Oct. 1994 Our Mosque Our Pride?

by Ahmed Abdel-Ghany

During April 1994, I did a preference I survey regarding the physical environment of Omar Ibn EI-Khattab Mosque. The main objective of the study was to test the reliability of certain elicitation methods used in eliciting and analyzing users' preferences; this was one of many objectives of my dissertation research project. First, I deeply thank all of the people who helped me accomplish this study. Their responses to the questionnaire were very useful and informative.

In the present article, I will show the reader a brief explanation of the questionnaire used in the study, some results of the study (pattern of users' preferences to the Mosque physical improvements), and recommendations for future planning projects.

The questionnaire consisted of two main questions. In the first question, respondents (30 • people) were shown thirteen statements depicting the physical condition of the mosque and its surrounding environment and they were asked to show their degree of agreement to the statement , e.g., The mosque surrounding streets are well paved:

• Agree strongly (AS)
• Agree (A)
• No Opinion (NO)
• Disagree (D) •
• Disagree strongly (DS)

The thirteen questions' centered around the topics of the physical condition of bathrooms, carpets, lighting of surrounding streets, paving of surrounding streets, parking area, internal walls, external facades, air conditioning, windows' curtains, and internal lighting. In the second question, a table of proposes elements of improvements (carpet replacement, bathroom repairing, upgrading of air conditioning, etc.) and their cost were shown to respondents, and they were asked to construct their preferred bundle subject to a given budget constraint. The cost of elements of improvements as well as the budget constraint were determined hypothetically.

There were two results of the study: (1) people and their perception of the severity of the physical environmental problems. (2) an aggregated and preferred project.

In brief, people found that source of dissatisfaction are: poor bathroom condition, bad lighting of the surrounding streets, bad paving of the surrounding streets, and a shortage of parking area during Friday prayer. The aggregated and preferred project includes carpet replacement, bath room repair, street paving improvements, street lighting improvements, and school building upgrades.
This study has shown a little bit of information about the Mosque users' preferences (because of the low number of respondents as well as the main objective of the study). However, I believe that this kind of survey must be done prior to any decisions concerning our Muslim community. People must participate in making decisions that affect themselves, their family, their children, and their community. Also, it is the responsibility of the MSA Executive Committee to have the public participate in making better decisions.

I am finishing this article with the recommendation of using some valuable participatory planning techniques for our future planning projects, one (or a combination of some) of them can be used:

• questionnaires
• public meetings
• workshops
• advisory committees
• public representation

The choice of the participatory planning technique as well as the proposed solution itself must get people consensus.