Welcome to our local mosque!

  

7 July 2008

Our local mosque, like mosques all over the world, is a place of congregational worship for Muslims. It is also a hub of community life. We have after-school Arabic and Quran classes, and weekend coaching sessions for English, Mathematics, Science, personal development and other subjects.

A mosque has a pivotal role in the Muslim community. As a place of worship surrounded by homes and businesses, it symbolizes the centrality of Faith in God, amidst all the distractions and the mundane pursuits of daily life.

As you entered, you removed your shoes and passed an ablution area. In Islam Cleanliness is vital, for body, mind and soul. We cannot pray or touch the Holy Quran without having washed ourselves, out of respect and reverence for God. Indeed, to a devout Muslim, our entire life is one long a purification process. We were born pure and free of sins, but as we go through life we pick up bad habits that blemish our moral purity. We must therefore constantly strive to polish and refine our conduct. This lifelong struggle to cultivate good character is what Prophet Muhammad described as the ‘greater jihad’ or struggle. The ‘lesser jihad is military self-defence. More about this later…

When you entered this large prayer hall, you must have noticed that the carpets have not been lined up squarely with the four walls. In fact, it has been offset by about 120 degrees from North. This is not because we had a bad carpet layer! All Muslims must face Makka during prayers. This direction is known as the Qibla. It is the directional axis that connects every Muslim at prayer, all over the planet. Even when I pray at home, in my mind’s eye I know that others are praying too, at that same moment, somewhere around the world, and we are all facing in the same direction, even if we cannot see each other. We are also reciting the prayers in the same language, Arabic.

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This entry was posted on Monday, 7 July 2008 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Arshad Gamiet, Article, Beliefs and Practices of Islam, Current Affairs and Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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