrorists.

The controversy hit a new level Aug. 5 when Javaid Aziz, one of Eid's backers, was quoted in the Sharon Advocate as saying there was a ''movement of fundamentalism" within the center. As evidence, he said, the Sharon mosque had stopped flying the American flag from a flagpole outside.

Interviewed later by the Globe, Aziz said he meant the new board was much more rigid in ideology. For example, he said, there was more pressure for women to wear a ''hijab," or headscarf.

But some center members said the term fundamentalist could be interpreted to mean the new leaders were terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. It was an emotional, explosive accusation in the tense, post-Sept. 11 climate.

Some members of the center said they were infuriated that their patriotism had been questioned and felt discouraged that such an accusation could be made after they had worked so hard to make other Americans understand they are not terrorists. They said they had spent decades building careers and raising children. They also denied that the mosque's ideology had changed.

''I've lived here for 40-something years," said Alae-eldin Sayed, 80, who emigrated from Egypt. ''We are American and are proud to be American. These people want to smear our reputations, and they should fail. . . . For Muslims to do this to other Muslims is a tragedy."

Other members, standing amid a crowd of youths in Red Sox T-shirts and women in headscarves, stood outside the mosque and pointed to the American flag, which was flying high.

The flag came down in the spring only because it was tattered and needed to be replaced, said Nabeel Khudairi, a longtime mosque member. While being taken down, it got stuck, and the Sharon Fire Department was called in, a call the department confirmed. The hardware for the new flag didn't match, and it took a little while to fix, Khudairi said. The flag was finally raised by mosque Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, said Khudairi, who is Cub scoutmaster.

Members of Interfaith Action Inc., a Sharon-based interdenominational group, also disputed the fundamentalist allegations. In a letter to the Sharon Advocate, the group of imams, rabbis, and Catholic and Protestant clergy said, ''We find these accusations dangerous and offensive . . . and we do not believe there is any material evidence to support these statements."

David Blocker, a member of the Interfaith Action board, said after the article ran: ''People were asking, 'Are there radicals taking over?' We felt it was necessary to respond by encouraging people not to necessarily believe what they read, but to see for themselves."

Members of the board paint the dispute with Eid as a more prosaic disagreement about who is in charge: the board or Eid. He clashed with the new board of directors shortly after the panel was elected in November. The previous board had switched Eid to the Sharon mosque for one day a week, on Sundays, starting that fall. Hafiz M. Masood, the imam in Sharon, went to Quincy.

In January, the new board said it ended the arrangement because of complaints from members of the Sharon mosque who wanted Masood back. Eid objected and asked for an arbitrator, and the board refused. Eid submitted his resignation letter Jan. 12, to be effective June 30. In mid-June, Eid wrote to the board, attempting to rescind the resignation, and filed suit soon after.

His backers insist that whether Eid stays or goes should be up to the general membership.

The controversy has been hard on Eid, said Salim Marhamo, a friend of the imam's.

The week of Eid's resignation ''was maybe the saddest week of his life," Marhamo said.

''He felt humiliated. He remembered the bad days in Lebanon when if you opened your mouth you would get killed or thrown in jail."

The Islamic Council of New England, an umbrella organization of about 15 Islamic centers, tried but failed to resolve the impasse.

Matt Carroll can be reached at mcarroll@globe.com.