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Black
Stone Books was opened on Eid-ul-Adha 1422 (February
2002).
'Black Stone' as it has come to be known locally,
is next-door-but-one to the Central Mosque.
Background
Swansea has been in dire need of such a bookshop
for many years. We have found from experience
that despite a widespread lack of knowledge about
Islam amongst the non-Muslim community, interest
in gaining a better understanding of the Islamic
way of life has been hampered by the lack of a
permanent place where information can be sought.
A mosque, although one might think the logical
first place to visit, is in fact quite a forbidding
and intimidating place to visit if a person has
no idea what to expect, or how the people inside
will receive them. A bookshop and resource centre
which opens out onto a major road with lots of
pedestrian, as well as vehicular traffic, is considered
is must for any Muslim community in the UK which
wishes to bridge the chasm of mistrust and misunderstanding
which exists between them and their non-Muslim
neighbours.
Concept and Function
The choice of name may seem strange, but
it was chosen deliberately, and not because all
the good ones had already been taken. The name
(the English translation of the Arabic: 'Al-Hajar
Al-Aswad') was selected because it identifies
the building as Islamic for Muslims, and yet the
name appears neutral to non-Muslims. This is not
to deceive unwitting customers about to true nature
of the shop which the window displays make all
too clear. We simply did not want to taken on
a name that marked out the store as 'Arabic' or
'Asian', which it is not. Neither did we want
to include the word 'Islamic' in the title as
this, unfortunately, can intimidate individuals
from entering. The whole point of having a store,
rather than simply selling products through mail
order or on-line, is so individuals can actually
come in and interact with a human being. Anything
that acts as a barrier to people entering, actually
defeats the whole object of cross-faith interaction.
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