Brick Lane Mosque or Brick Lane Jamme Masjid ( Arabic: جامع مسجد بريك لين "Brick Lane Congregational Mosque"), formerly known as the London Jamme Masjid (جامع مسجد لندن "London Congregational Mosque"), is a Muslim place of worship in Central London and is in the East End of London.
The building at 59 Brick Lane, on the corner of Fournier Street, has been home to a succession of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim[a] communities since its construction in the mid-eighteenth century, reflecting the waves of immigration in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields. The former Great Synagogue is a Grade II* listed building;[2] the adjacent former school buildings (now used as an ancillary building to the mosque) is listed Grade II.[3]
The mosque can hold up to 3,200 (including 200 women)[1][4] and is most crowded during the jummah prayers on Friday.[5] All sermons are delivered in English, Arabic and Bengali. The mosque follows the traditions of Sunni Islam.[1] The mosque has close links with the Bangladesh Welfare Association, which addresses social and community needs.[6][7]Arabic and mother tongue classes are available for children on the top floors.
In 1809 it became a Wesleyan chapel, known as The Jews' Chapel, rented by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, an organisation now known as the Church's Ministry Among Jewish People, but this phase of its history lasted only 10 years. From 1819, the building became a Methodist chapel.[10]
Jewish
In 1891, the building was adopted by yet another community: it became the Machzike Hadath, the Spitalfields Great Synagogue. During this time (see History of the Jews in England), the area was home to many Jewish refugees from Russia and Central Europe.[11] From the 1880s through the early part of the 20th century, massive pogroms and the May Laws in Russia caused many Jews to flee the Pale of Settlement. Of the East European Jewish emigrants, 140 000 settled in Britain.[12]
During the 1970s, the area of Spitalfields and Brick Lane was populated mainly by Bangladeshis who had come to Britain from the Sylhet region looking for better work. Many found work in factories and the textile trade. That growing community required a place of worship, and the building at 59 Brick Lane was bought and refurbished. In 1976, it reopened as a mosque, the London Jamme Masjid. Today, although it has been renamed, it still serves the Bangladeshi community as a mosque.[5]