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Islamic Awareness Center

The Islamic Awareness Center, also known as Masjid Al-Tawheed, is a mosque and Dawah institution for the purpose of Islamic propagation in Binghamton, New York. Since 2011, the Islamic Awareness Center has been located in the historic former building of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. In 2010, after the Good Shepherd congregation left the Episcopal Church as part of the Anglican realignment and lost a lawsuit to keep its property, the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York controversially sold the building for far less than its appraised value to the Islamic Awareness Center rather than to the departing Anglican congregation.

History of the building
The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd was one of three Episcopal churches in Binghamton, NY alongside Trinity Memorial Church and Christ Church. Designed by Henry Martyn Congdon, a prolific architect of Episcopal churches, Good Shepherd was completed in 1871. Anglican realignment In the early 2000s, Good Shepherd's clergy and several of its members objected to theological liberalism and the ordination of gay clergy in the Episcopal Church. As part of the broader Anglican realignment, Good Shepherd in November 2007 voted to withdraw from the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York and affiliate with the Anglican Church of Kenya. The rector and his wife, the Rev. Matthew Kennedy and the Rev. Anne Kennedy, voluntarily renounced their orders in the Episcopal Church in December 2007, and the congregation began negotiations with the diocese over ownership of the property, of up to $250,000 for the church and rectory and up to $150,000 for the church. However, in April 2008, the diocese sued the congregation seeking an injunction ordering it to hand over the church property. A year later, in February 2010, the Diocese of Central New York sold the church to the Islamic Awareness Center, The purchase price was $50,000, just one-third of what had been offered by the departing congregation and far less than the assessed value of $386,400. ==Architecture==
Architecture
Good Shepherd was designed in a Gothic Revival style with an aisle on the church's liturgical south side separated by a row of Gothic arches. As part of the conversion from a church to a mosque, the cross was removed from the steeple and the traditional Episcopalian red doors were repainted green. Replaced by carpets for prayer, the pews were removed and donated. ==Services==
Services
The Islamic Awareness Center offers prayer five times daily for a congregation that included about 146 families as of 2019. The IAC also provides after-school activities, Islamic Sunday school, Arabic classes and book clubs. In 2019, the Islamic Awareness Center hosted an open house as part of a tour of houses of worship in Binghamton. ==References==
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