A few weeks ago, Baybers and I had a discussion about whether there was any organisation or mosque to which one could bring one of their non-Muslim work colleagues and know, with some certainty, that their colleague wouldn’t be accosted, bothered or experience something that would be the source of embarrassment for his host. Or a mosque where a visit to the bathroom wouldn’t be a sort of cultural TARDIS for your colleague; transporting him to an earlier time and place where basic standards of hygiene were yet to be discovered.
I’ve taken non-Muslims to mosques and Islamic organisations on two or three occasions after they expressed an interest in learning about Muslims — possibly more but post-traumatic stress syndrome has blocked them out — and it has always been an uncomfortable and difficult situation. On the first occasion, I left my guest to get something from the car and returned to find him being aggressively interrogated by an Australian-born Muslim about his religious beliefs; and, on the second occasion, my guest was asked whether he believed the “lies” about September 11 having been carried out by Muslims.
The experience with the so-called da’wah organisations hasn’t been much better: a friend of mine contacted one of them here in Melbourne and requested a copy of the Qu’ran — just the Qu’ran — to be sent to a colleague of his from work who had requested a copy. The organisation sent a copy of the Qu’ran but also a torrent of Harun Yahya literature and the usual aggressively evangelical material. Likewise, I remember visiting my doctor and being told that he had been sent — unsolicited — a bunch of Islamic literature outlining various “miracles” such as Allah’s name inside fruit and vegetables and so on; all of this in the apparent expectation that a man who has spent many years studying medicine might be convinced to embrace Islam after seeing what appears to be Arabic writing on the insides of a water melon.
So here’s the question: is there any mosque or Islamic organisation where you could take a normal, educated middle class non-Muslim colleague and be confident that your co-religionists won’t embarrass you or make your colleague feel uncomfortable?
22 comments ↓
I don’t think there is. Well, there’s none in Perth.
we should open up Austrolabe’s rooms in Pitt street to paying members as a Muslim club.
In the meantime, its a real issue. One almost has to suspend disbelief on entering Mosques in Australia. They are sometimes very strange places. You almost expect to come across the hunchback, the bearded woman and Macbeth’s three witches sonorously wailing “beware the jews”.
None of this has anything to do with Islam, rather it reflects the people who have come haunt mosque committees.
If one is a woman its even more ridiculous its almost like a fire or a bomb has gone off in the building if one arrives. There are a variety of rituals that one has to go through in order o be admitted. There is always some fight between Muslims at the time on exactly what those rituals are, one will say the woman has to stand on her head and bark like a dog, another will say OOOOOOOHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO that’s insufficiently pious and more is required, (before losing interest and getting back into his taxi).
Then one gets a tour of the mosque, helpfully pointing out features such as the door, the lavatory (which under NO circumstances must you ever visit, if you have go, do it in your pants).
Then you get the politics, the S11 stuff, the John Howard stuff (which I don’t mind so much) and the (shudder) the pamphlets.
This appears to be peculiar to Australia, in the US many masjids are wonderful places to visit, and visitors are immediately made to feel welcome in an un self-conscious way.
As Muslim I should say that any member of the public (in any state of dress, dishelvement etc.) has an right to enter any mosque in the country at anytime that it is open , 7 days a week and those people that you meet have a DUTY to treat you as a honoured guest and to give you answers to anything about Islam that you ask, or direct you to someone who can.
The mosque committees are part of the problem but there is just the fact that many people in our community have absolutely no idea how to talk to non-Muslims.
Your point about women is particularly valid. At one particular mosque, I remember a funeral prayer for a young Muslim convert who passed away. His family (non-Muslims) naturally attended the mosque. They didn’t have, as one would expect, much of an idea as to the process of burying someone in Islam and so they sort of hovered around the back somewhat sheepishly whilst the people filed in for prayer. Most of the women hadn’t covered their hair because, obviously, they didn’t know what the expectation was at the mosque.
So imagine the scene. The family of the dead brother are at the back of the mosque. His corpse is being washed. The entire process of burying their son/grandson/cousin/friend was in the hands of people who were, to them anyway, complete strangers and practicing an alien set of customs. Anyway, I start talking to what I imagined was the brother’s grandmother or other elderly relative and then what do you think happens?
An angry man comes storming up to them and tells them all off for not covering their hair and proceeds to lecture them about how bad it is. He didn’t stop to think why they were there or what they must have been going through. He just barked at them to leave the mosque and go find something to cover their hair. A’oothubillah.
So they went to their cars and found what material they could to cover their hair and came back in. This wasn’t the prayer area, by the way, but the back of the mosque where they have functions. One of the women had a tea towel on her hair and another had a dirty rag. It was such a rotten, despicable act of abject insensitivity but it is sadly reflective of the sort of things we have to deal with if we expose non-Muslims to our community.
I face a similar problem at uni, where you’ll get the odd mate who wants to visit the MSA prayer room; but i always try to avoid the situation becuase of the sad state the shoes are in, and the bookshelf doesn’t have any competent material, and you get all these international students who camp in the prayer room overnight and aren’t well groomed at all, and you’re always worried that some guy is going to come and put on an Ahmeed Deedat and tell the visitor how wrong the Bible is… And this isn’t the image you want people to have of your mob, so rather not bring them in.
At times when I have proposed for change regarding these bad habits, I’ve been labelled ‘kufar’.
Amir, this blog invariably depresses the hell out of me. Can you do something about that?
