Last week, it was a different picture. The board, called the Lebanese Moslem Association, was in crisis talks after revelations in the Herald that an al-Qaeda recruiter had delivered a sermon at the mosque via phone link. Anwar al-Awlaki, described by American legislators as the principal terrorist threat to the US, had been procured to address the Monday night congregation run by the mosque's popular youth cleric, Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman. A week before the Herald story, Awlaki became the first US citizen added to the CIA target list as a military enemy approved for assassination. ''Procedures have been put in place which will ensure that an incident of this nature will not take place,'' the mosque board wrote in a communique after the Thursday crisis meeting. ''All lectures held by imams at the Mosque must now be reviewed by the Lebanese Moslem Association religious committee prior to consent being granted for their attendance, including content of sermons.'' The revelations disturbed a power struggle at the heart of the mosque's increasingly youthful congregation.

''Sheikh Taj [el-Din al-Hilaly] survives around there because he knows how to deal with all the factions,'' says Ahmed Kilani, the co-founder of Australia's largest Islamic website, MuslimVillage.com. ''What you're seeing is a new younger faction trying to find influence. It's a generational thing. It's political more than religious.'' Young people are the constant talk of Lakemba Mosque. They are the subjects of a ''target list'' that notes who needs to be brought back to the mosque, a list that includes the recently released murderer Wally Ahmad. They are the focus of the most audacious expansion plan the mosque has considered since it was built in 1972. And they are the reason the popular Shady, who is only a guest imam, is given use of the cavernous brick and pebblecrete building twice each week. But senior Muslims associated with the mosque have told the Herald that Shady has divided the congregation and its leadership. ''At the start we were with him. He was getting these young people off the streets. But then we found these people were being radicalised. His sermons are not just fire and brimstone,'' said one, who did not wish to be named said. Dandan dismisses the schism but Hilaly, the most senior imam at the mosque, has condemned the young imam. ''Shady and those who speak like him are like fast food who give no substance and no spiritual nutrition,'' he said through his translator, Keysar Trad. Behind Safi's wide desk, there are blueprints for a massive expansion of the association's facilities on Wangee Road - the key focus of which would be a school. ''What we are proposing is a school system so we will intercept them at an early point in their development,'' Dandan says of young people tempted by vice. The facility would cost $30 million and double the area of land the Lebanese Moslem Association owns in Lakemba. This is Dandan's vision and the reason for his plans - the need to diversify revenue streams beyond donations and funeral profits.

According to the board's annual report, provided exclusively to the Herald, the organisation had more than $19 million in net assets in 2008 - $570,000 more than in the previous year, and almost $2 million more than the year before that. But the net surplus was $576,000 - less than half what it was in 2007. ''We are an organisation based on donations,'' Dandan says. ''What we're taking this to is an organisation that generates revenue.'' Trad, who was president of the mosque's board in 2004 but is considering not renewing his membership this year, is a critical player. In an institution where older men and imams traditionally held power, a reformist board whose members are mostly aged under 40 marks a radical shift. Trad cites the Koran, reflected again in a sign at the mosque's gate: ''Please note - no personal trading is allowed in the mosque.'' He says the board has always survived on donations alone. ''A mosque is not meant to be a profit-making facility. It's a place for the community, a place of worship. And a place of worship should never be run as a business.'' But business and youth are what the mosque needs. Almost half the suburb's population is aged under 30. The figures are similar for people using the mosque. And it is young people, increasingly seeking sermons in English, who have increased Shady's power base and left Arabic-speaking imams like Hilaly feeling undermined. ''I really find it hard to believe that Sheikh Hilaly would say such comments about me,'' Shady said of the fast food criticism. In an email, he denied any split or radical views. ''We have been working together at the same mosque for the past nine years and he had never brought up this issue to me.''

The association maintains that it did not know about Awlaki's extremism when he spoke in 2009. They now say the phone link malfunctioned after 10 minutes. The board said he only radicalised after he was imprisoned without charge in Yemen. Earlier, he had been linked to three of the September 11 hijackers. This, the association says, was not clear. ''He was bestselling. I have got a bunch of his CDs that I listen to,'' Dandan said, noting he did not support his radical views. ''This man is gifted. I have not seen a man as gifted as a storyteller in my life … At that stage he was a very loved individual and I can assume that was it.''