This list of mosques in Saint Louis doesn’t seem to specify if this Mosque is associated with Shia Islam or that Mosque is associated with Sunni Islam or this other Mosque is associated with [some faction of Islam I’ve never heard of].
Do the different factions of Islam put aside their differences for prayers? Does something in the Mosque’s name indicate its affiliation?
Someone will probably answer this, but let me ask anyway: How much of what the OP is asking depends on the mosque being in the US vs being in a predominantly Muslim country?
It is up to each mosque’s membership, there is no idea of a church in the Islamic religion and the label “sunni” is not something organic - to contrast with your labels (catholic, anglican etc).
The Salafiste orientations care a great deal. Others maybe not.
Certain names of course do suggest, Imam Hussien etc. The latin character spelling of names of the masdjids also tell me quickly that some are likely to be the South Asia…
I would expect as often it is an ethnic sorting - a Yemani arab Houthi may have more practical practice in common with a Sunni Yemani in style than with a sunni Bosniak. Even within the Ahl as-sunna, the style of prayer is not the same, although except the Salafistes it is not generally considered a big deal.
You are likely to find a differentiation in places where there are the direct tensions between the shia and the non-shia. This is most particularly the case of the Iranian-Arab divide in the Mesopotamia / Gulf region.
The maleki sunni of the Maghreb do not particularly case, it is not a concern (except among those who have absorbed the Saudi salafiste propaganda over the years).
Some are some are not. Mosque in urban areas tend to be public, i.e open to all (with some exceptions). As in, run by the local authority.
Privately endowed ones not so much. At least in Pakistan, its rare to find a “Sunni” only mosque, you do find Shia ones.
One of the mosques near me (in the USA) is predominantly attended by ethnic Turks and a few western converts. The prayers are in Arabic, of course, but most of the signs are in Turkish and English.
Overseas mosques play a lot bigger role in the community than they do in many places back “in the old country”. They are often heavily based on nationality as well.
On Friday prayers I literally will often choose a mosque depending on where I am at the time and so do most urban dwellers.
I think it is to note that part of this confusion is that there is this idea in many people’s heads that Sunni-Shia = Catholic-Protestant, but it is a poor and an inaccurate analogy for most of the islamic world (although in some ways not so bad an analogy for the specific region of the Gulf and the Iraq).
It might be slightly more accurate to make a comparison with the Catholic-Eastern Orthodox division, as both divisions relate to disagreements over who was entitled to be the leader, and both divisions also seem to have been exacerbated by political and ethnic issues. Perhaps, if Latin and Germanic-speaking Western Europe and Greek and Slavic-speaking Eastern Europe all had spoken a common language, the Catholic and Orthodox churches would have been able to reach an agreement to re-unite. Perhaps they wouldn’t, but it’s clear that the practical divisions made it even more difficult than it would have otherwise been.
Ramira, could you elaborate on that a bit? I know the very basics about the Sunni-Shia differences, historically, but not much about how it’s understood/ the practical implications in the modern world in … say some place not immediately mixed up in political trouble (like, oh, Michigan? Berlin?). Is it a matter of personal practice, like, I pray five times, you do something different and your name’s Ali, or whatever, but we attend the same house/ Friday meeting?
Are ethnic and nationality-based mosques common in predominantly Islamic areas? For example, is it common to find a Moroccan mosque in Egypt, an Egyptian mosque in Turkey, a Turkish mosque in Pakistan, or a Pakistani mosque in Malaysia?
Are naming differences between Sunni and Shia very common? I’ve heard that it is more common for a Shia to be named Ali than a Sunni, but is this just a tradition that some people follow or is it, like, really really important? In contrast, names in the Christian world do often have an association with one tradition or another, but finding members in one tradition that have a name from another isn’t extremely unusual or shocking. If someone named Constantinos converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, it is unlikely that he would see any reason to change his name, especially not in the USA. He would just become a Catholic named Constantinos with an interesting background.
I think this can only be answered in respect to who are the immigrant population. For a population that are of the Maghrebine origin, and there is a shia sub- community, I think generally no one cares very much (except those propagandized by the Saudi propogandas).
Maybe among different levantine immigrant communities it might be different.
I have never seen this outside of the Gulf region, but the Gulf region is where there is the largest of such mixing (I am not familiar with the south east asia, maybe there it could be the case). There in the Gulf it is less religious, it is more the social hierarchy in the Gulf where the unstated discriminatory hierarchy sorts out the ethnicities…
Merely being named Ali or Hussien is not very remarkable. Outside of the Mesopotamia and the Levant where they can doubtless often tell by the clan or the family name, it is not going to be very obvious (in the Arabic context) if not in that region
After the fall of the Soviet Union, mosques associated with specific ethnicities popped up around Central Asia, but this is more akin to having an ‘Italian’ Catholic church in an Italian neighborhood and a ‘Polish’ Catholic church a few blocks over in the Polish neighborhood. Governments there have, however, taken steps to crack down on this and standardize mosques in their countries. The traditionally Muslim ethnic groups of the region are, for the most part, nominally of the same ‘sect’ (Sunnis following the Hanafi school of jurisprudence).
ETA: There are four major schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, and occasionally you’ll see maps that purport to show some countries as one and some as another. This isn’t meaningless but it doesn’t correspond to sects or denominations as Western Christians might imagine.
Right. There is a “traditionally Irish” Catholic church near me, but in reality it is just a Catholic church that anyone can attend. Sometimes you can tell what ethnicity built the church by its name or by some of the imagery it chooses to use, but this can be very subtle, such as having a statue of St. Patrick in the corner or a small inscription in the Irish language. Churches in rural areas or very homogeneous neighborhoods are probably more likely to flout their origins.
Does the school of jurisprudence that a person adheres to have any significant affect on their day-to-day life or relationships? What happens if someone “converts” to a different school? Do they go to a mosque and say, “As of today I declare my allegiance to the Maliki School, let me sign the book.” or is it more a matter of personal opinion that is really none of anyone’s business except in rare cases?
The only thing I can think of that would be similar to what you’re describing is when the Salafists make a big stink about rejecting all the schools and ‘going back to the source.’ In this sense they’re like the “Sovereign Citizens” of Islam. But there’s no book or conversion process or anything.
The scholar that Islamic jurists from your area happen to be intellectually descended from is not really the kind of thing that people get worked up about directly, in my experience. Thinking of them as denominations or sects is a complete non-starter.
ETA: I should explain fast: The reason some Central Asians emphasize “Hanafi” is because of their policies of managing religious expression in their communities. It is also a dog whistle against interference from Saudis, where Hanbali is dominant. it’s not because they are committed to the ‘larger truth’ of the Hanafi school. It’s a nationalist thing.
no, except if you are a Salafi.
In fact the most common time I recall people asserting a school is in contrast to the Saudi - so like ñañi it is to mark a difference from them
there is no such thing as converting to another school…
The differences are not so great - maybe it might be like if you suddenly decided to speak with an English accent all the time in your country - slightly strange but not something any will care about very much.