“Sister, you must cover your jeans. Your prayer will not be accepted if you pray wearing pants. Sister, hold your child. You really shouldn’t be in here while we’re praying. If she’s noisy you will disrupt the prayer and the fault will be on you.”
I was so angry, I couldn’t breathe let alone remember the words to al-Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Qur’an. Words that I’ve said literally thousands of times over the past decade. A small congregation was praying in the women’s balcony section of a local mosque — following the men below by way of a speaker system — when a woman began lecturing everyone on the “proper way to pray.” She spoke through the first takbir, and continued her gruff, intrusive monologue until the first ruku. That’s when she joined us in prayer.
This was the last straw in a long list of offenses.
At this mosque, women pray in a clean and nicely decorated space, but have to go through a mean-spirited representative to communicate with the mosque administration and defer to her authority to be among the “inner circle” of preferred worshippers. Being verbally berated during prayer is beyond unacceptable and the least complaint — I previously watched this person belittle and reduce another woman to tears because she didn’t understand how to register her children for a Qur’an class. Others have complained directly to the administration about the combative environment in the women’s section, and have received no response — either because the administration supports the attitude of their representative, don’t care about their women congregants, or simply don’t bother to check the mosque e-mail.
This is not simply an issue of personality conflict between myself and one person, but reflective of an overall attitude of administrative hubris — an exclusive mosque culture, when our community leadership should be exuding and encouraging peace.
I can’t articulate just how heartbreaking it is to feel like my family does not belong in a house of worship. That we’ve stopped attending mosques because of gender segregation, hostile prayer spaces, higher-than-thou attitudes, discrimination against mothers and their children, horrible sermons, and barriers, basements and balconies. Mosques are supposed to be the spiritual centre of the community, open to all without criticism, judgement or discrimination, supporting those who need it, fostering equality, and engaging in public service.
Instead, many are physically and spiritually cold, rife with cronyism, exclude women from prayer and positions of power, are unfriendly toward the LGTBQ community, plagued by sectarianism and racial divisions, and are insular institutions incapable of connecting to the youth of today. Imams produce sermons more concerned with discussing parking and unruly children, than openly discussing domestic violence and sexual assault. And while it is true that you can pray anywhere on the clean earth, and find spiritual fulfillment in spaces created outside the mosque — one just needs to look at a picture of the swirling masses around the Ka’bah in Mecca to be reminded that prayer is central to Islam, and how important the mosque is as a place of community. Islam’s first mosque was attached to the Prophet’s home and became a place of entertainment, community building, learning, welfare, and religious instruction — thus imparting the expectation that the mosque exist as a central institution for our communities.
But today some mosques have become “mimbar-centred spaces,” raining down judgements and anti-West tirades, and are more worried about fundraising on Laylatul Qadr, than making sure kids experimenting with drugs and sex have something other than a basketball net to support them. People all over North America are dissatisfied with the mosque and many mosques today, are simply missing the point.
The Unmosqued movie project aims to highlight this growing problem, by identifying why people are leaving the mosque and exploring what mosques need to do in order to reconnect to the community:
After watching this trailer I was inspired to ask others about their relationship with the mosque — and over a series of posts, am excited to host a roundtable discussion to find out why people are dissatisfied with the mosque, where they are finding community, and to learn what they think mosques need to do in order to be relevant today.
I contacted interested participants through my personal networks and put a call out over social media to gather an amazing group for this discussion. The people who participated are brilliant and wonderful, faithful and searching, converts, immigrants and second-generation, “unmosqued” and regular attendees, geeky and hipster, parents, LGTBQ, sisters, brothers, religious and unapologetic heretics.
This post will be the first in a five-part series on the unmosqued roundtable, and only shows a glimpse into a provocative and timely discussion on the state of our mosques and our rapidly changing community. I hope you will also join in the conversation and share your experiences and ideas in the comments as well.
Read more in this series:
Making the Mosque Relevant Again
wood turtle 
February 20, 2013 at 11:33 pm
I am so excited!!!
February 22, 2013 at 11:32 am
“The people who participated are brilliant and wonderful, faithful and searching, converts and second-generation, “unmosqued” and regular attendees, geeky and hipster, parents, LGTBQ, sisters, brothers, religious and unapologetic heretics.”
so why didn’t you try to hear any immigrant voices? immigrants are an important part of north america too. or does brotherhood/sisterhood/unity amongst muslims not include immigrants.
this whole unmosqued thing seems to want to exclude immigrants from our communities and thinks of them as nothing worthy.
February 22, 2013 at 1:43 pm
I think you raise an excellent point! This is something I address in the second post of this series — the fact that North American mosques are the first experience of a mosque for some. The participants also look at what it means to be unmosqued and I discuss the problems with the term.
Also, Ida is an immmigrant from the Middle East. She shares her experiences from both there and within Canada. Omar is an immigrant from India.
I just wasn’t explicit of this fact in that blurb you quoted (I was pairing attributes for the most part). Thanks for pointing this out!! I’ll amend the post.
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this, or if you’re willing, your experience too.
