Last Friday, as a part of Islam Awareness Week on campus, I had the opportunity to visit the Islamic Society of Michiana’s mosque. It’s right in South Bend, but I hadn’t even known it existed. It was an amazing experience, to spend a Friday in Lent learning about my peers and neighbors.
First thing was a lunch and information session run by some of the members of Notre Dame’s Muslim Students Association. We hung out in the community center, where we enjoyed some foods that were typical fare for gatherings at the mosque. We did also get a funny apology about the chicken dish from the student whose mother provided the food. That was met with laughter and jokes about Catholics often forgetting to abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent. We learned some general facts about how the service would go and had a brief overview of what would follow.
Then, we went to enter the mosque. First, all of the women in attendance covered their heads with a scarf, out of respect for what is done in the space of worship. We learned that any woman who enters the place of worship should cover, whether they are Muslim and do not typically do so, or guests of different faiths. Then, all of us removed our shoes, to enter the carpeted space of worship.
The rundown of Friday prayer:
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Called Jum’ah, and it’s the main service of the week, like a Sunday mass
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1st part: a sermon, given by the imam (similar to a priest), that may or may not be related to the reading. This part is in the vernacular (English, in this case).
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2nd part: begins with a standard call to prayer and then two different sections of the Qur’an are read and responded to. This part includes some motions that are essential to prayer, with bowing and kneeling. This part is in arabic, because in prayer the Qur’an is always read in Arabic, which unites all Muslims in worship throughout the world.
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Prayer is also performed facing the first mosque in Mecca, where the Qur’an was first received on Earth by the Prophet Mohammed.
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Women and men are separated during Jum’ah, to decrease distractions during prayer, which involves placing your head to the ground in what could be an awkward position. Awkwardness is a bit distracting from prayer, where your focus should be on God alone, so the divide is present.
After the service, the imam gave us a tour of the mosque. It was cool to explore the space, and we all focused in our questions on comparing and contrasting our places and practices of worship with the space we were presently in. Some of the highlights were:
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Many clocks that show the times for the calls to prayer. Muslims are called to prayer 5 times a day, and the times shift slightly based on the sun.
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There are no images of God or Mohammed, as they really stress not worshiping any images of God at all.
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In place of this, some verses of the Qur’an were displayed in beautiful calligraphy at the front of the mosque.
It was a wonderful experience to visit the mosque in town, and I am so grateful for the Islamic society of Michiana and Notre Dame’s MSA for educating us and welcoming us into their mosque. Education and observation can lead to greater understanding, and that is exactly what we need in our world today.
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