 After moving to North Carolina, her father, L'Fatihah Mateen, established the Al-Ummil Ummat Islamic Center in Greensboro and served as its prayer leader (he died in 1997).In 2005 Syidah Mateen, not realizing that the lack of a Qur'an for oaths at the courthouse might be mandated by law, joined with other Muslim-American's at the Al-Ummil Ummat Islamic Center "to donate copies of the Qur'an to Guilford County's two courthouses".The Center's imam, Charles Abdullah "working through a judicial assistant, was prepared to hand over the Qurans", but two Guilford judges declined to accept the texts, saying "an oath on the Qur'an is not a legal oath under state law".