Al Falah Center was established in November 2010 by a group of community members to serve the needs of the growing Muslim community in Bridgewater and to play a positive role in the wider faith community. In 2011, Al Falah made an application to the Township to build a mosque and community center at the site of a former Redwood Inn located in a residential area. The application conformed to all existing laws and zoning codes in Bridgewater, where houses of worship were permitted in residential areas. Al Falah completed all the necessary traffic studies and our engineers met with the Township’s Engineer, Traffic Consultant, and Fire Official to review the application.

At the first scheduled public hearing before the Town’s Planning Board to consider a simple application that did not even need a variance, hundreds of protestors stormed the meeting in response to an Islamophobic campaign within and outside of Bridgewater. The crowd forced an adjournment of the hearing because attendance exceeded the room capacity. Pressured by the Islamophobic vocal opposition, the Township rushed to propose a change in the zoning ordinance, which would significantly limit the permitted sites for a house of worship.. Furthermore, this change was being fast-tracked ahead of a statute, effective May 5, 2011, that would expressly prohibit such zoning changes on already-submitted applications. Whereas these types of changes usually take years, the township fast tracked them within a few weeks to impede the Al Falah Center application. At several ensuing town council meetings, members of the Muslim community faced public harassment by opposers, but also found broad support from the wider community, including Jewish and Christian leaders and civil rights activists.