Going to a Mosque

In Cairo it is not common for women to go and pray in mosques, so I've never had the chance to go and pray or attend lectures or pray Taraweeh. The only time I have prayed in a mosque was during Umrah, and I fell in love with it. It's nice to pray at home sometimes, but the experience of praying in a mosque with other Muslims is an amazing one.

I know there are a lot of mosques in The Hague, but I'm too scared to go and check them out. What do I do when I go there? Do I just go inside and pray? Or should I talk to someone there? How do I find out about events, classes, Taraweeh? I know these sound like stupid questions but I really have no idea since I've never been to a mosque before!

I've also heard about bad experiences in mosques, for example women forming cliques etc, which kind of makes me not want to go. I'm scared that everyone will be really judgmental or unfriendly, and that it'll be a negative experience.

On the other hand, I've had a really lonely Ramadan so far (eating iftar alone is not fun!) so it would be really nice to meet some Muslims. I'm starting to notice a barrier between people I've met so far and me, in that they all love to party and drink, and I don't. So maybe meeting other Muslims means I'll find a social environment that suits me better, inshallah.

What was your experience of going to a mosque for the first time? Did you go alone?
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do?

Turkish vs. Moroccan

Two of the biggest immigrant groups in Holland are the Turks and the Moroccans, so they form the bulk of the Muslim population here. Inshallah I'll start looking for a mosque to start praying at soon, and one thing I know is that there are Turkish mosques and Moroccan mosques. Coming from Cairo, I find this separation strange. From what I know, there are mosques for Muslims - from anywhere. It's weird that here you have a Moroccan mosque and a Turkish mosque. Of course that doesn't mean they only allow Moroccans/Turks in, but I'm sure it's rare to find a Moroccan in a Turkish mosque.



I guess I should try and find a Moroccan mosque, since the imam would speak Arabic. That's another thing I need to check - do the imams speak Dutch or Arabic/Turkish? If they do the sermons in Dutch, a lot of older immigrants probably won't understand it (although if you move to Holland you should definitely learn the language). On the other hand if they do it in Arabic/Turkish, a lot of the younger Muslims won't understand it, since they've grown up speaking and knowing Dutch. So I wonder how they balance that here.



There are also usually cultural centres attached to mosques, which would be very interesting to check out. I wonder if they have classes and language lessons. I've been living by myself here in the Hague for 3 days now and I'm already really lonely! I can't imagine how hard Ramadan is going to be since I'll be having iftar by myself without my family for the first time ever. I really hope to meet lots of nice Muslims here. I feel like that would motivate me to become a better Muslim and it would also just feel nice to have people who understand why you pray 5 times a day or to break the fast with.

Inshallah I'll meet people soon.

What about where you guys live? Are mosques separated by nationality? Or are they multi-cultural? What language are the sermons in? Does this mean only certain segments of the Muslims population attend?

Khutbas

I was recently talking to a friend of mine, and he brought up the fact that he hates going to Friday prayers these days because he feels he doesn't learn anything from them anymore. Instead of talking about Islam, imams tend to go on and on about Americans, Israel and the Jews (apparently a subject ALL Egyptians love to go on and on about, even though 99% have never met a Jew).

When I hear the khutbas sometimes, I'm pretty shocked at how aggressive they are. The imam is usually yelling at the top of his voice about how Israel has raped all Arabs and needs to be wiped off the face of the earth (to use Ahmedijinad's diplomatic phrasing). Then they move on to ALL Jewish people, without making a distinction between Jews, Israeli Jews, and the Israeli government. It's sad because in the 50s Cairo used to be very cosmopolitan: Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone got along. Jews used to call themselves Egyptians, not Jews. Then the Jews were pressured into leaving, and so they all left (leaving behind a few old ladies). Synagogues that remain in Cairo today are full of security, and I doubt they are used often.

There's also the fact that the Qur'an is NOT anti-Jewish. The Qur'an speaks about specific Jewish tribes at the time who were against the Prophet (pbuh). I don't get how this applies to all Jews at all times. Seriously! They are people of the book, and imams shouldn't be spreading hatred against them, or for that matter spreading hatred against anyone.

Anyway, I've heard complaints about khutbas several times from different people. When did imams become political experts as opposed to religious scholars? Why not discuss Islam? Or at least discuss current affairs without inciting violence and preaching hate. Like my friend said, he wants to learn something new about his religion, not get a hate-filled lecture.

I wonder whether the changing nature of khutbas has started attracting new kinds of men to the mosques. Men who want to hear these hate-filled sermons, as opposed to all kinds of men who want to hear about Islam. I know of many men (mostly older) who have stopped attending Friday prayers altogether because they can't listen to what the imams are saying.

One annoying thing must be that one goes to prayer to meditate, find peace, and connect with God. Then you hear a hate-filled khutba, and the peacefulness probably disappears. Instead of educating young Muslims and teaching them Islam, imams are filling them with hatred and violence. This can't end well.

I wonder if this is limited to Egypt, where many people have started using the mosque as a political tool? Does this happen in mosques you go to?

Note: I'm not saying all imams in all mosques in all countries do this. I am talking about imams in mosques people I know frequent. These include many mosques and many imams, which is why I decided to write a post about it.

Women and Mosques

Today it seems to be accepted that women are not required to go to Friday prayer, and that in general it is better for women to pray at home. But what happened at the beginning of Islam? Did women pray alongside men at the first mosque in Madinah, in an area that was unsegregated? Did they pray all 5 prayers at the mosque, or just Friday prayers? Was the mosque more than just a place of prayer? What purpose did that first mosque serve the first Muslims?

In Imam Bukhari's Book of Friday, there is the following Hadith: "Do not forbid the mosques of Allah to the women of Allah." The Prophet somehow sensed that future generations of Muslim men would attempt to prevent women from praying at the mosque, and thus made it clear with this Hadith that women should always be allowed access to the mosque.

In her book "The Forgotten Queens of Islam", Fatima Mernissi shows how only 400 years after this Hadith, Muslim male scholars began casting doubt on whether it was necessary or even recommendable that women pray at the mosque. Ibn al-Jawzi mentions that if a woman fears disturbing men's minds, she should pray at home." What does that even mean? How would a woman disturb a man's mind? He gives the example of how if a male prays behind a row of women, his prayers are worthless. Aside from whether this is even true, shouldn't he then advise men to come on time, instead of advising women to stay home?

From this time on, many historians noted that most mosques were not frequented by many women. "We are certainly a long way from the Prophet's mosque, open to all, welcoming all those interested in Islam, including women" (Mernissi).

The female companions of the Prophet clearly did have access to the mosque. In fact Aisha's hut was connected to the mosque itself, showing how the Prophet did not feel the need to completely separate private from public, a need most modern Muslim men feel intensely. In Egypt in the early 1900s, feminists had to ask for the right to attend public prayer. How did things deteriorate to this extent for Muslim women, to the extent that we are not always granted access to the MOSQUE - a place of worship!

I will leave you with this quote by Mernissi: "The mosque was something other than a mere place of worship. It was a place where showing ignorance was permitted, where asking questions was encouraged, both activities that today are strongly prohibited."

pakistan mosque bombing

It's a sad day when a bomb goes off inside a mosque. During Friday prayers.

Read the story here.

R.I.P. to all of those who were in the mosque praying, who probably thought it was the last place they'd get killed.