The Bay View Islamic Unity Center is not very well known. It was established less than 20 years ago and has not had the financial means to produce its own material or increase its own publicity online for that matter. Moreover, the mosque still isn’t featured on Yelp, further showing the lack of available resources for the mosque. It is not even recognized by Google to the point that a different 'Unity Center' is enlarged on the Google search page in its place. The only proper links regarding this mosque are from "mosque review" sites that only offer simple 'basics' of the mosque yet do not provide the whole picture. These basics include the mosque's denomination, demographics, prayers, and services. However, these reviews fail to acknowledge the narrative of the mosque. The Bay View Islamic Unity Center is a symbol of faith for the Muslim community in an economically depressed neighborhood. It seeks to preserve the Islamic traditions, provide a welcoming place for all practicing Muslims, and uphold a sense of community for the coming generations.
Zuhair Sadaat was a former UC Berkeley student who set out to explore 30 different mosques in 30 days during Ramadan. One of the mosques he visited happened to be the mosque we are assigned to: The Bay View Islamic Unity Center. We have shared his blog on his experience with the mosque below. After reading his blog, we sincerely feel that we share many of the same sentiments as him regarding the Center. Although this mosque is set in an economically depressed neighborhood, Zuhair recalls that the mosque looked "festive and welcoming from the outside. Bright lights illuminate a large banner, and while there were iron bars on the windows, the door was open, thus making the masjid seem welcoming." We hope that his review of the Islamic Center paired with our creation of this website will further highlight the Muslim Bay View community that has unfortunately been ignored and dismissed for so long. You can access Zuhair's review here.