I have been to over a dozen Mosques in Melbourne and the two I felt comfortable in the most were Deer Park Mosque and Meadow Heights Mosque.
Deer Park Mosque had a serene and peaceful feel to it.
(Thought I would try and brighten up the thread I guess).
I try to attend as many ISCA lectures as possible when they are at Melbourne Uni.
Gets that adrenaline flowing through your veins
Next time I’ll move back to the sister’s section though as I couldn’t hear much because of the loud gentlemen around me.
Actually, maybe the MCG could create a sister’s section when I watch the Pies in the final.
Oh my, what a depressing thread.
We go to Penshurst Masjid (Sydney) for taraweeh every Ramadan, and the occasional jumah throughout the year. The congregation seems to be mostly Bosnian, and I’ve never seen anything there even remotely close to the absurdity described above. Thank God.
In my own experience, I’ve always found it to be a welcoming, tranquil, clean, and dare I say, even woman-friendly kind of place. Before reading this thread, I would have had no problem taking a non-Muslim there to visit, but now I’m paranoid about all the potential pitfalls!
The Turkish mosques also seem to be very well run and very clean. I’ve always been impressed by them.
Anyway, maybe the solution is to have Display Mosques in each city (like display homes) where we can take non-Muslims
assalamu alaikum
Maybe the problem is that the first generational Muslims with little English and limited resources who did set up the mosques (may Allah reward them) need to allow younger Muslims to take a role in taking care of these things? The younger Muslims need to be more sensitive in knowing how to deal with the older generation too to be able to make changes.
I know in certain mosques there is a group of old men who refuse to let go of their ‘power’ and actually create blocks when people want to change things for the better etc.
I think the best places I’ve generally found were MSA prayer rooms where people tended to be younger, friendlier and didn’t get upset because a woman didn’t have her head covered.
Having said that, I think it also comes to just the general fact that a lot of Muslims don’t know how to speak to non-Muslims. How many times I’ve seen people discussing S11 conspiracy theories the minute they meet a non-Muslim and no mention of a simple concept like Tawheed.
Maybe things will get better with the next generation insha’Allah.
As for the state of the bathrooms at mosques sometimes.. I really don’t know how Muslims living in the West can justify such things in their places of worship.
I went to an open day at Preston Mosque and was impressed to see urine all over the toilet seat and soggy toilet paper strewn all over the floor. There was even graffiti on the toilet door. It was just like an Aussie infidel public toilet which I guess goes to show we’re not all that different from each other
For what its worth, as a non-Muslim, I’ve been to five different mosques in south-east Queensland and a couple in Sydney and I’ve never experienced anything like what you’ve described here. Sure I sometimes feel a bit like an outsider, cos I am, but I haven’t felt unwelcome, badgered, overwhelmed, etc. I can’t recall which ones I went to the bathroom as well, but it would be at least three of them – the fact I can’t really recall reinforces that I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
I’m not religious at all, so over-assertive proselytising is not something I’m fond of – but I’ve experienced much more of this from Christians than Muslims. There’s been a desire to inform me, (which I generally appreciate) but not to convert me (which I wouldn’t).
Not surprisingly I get some people talking politics to me, but I don’t think I’ve had 9/11 conspiracy stuff. Palestine is mentioned a lot, but that’s hardly surprising or unreasonable
Theodore yeah Preston Mosque toilets were old and seriously run down, alhumdulilah the new ones should be finished soon (last time I went there which was about a month ago, there were portables outside).
Andrew
Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant. This may well have been your experiences (i hope so) but you are a public figure. Imagine if you posted that you agreed with Amir! You would be hounded out of your job within weeks (probably justifiably).
No offence – but i’ll defer to Amir on this one.
Amir – if you can find a hospitable mosque, i’m sure there are plenty of non-Muslims who’d like to see them at first hand.
Pommygranate,
There is nothing wrong with Andrew’s comment. His opinion holds as much status as any other persons.
Hit a nerve, did he?
LDU
Just stating the obvious.
[...] topic of telling college educated/middle class individuals about Islam. A few days ago, Amir posted this similar post on Austrolabe. What goes on in Australia is eerily (and sadly) similar to what often happens here in [...]
Wait.
You mean the occasional Austrolable commenter ‘Andrew Bartlett’ and the bespectacled Democratic Senator I see on the TV are one and the same?
Dear me, but I’ve been quite ’slow on the uptake’!
Well, there is no way to verify that (from our end), but if you click on his name it leads to the website of the “Democratic Senator”. So, I guess so!
Thanks Pommygranate – I accept my experiences may be different to the average visitor, but I don’t think they’re “irrelevant”. I especially doubt that they would have been able to revamp their toilets just for my visist, particularly given a couple of them have been on virtually no notice, as I was just accompanying others rather than a pre-booked visit.
Also, given that at a fair few of them I’ve mingled with and chatted to members of the general community rather than just the leadership, most of whom wanted to talk politics of some sort, if anything I would think I’d be more likely to hear at least one person go on about 9/11 if that’s a common view.
I agree that, given my position, its reasonable to assume I might be less likely to cop some heavy proselytising than other random visitors.
FWIW, by far the most common political concerns I’ve had raised with me on these sorts of visits have been the portrayal of Muslims in the media, followed by the terror laws, followed by anger about Palestine.
Maybe its just that Queenslanders are friendlier! (that’s a joke by the way)
Subhanallah @ the story of the family. That just breaks my heart. We can be real idiots.
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