Building a mosque is infinitely more complex than any other building project you will ever undertake. No joke.

Brick laying, heating and lighting are easy but it’s the softer, peoples and processes side of the project never get factored in. No one really asks how decisions are to made and differences resolved. Firstly there is the generational conflict. It’s difficult to relinquish control especially when the old guard reflect on the struggle to get this far.

Hip youngsters ‘appoint’ specialists but what do they know of picking up doors from Sheffield in the back of someone’s van on a wet Sunday?

Conflict could arise over a seemingly trivial incident ‘Why are so many lights on?’ but ignoring other disasters like walls that have cost £800 to be knocked down and rebuilt.

The underlying reason is always the same – it’s hard to let go. Period. If it’s not bulbs it will be screws, gloves or nails.

Volunteers often don’t know who to follow and why. The imam, the project leader, the youth leader, the ex-President?

Are they helping because of rewards they get (heaven points) or are they too afraid to say no to someone or perhaps, fantastically, they associate themselves to the change that is promised?

The project leader has responsibility but none of the authority. Tracing real authority is an acquired skill – it could be with the committee, with a clique of elders, it could rest with the imam or in someone’s front room.

It could, ironically, rest with the big wig who has recently rebuilt his Masjid and who is now advising the imam who is pushing the committee who are looking over their shoulders to the elderly clique whilst shoving tasks to the project leader.

As there is no role description for the project leader he is responsible or more precisely BLAMED for everything! He is in affect a BLAME MAGNET.

There is always a figure lurking in the background – influencing in the shadows. If you were the project leader and this was your Dad that would be bad news but usually it’s someone who has tried to make changes in the past and has been sidelined. This person often talks a great deal of sense and you really want take some of his radical ideas up but who’s is going to mend the bridges he has burnt over the years in order to give his ideas validity in the eyes of others.

It just is not easy and in the words if A-Team’s BA Baracus ‘I pity the fool’ who undertakes or is forced into such a thankless task.

If you survive it – it’s worth it.