Minara, a multimedia culture salon and café rooted in Muslim traditions, opened in Huron Village last December. Despite regularly drawing crowds of up to 60 people and building a group of devoted regulars, Minara will close at the end of March, coincidentally soon after Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
“We’ll have to shut down by end of March at this location unless someone helps us with funds to buy the place,” said operations director Yusuf Siddiquee. Minara had an agreement to use the space while the building was in the process of being readied for sale, with an asking price of $3 million.
Minara calls itself a third space – a place to gather that is neither home nor work – offering arts and cultural events, along with a limited café and kitchen. “We’re not a fully functional coffee shop,” said Abbas Rattani, who founded Minara’s parent non-profit Mipsterz in 2012. “We primarily exist to be catalysis for creativity and social change and moral imagination.”
The Huron Village building’s current owner was initially “curious” about Minara and offered it a month-to-month lease at 90% below market price, according to Siddiquee. However, rent rose to the full $10,000 per month beginning in January. That exceeds what Minara typically brings in from café profits, donations and funds from Mipsterz, which supports Muslim creatives across the United States. Mipsterz received a $150,000 grant in October 2024 from Boston-based Barr Foundation as part of the foundation’s support of institutions led by or serving minority communities. A donor stepped in to cover rent through March.
The short-term lease allowed Minara’s core team of four show that an experimental community center like Minara could work. He said most landlords wanted him to sign a five to 10-year lease. But to be “fully sustainable,” Siddiquee said Minara would need $25,000 a month to cover “occupancy, labor, supplies, and programs.”
The name Minara means “lighthouse” in Arabic, and the meticulously curated space was intended to be “a source of light for the community,” said Ahlam Said, Minara’s creative director. “In Islam, we believe that God is also beauty, and we are reflections of his beauty … especially in our spaces as well,” Saïd said. The space features hand-crafted Yemeni copper lanterns, wool Tunisian prayer mats, a hand-crafted mihrab, which marks the direction of Mecca, and a community library.
Patrons say Minara has provided a much-needed late-night space that welcomes connection across religion, cultural identity, and age in a way these regulars say cafés and restaurants do not. A single day at Minara can feature a tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) workshop, a vision boarding session, debuts from Gazan poets, oral history nights, jam sessions, or an intimate discussion for Muslim women about reproductive health held by Beth Israel’s Dr. Sarrah Shahawy.
Many of these workshops are free or fee-optional, so Minara doesn’t financially benefit from them, according to Saïd.
The retail section, which features artisanal work by Yemeni, Kurdish, Kashmiri and Somali American artists, generates profits that largely go back to the artists, though Minara does get a cut, Said said. Recently, Iftar rentals of the space have provided some fund relief, according to Siddiquee.
Despite its limited service, Minara’s café menu highlights the breadth of Muslim gastronomy, with drinks such as Palestinian meramieh shai and Kashmiri kahwa, Zanzibari Isle of Clove and Sudanese iced minara karkade (hibiscus tea). Their bites feature tangy Sophia’s yogurt, made locally, topped with sumac jam, navy bean pie made in Roxbury, and Canaan olive oil and za’atar toast.
Rihabe Oulal, a Minara regular whose family comes from Algeria, runs knitting workshops at the space. She said it reminds her of home, watching children make forts from the teal Turkish floor cushions in Minara’s majlis (sitting room). “I feel like I haven’t seen that within my community in so long,” Rihabe said. “For [Minara] to offer that space [especially to parents] is pretty amazing.”
Oulal also feels Minara allows for deeper connections. “I don’t have to explain my name,” she said, adding “I don’t feel like I ever have to explain my background.”
Still, the workshops she runs with her sister, Aya, ask people to pay only if they can. The sisters plan to donate proceeds to two mutual aid funds supporting refugees in Palestine and one in South Sudan.
Challenges for community centers and third spaces
Minara is not the first community space to be in limbo. The nonprofit meetinghouse Democracy Center closed its doors in 2024 for “necessary renovations” and the EMW bookstore, which focused on marginalized communities, went on hiatus in 2018 for “improvements to our physical space and our organizational development.”
Siddiquee said his aim was for Minara “to be around for generations to come …. cultivating a sense of possibility and creativity that outlasts us.”
The prospect of losing a space shaped so keenly by its community is discouraging to patrons and the founders alike. For Muslims seeking a safe third space outside home, work or the mosque, Minara provides the space to engage in creativity, music, film, and art. “We can meet each other outside of our faith and spirituality, and more into our creative and personal side,” Oulal said.
Wider support in Cambridge
Minara also matters to non-Muslims. Megan George has lived in Cambridge for 20 years and does not identify as Arab or Muslim, discovered Minara in December while walking down the street. “I never knew the term third space,” she said. “You bump into strangers who are willing to introduce themselves…. You form connections, and you feel like you’re in community when you’re there,” she said.
Now, George introduces Minara to her friends and neighbors in West Cambridge whenever she can because of how “precious” the place is, in hopes the third space will stay in her neighborhood. “It’s such a unique and beautiful idea to be in community,” George said, noting many people she knows are craving connection.
The wide swath of patrons enriches the sense of community for other patrons experience as well. “It is really great to see … a diverse group of people that aren’t just Arabs, aren’t just Muslims, or North Africans,” Oulal said. “It feels nice that we are all united in this one thing.”
Siddiquee said Minara’s scheduled last day of operations on March 21 will see it host Mipsterz’s 14th Annual Eid Mic, an all-day arts showcase and fundraiser. Unless it has found funds to buy the building, it will then be looking for its next space. “Whether it’s 361 Huron Avenue or somewhere else, we’ll keep the party going,” Siddiquee said.
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