Click here to view Daily News photographer Joshua McCoy's multimedia presentation of the Islamic Center in English.

During religious services at the Islamic Center of Bowling Green’s mosque, part of the worship includes a chant that would be familiar to most Americans only from the background sound of a movie set in the Middle East.

Click here to view Daily News photographer Joshua McCoy’s multimedia presentation of the Islamic Center in English.

Click here to view Daily News photographer Joshua McCoy’s multimedia presentation of the Islamic Center in Bosnian.

But to the mostly Bosnian congregation, the Arabic prayers sound like home.

And though the chant may sound foreign to American ears, it is prayer to the same God that Christians pray to, said the Islamic Center’s imam, Bilal Merdan, a Bosnian who came to Bowling Green last year to lead the then-newly built center.

Merdan said as much at the mosque on Morgantown Road on Monday to a large congregation gathered for Eid al-Fitr, the holy day that marks the end of Ramadan.

&#8220Dear brothers and sisters, we believe in Torah, which was revealed to Moses, we believe in Psalms, which was revealed to David, and we believe in the Gospel, which was revealed to Jesus, and we believe in Quran, which is that final message of God revealed to Muhammad,” Merdan said during his sermon, which he delivered first in Bosnian and then in English.

The Islamic Center, which was originally founded in 2000, provides a place to meet the needs of Bowling Green’s Muslims, many of who fled the Balkans during the wars there in the 1990s, Merdan said.

They were looking for &#8220freedom and security and they found it here,” he said. The refugees settled into normal lives with jobs, births, deaths and marriages.

&#8220At the same time, they believe in God and they have religious needs and somebody must provide for that,” Merdan said.

And although more than 90 percent of the center’s members are Bosnian, there are Muslims from India, Pakistan and the Middle East who worship there as well.

For Dzeldina &#8220Gina” Dzelil, a 24-year-old Bosnian who fled her home near the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in 1992, the mosque is a place to stay in touch with her culture.

&#8220It helps me learn about me, about my culture, about our customs, and it helps me learn good values, family values, that I can teach to my children,” Dzelil said.

Dzelil left Bosnia with her parents and brother in the early weeks of the war and went to the neighboring republic of Montenegro. Her father went back for his parents, but was taken prisoner. Dzelil’s mother spoke with him several times over the phone, but he was never released.

&#8220We never heard anything else from my dad,” Dzelil said.

The family left Montenegro as fighting spread there, and they eventually spent six years in Berlin before coming to Bowling Green in 1998.

The losses Dzelil experienced as a child and a teen prompted her to turn back to Islam last year, after a long hiatus since coming to the United States.

&#8220It’s important to remain who you are,” she said. &#8220War has destroyed so much of me. … I don’t want to lose my identity.”

During Ramadan this year, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Dzelil made the effort to go to prayers at the mosque every night and fasted every day from dawn until dusk.

Keeping to her religion has helped her anchor herself in the &#8220fast-paced environment” she has lived in since she started as a junior at Warren Central High School in 1998. Dzelil earned bachelor’s degrees in marketing and German at Western Kentucky University by 2004, and now works as a retail planning analyst at Fruit of the Loom.

All that success sometimes left little time for the mosque, she said.

&#8220It’s hard to find yourself and where to put your priorities,” Dzelil said.

She said she’s glad she has returned to the mosque, which she attended as a child in Bosnia and in Berlin.

&#8220I always knew how to pray,” Dzelil said. &#8220I always knew our customs.”

She feels a responsibility to help carry her faith forward, now that the Muslim community in Bowling Green has a beautiful place to gather and worship.

&#8220I felt like it’s up to us, the young people, to make something out of this,” Dzelil said.

A new building for the Islamic Center was opened in May 2005. It is topped with a dome and minaret and has a thick green carpet that spreads across the floors of the halls and the mosque itself.

Small rooms to either side of the entrance provide a place to store shoes and wash feet, hands and mouths before entering the main part of the building.

Washing before entering the mosque is a duty of Muslims, and is symbolic of the cleansing of sins, said Merdan, the imam.

The mosque itself is a simple rectangular room that faces Mecca, one of Islam’s holiest cities. The walls of the mosque are decorated with gold Arabic script on a black background, all passages from the Quran. One panel reads, &#8220Allah, the light of earth and heaven.”

There are no chairs; worshippers form lines across the carpet and stand, bow and kneel as they pray.

Leading them in this is Merdan. Because he is just 29 years old, Merdan is an inspiration to the younger Muslims at the mosque, Dzelil said.

&#8220He’s such a big motivation for the young people to see that you can be religious,” she said.

Merdan was hired to lead the mosque last year when the former imam moved on; he came from Sarajevo on Sept. 1, 2005.

He had studied at a 450-year-old Islamic high school in that city during the war and then earned bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and Muslim theology at the 1,200-year-old Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

At the Islamic Center, Merdan leads the prayers in Arabic and then preaches in Bosnian and English. Many of the mosque’s members were older when they came to Bowling Green and don’t speak English, he said.

It’s important to reach as many people as possible through the use of several languages, Merdan said.

&#8220We are trying to help people understand what is God and what is religion,” he said.

Merdan also hopes the center can be used as a place to communicate with the Bowling Green community. Stereotypes about Muslims, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, can only be overcome through dialogue, several of the mosque’s members said.

For Merdan, who lived through years of civil war in Sarajevo, violence is against what Islam stands for.

&#8220During period of the war, our professors were teaching us that all people are equal before God and peace should exist throughout the world,” he said.

In his Eid sermon Monday, Merdan spoke of peace as a duty for those who are faithful to God.

&#8220When a man works for world peace and harmony, he is a Muslim in the complete sense of the word,” he said.