February 22, 2013 at 2:59 pm
Sorry, I mean the third installment! It should be up on the 24th inshallah. (Travelling right now with unreliable internet)
February 23, 2013 at 9:23 pm
ah thanks for the clarification. sorry to make hasty assumptions.
hmm i haven’t really been or felt unmosqued ever, and nor am i an immigrant, so i don’t think i can add anything useful to your discussion. besides, to be honest, i’m sort of wary about the whole unmosqued “movement.”
I look forward to reading the upcoming posts though. =)
February 22, 2013 at 10:06 pm
Is the mosque supposed to be designed for worshipers or…LGTBQ people who may not even frequent the place?
I think that is a question that can’t be ignored in the rhetoric. With so many things Muslims, you find it is people who are on the periphery who try and shape core Muslim issues. Its political agendas who try and export feminism into say, Afghanistan, when there are bigger problems to be dealt with.
There are many maladjusted people at the mosque. And in my experience, it is by default an atmosphere, where people will usually assume the worst – unless they are used to the place.
The American mosque will take time to grow and take shape. With so many people coming to one place, it is naive to expect it to work out well.
di.
February 23, 2013 at 9:36 am
Thanks for your comment Dawud.
The mosque should be designed for everyone, but there are those who feel excluded by the mosque either by its very architecture or through a climate of intolerance. The Prophet never turned anyone away, and yet that precisely what we do today.
I don’t really think people in the margins try to shape core Muslim values. I think perhaps for the most part people are attempting to create spaces where they are recognized. In my experience, it’s more conservative voices that have vastly changed the setup and culture in mosques.
I agree with your thoughts that western feminism is being exported into Muslim countries to the exclusion of women’s voices in those countries.
As for time, the first mosque in Canada was in 1830. And they were more welcoming than mosques today. I think mosques have lost touch with their communities. Not all mind you. There are some brilliantly active and inclusive mainstream mosques.
It’s such an interesting issue. We have the mosque that’s for prayer and instruction and Muslims who feel left out. So what do we do? Those on the margins will continue making “fringe” groups and places of worship where they are welcomed. Is the answer to change the “traditional” mosque or to admit difference and separate the ummah (which we do already with divisions on ethnic lines)?
Thank you so much for you perspective and for commenting!
February 25, 2013 at 10:01 am
Dawud, I and many LGTB Muslims I know do or want to once again frequent and participate actively in mosques. If the environment is exclusionary, abusive and intolerant then we are much less likely to come and participate.
March 5, 2013 at 5:47 pm
“With so many things Muslims, you find it is people who are on the periphery who try and shape core Muslim issues.”
The trouble with that reasoning is, so long as there’s no place for us in the mosques, the only place from which we can try to shape things is the periphery.
I have literally had the experience of attending Juma’ah, sitting in the basement with the other women listening to the khutbah over the loudspeakers, and the khatib saying, “Brothers and sisters…actually, I’m not sure if there are any sisters here…”
When mosques are set up in ways that make it difficult for women to participate (I’m talking about women specifically because that’s my experience, and I don’t want to try to speak for anyone but myself), and then our further exclusion is justified by the fact that we don’t show up to the mosque anyway, then something is seriously wrong in our communities.
February 24, 2013 at 1:18 am
What a fantastic series! I’m so excited to read more!!
July 17, 2013 at 4:02 am
[…] Hubby is currently working in the UK, my Muslim family has returned to Kuwait for the summer, I’m unmosqued from the closest community in my area, and while I’ve previously adjusted to the isolation caused […]
October 11, 2013 at 2:11 pm
[…] series, Kimberly Ben of Muslimahs Working at Home and the incomparable WoodTurtle with her Unmosqued Series. Unique in my category of Non-Muslim blogger, I am the only writer that focuses on the ups and […]
October 15, 2013 at 10:22 am
I too am unmosqued. I am a convert, 18 years a Muslima now, living in WA state. I converted in Cedar Rapids, IA, a town with two mosques, one a large-ish Islamic centre, the other a small one room building. The large mosque had designated areas for women, and we’re tolerant of women who chose to pray in the main prayer hall. The smaller mosque was unfailingly friendly to all, women, men, children, Muslim and non-Muslim, run by a Palestinian imam. There was no forced gender segregation, no judgemental preaching. Needless to say, that was the mosque I chose. It didn’t matter that I was a convert, it didn’t matter that I was Shi’a, it didn’t matter that I was female. I was Muslim and I was there.
It’s the last mosque I’ve felt welcome in. I’ve been pushed out doors because of being female or Shi’a, screamed at for not parking in the “sister’s section” of the lot (sounds stupid but thanks Port St Lucie, FL!), and I finally just gave up.
I go and sit with the Quakers on Sundays now, amongst people who don’t preach, don’t care what your theology is, amongst people who seek to be peacemakers, and hold people and problems “up to the Light of God” so that the divine can transform them for their highest good. I say my prayers, keep halal, do all that I am required to as a Muslimah. But my community is in the small Quaker meeting I attend on Sundays, where I have the peace and quiet, support and mental space to forge a relationship with Allah amongst a group of people who are seeking to do the same.
February 27, 2014 at 7:53 am
[…] refreshing to have this side of the conversation laid out so openly, when as someone who is also “unmosqued,” I find myself frequently drowning in narratives that actively exclude […]