I’m going to incorporate some of the stuff I already wrote above, because I sometimes copy these and email them to friends, and I’d like everything in one place. I will italicize those parts, so you can skip them easily.
I had arranged in advance to visit, and was asked to arrive “by 12:30”, so I got there are 12:20. The place was empty, with a handful of other cars in the parking lot. The building is well set back from the road, and is relatively unassuming, although it has some “Islamic” decorative features. (Mostly latticework defining archways over the entrance and some windows.)
There were a pair of guys hanging around outside, who turned out to be part of the other group that was visiting. But it was drizzling, so I went in. The door was unlocked, and I didn’t see any people, so I poked around. The entrance room is large pleasant space with large floor tiles set in a diamond pattern of light and dark sand color, neutral painted walls, and a bunch of folding tables. I found a guy in a similar (but smaller) room off to the side, who turned out to be my host, and I helped him set up some chairs for the other group.
We started with a half hour intro to the history of the mosque. Our guide came to the US as a graduate student in 1985, fell in love, and stayed. When he first got here, there was one mosque on the opposite side of the urban area, plus a couple of small black muslim groups down town. This mosque started as a group of people who rented rooms from other houses of worship. They eventually were able to buy a large house to use regularly. Some time after that they built the prayer hall, which is still in use. Finally they were able to build a center around it, with parking, landscaping, and enough space for for a Sunday school and some social activities. They do a lot of charitable work, mostly working together with 5 nearby houses of worship. (2 Jewish, 3 Christian.) They also do some regular social stuff with the synagogue across the street. (one of those two Jewish groups)
Then he led us to the prayer hall. He took us around to the far back side, and asked us to remove our shoes there. But the congregants have a men’s and a women’s coat room, with racks for outerwear and cubbies for shoes. They also have men’s and women’s washrooms where people can purify themselves. The washroom features a large trough with grab bars and several taps and instructions in English and in pictures of how to wash prior to prayer. You are supposed to wash your hands, face, arms, other parts of the head, and feet. (They also have ordinary toilet facilities with ordinary sinks in a room behind the room for ritual cleansing.)
The prayer hall faces Mecca, of course. At the front there’s a sort of half-oval niche with a lectern in it. On either side of that are windows with an attractive metal lattice, through which I could see a play ground. (Last time I visited, there were plain sand-colored panels covering the windows. I wonder why.) The room was large and basically rectangular, except it was missing a rectangle to the front left. We were told later that most of the space can be cut up into classrooms with moving walls, and I think that’s what was going on with that missing rectangle. The floor was covered with a green rug, with images of pillars and arches woven into it, so it looked a little bit like a lot of small prayer rugs all tessellated.
About two thirds of the back part of the room was roped off, and was the women’s section. We were offered seats in the other part of the back. Most people sit on the floor, but both the men’s and women’s section had some chairs to the side for those who can’t comfortably sit on the floor.
This may have been the most racially diverse group I have ever seen. Most of the people were brown, but there were some who I read as “white” (one guy looked Norse) and some I read as “black”. Maybe the plurality looked at least vaguely south Asian, but some looked Turkish, some looked generically mediterranean, some looked Egyptian, a couple looked classically Arabic, and a few looked East Asian. Most I wouldn’t have been able to place to any ancestral region of the world.
The men wore very ordinary clothing, ranging from sweats to suits (but covering their arms and legs) and the women wore a LOT of clothing. Many were wearing slacks, a skirt, a blouse, a sweater, and a shawl that covered their hair, shoulders, and sometimes most of their bodies. Some wore two shawls, one on their head and shoulders, and one covering most of their torso. Most of the shawls were brightly colored. None of the women covered their face. Many of the men were wearing outdoor warm jackets. The amount of clothing on both sexes seemed odd, since it wasn’t cold in the room.
Everyone faced the front, except one guy in the niche who faced the room. There was another guy in the niche who faced the wall. The man facing the wall chanted some opening prayers in Arabic. I don’t understand Arabic, but I could hear that it was very repetitive, as if reciting lists of things, like “God is great, God is good, …” Then he prayed in English. The English was a little shorter than the Arabic, but I bet it was the “good parts” version of the same prayer.
