By Daniel Harper
It’s been a little over a year since the old tax office in a South Wales market town was converted into a mosque. The once-derelict building now offers a space for Muslims across Pembrokeshire with more people turning up for services than ever before.
Haverfordwest Central Mosque is only the second official Muslim place of worship in Pembrokeshire. For the previous 25 years the only sacred place for Muslims in the town was a shared upstairs prayer room above an Indian restaurant. That had 30 people in one room. Before that Muslims would have to travel 60 miles to Swansea. The new mosque attracts up to 200.
The Islamic community grew in Haverfordwest with the expansion of Withybush Hospital, which employs many staff from overseas, as well as international students attending Pembrokeshire College and — in recent years — the boom in Turkish barber shops.
With more Muslims moving into the county, there was a greater need for a more suitable place of worship. “I remember having to pray on the stairs because it was so full,” said Abul Hossein, 48, owner of the Indian restaurant whose father set up the prayer room.
During Covid lockdowns the prayer room had to shut, leaving the Islamic community no place of worship. It was this that inspired Mustafa Yunis, 45, the mosque’s volunteer imam, to raise funds for a new and much bigger place of worship.
Imam Yunis set up a fundraiser to buy the old tax office from Pembrokeshire county council, making an animation video that went viral, using children’s voices to tell the story of the town’s Muslim community.
“Small donations started coming in from all sorts of places,” Mustafa recounted. “Ten pounds from Cornwall, Plymouth, Scotland, Newcastle, all over Wales, America, from all kinds of backgrounds, Christian, Buddhist and non-religious. It was a phenomenal thing to see.”
Today the mosque stands not just as a place of worship but as a community centre for the wider area, allowing a range of activities such as martial arts classes, a thriving youth club, daycare for toddlers, a space for women to meet, and English classes for refugees who have settled in Wales.
Sajida Madni, 43, a trustee and one of the driving forces behind the new mosque, has been working closely with Imam Yunis volunteering her time to seeing its upkeep. “We’re overwhelmed with how successful it’s become,” Mrs Madni said. “We used to have 30-40 people worshipping regularly in the flat above the restaurant, now we have 200 people coming for Friday prayers or 300 coming for Eid. It has been a blessing.”
Although the Muslim population in Pembrokeshire sits at a little under 600, many come from across the UK to flock to the “seaside county” and its new mosque. With so many teenagers coming to the youth club from neighbouring towns, the mosque needs more volunteers to cope with them.
Both Imam Yunis and Mrs Madni have been in Pembrokeshire for more than a decade after moving with their families from Birmingham. “I fell in love with this place, and then one year turned to 10,” she said.
Imam Yunis has his own explanation as to why so many Muslims flock to Pembrokeshire: “I find the most incredible way to remember God is to walk through nature and look at the birds and the sea and the sky and there’s no place like Pembrokeshire for that.
“It’s an incredibly spiritual place. I guess that’s why it’s always been a place of pilgrimage. We have St David’s Cathedral, and the material of Stonehenge is from Pembrokeshire. Every year the tourists come down to the beaches like a pilgrimage also.”
After a little over a year the mosque has exceeded the expectations and brought a spiritual cohesiveness to the Muslim community within the county, raising a new generation of worshippers who have learnt within a space that is theirs.
“There’s a saying” Mr Hossein said, “that if you go to the mosque and you don’t hear children being mischievous, it means there’s no next generation to go there. So, we encourage families to come.”
The future seems optimistic for Pembrokeshire’s Islamic community and the larger community, with plans to open enterprises run by refugees, more youth-based learning centres, and tuition spaces.
“This is just the beginning,” Imam Yunis exclaimed, “It’s only early days and people still aren’t familiar with what a mosque is. We want people to realise we are doing good work, are safe and welcoming. The vision is long, but in 12 to 14 months we’ve achieved so much.”
