EPIC EXPO 2021: One of America’s Largest Mosques in North Texas Celebrates Successful Business Expo Attracting Over 1500 Visitors
The North Dallas mosque, East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), says the event was designed to meet the growing demands of its burgeoning congregation.
East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) held its first business expo, believed to be the first of its kind in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to a capacity vendor and community crowd.
In just 4 hours, approximately 1,500 people visited the expo which comprised up to a maximum of 60 vendors inside the main hall. These included doctors, realtors, wedding services and travel shops with about 20 food vendors outside the building in the open air.
Pictured: Sameer SiddiquiEPIC Board’s Vice-President, Sameer Siddiqui, said the event was a huge success.
“It really exceeded our expectations,” he said. “Our aim was to bring the community and vendors representing local businesses together, but the turnout really was very encouraging.”
Image courtesy of EPICFellow EPIC board member, Yahya Shaikh, thanked an army of volunteers who had worked tirelessly for many weeks to make the event happen. He revealed the idea came from the mosque’s Social Services committee, partly due to EPIC’s exponential congregation growth in the last few years, including during the pandemic.
“Our Insaar program helps people who are relocating to the area,” he said. “We wanted to create something that would connect them with local services and businesses. As well as larger businesses we have a lot of small businesses, many of whom work from home, they will have especially benefited substantially from this gathering.”
Pictured: Fawzia BelalOne of the tables on display was Qalam Collegiate Academy, a girl’s Islamic secondary school in Richardson. Principal and Dean, Fawzia Belal, felt the expo was great way to link the community to Muslim-operated businesses and organizations and said her student-run booth received “great feedback” via numerous emails and phone calls enquiring about her school.
“Such 
events always help encourage and promote entrepreneurship,” she said. “Also, for our youth to witness a wide variety of Muslim-owned businesses on one platform is always inspirational and as schools, we find access to great mentors. So once again I thank the EPIC Board and everyone involved for facilitating this experience for our community and always making every effort to pave a better road for our next generation.”
Pictured: Dr. Razi UddinAnother vendor, local pediatrician, Dr. Razi Uddin, praised EPIC for supporting local businesses, some of which had been adversely impacted by the pandemic.
“They have shown how mosques can lead in supporting their community through hardship,” he said. “I believe that a number of businesses will have been given a vital boost as a result of this unique event and they have powerfully shown how our mosques can serve more than just our spiritual needs.”
Kareem Hassan, the founder and CEO of Plano-based medical supplies wholesaler, Jumla America Wholesales, also praised the expo’s success.
“I think it’s something we need as a Muslim community, especially in Plano,” he said. “The advantage of this event for me was that I left my table and I went to other businesses.”
Hassan said he hopes this expo will be done “consistently and on a bigger scale.”
Dr. Neveen Nofal, the lead pharmacist at Nova Health Pharmacy in Plano, also found the expo extremely useful.
“I thought [the expo] was a great opportunity to connect with our community and give our business good exposure,” she said. “We got a good response from our booth.”
EPIC has said despite the 
Image courtesy of EPICoverwhelmingly positive response from attendees they want to get formal feedback to ensure they can make this an annual feature on their mosque calendar.
“Once we re-group, we will be sending out a survey form to get feedback from vendors and the community to see how we can improve this event next year,” said board member Shaikh. “We want to make sure we serve the needs of all members of our mosque community and make this an even more successful event next year.”
EPIC has one of the newest mosque buildings in the area and has attracted a significant portion of the growing Muslim population in the majority-minority state of Texas - believed to be over half a million. The original mosque started on the current 14-acre site in 2003, and following a multi-million dollar expansion project in 2015, now has a building area of 76,000 square feet. This is split evenly between prayer areas and communal areas such as gyms, classrooms and a multi-purpose hall.
EPIC has up to 1,500 daily parishioners who attend one or more of the five daily prayer services, a number which rises to almost 8,000 during the two main Islamic religious holidays of Eid.