It was all very informal. People kept wandering in throughout the sermon, and a few entered in the midst of the obligatory prayers. When the women’s section began to look crowded, one of the women got up and casually moved the ropes to give them more room. Children ran around. (quietly) Two little girls came in with (presumably) their mother, spotted (presumably) their father in the men’s section, and ran over to hug him. He cuddled them and held them on his lap until the obligatory prayer began. At the end of the obligatory prayers, a lot of people walked out, while a guy in the front started leading a prayer for Stephon Clark. After that, there were general announcements, and people were streaming out of the hall as someone was telling them that the time of the morning service had changed and similar stuff that they might have cared about.
The guy who had been facing the congregation gave the sermon, which was in English. The theme was “intent”. He actually started by saying that usually when there was something topical in the news he liked to speak to it, but there was so much topical in the news these days that if he always did that, he’d never talk about anything else. He mentioned Islamaphobia in the US, but reminded the congregation that there is also a problem with how blacks are treated, and Hispanics, and women, and then he talked bout problems in other countries, mentioning the Rohingya and especially the rape of Rohingya women, and Palestinians, and another 3 or four oppressed peoples, and he said that Muslims should fight all injustice and oppression.
Then he turned to his main topic, which was intent. We should do everything with good intent, which is intent to do God’s will. He talked about how we can do mundane things with good intent. We can study to do well in school so as to get a good job and support a family. We can try to earn money so as to be able to give more to charity. He gave an example of a man who went to a party with a written list of 20 good intentions, ranging from networking to actually praying at the party with others there. He talked about God knows more than we do, and we don’t always get what we want, even with perfect intentions. For example Hannah, the mother of Mary (mother of Jesus) prayed for a son. But God gave her something better – a daughter who would be one of the 4 most important women in all of history – not just Islamic history, but human history. (I wonder who the other three are.) And he talked about how we also need to follow up good intentions with good actions.
There were maybe twice as many people in the room when he finished as there were when he began, and now the room was very crowded.
As he finished, the people stood up and organized themselves into neat lines, using the pattern of the rug. This part of the service was led by the other man in the niche. In the main hall, both men and women both stood shoulder to shoulder, with enough room in front of each person for that person to prostrate themselves in prayer. Parts of the prayers were said standing, parts were said bowing down, parts were said sitting, and parts were said prostrate on the floor – knees on the floor, face near the floor, and bum up in the air. When Orthodox Jews segregate the sexes, and say it’s due to modesty, I’ve always been a little skeptical. But looking at the field of (fully clothed) bums, it occurred to me that the women were probably more comfortable not having a lot of men behind them. The obligatory prayers were in Arabic, and spoken or chanted, not sung. They started standing, and ended sitting.
A few people continued to peter in during the prayers, but they looked like they were arriving late (unlike the ones who came in the midst of the sermon.)
When the prayers ended, about a quarter of the congregants left, but the rest listened as one of the men in the front offered a brief prayer for Stephon Clark. It was a sort of ordinary prayer for the dead. (“no longer with us…”) When that ended, the crowd started filing out of the room (quietly) while the guy who had led the obligatory prayers announced general information for the congregation (luncheon coming up, morning prayers moving from 8:30 to 9:30, stuff like that – stuff I’d have thought people would want to hear, honestly.) Most everyone was gone by the time he finished. The visitors milled around for a bit waiting for our guide to re-appear.
Then we left the room, through the same side-back door we’d entered, re-donned our shoes, and he showed us a couple of classrooms, and then the library. The library was a lovely peaceful room, with books, computer monitors, and tables. It also had a large painting of Mecca, showing the original holy chapel that Abraham used surrounded by vast structures built to hold modern masses of pilgrims. He told us about how Mohammed came to marry Khadijah, and described his early visions, and the flight to Medina, and his victorious return to Mecca. He didn’t go on to mention the other women Mohammed married after the death of Khadijah. There was some Q&A, then we went back to the room we’d started in, where he handed out a pamphlet about Islam. That’s when I left, saying that I had to prepare for Passover, but he was clearly prepared to say something more to the others.
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