UnMosqued

[Admin Khan]

'Unmosqued' Debate: Muslim Millenials Explore The Problem With American Mosques

Video here:
'Unmosqued' Debate: Muslim Millenials Explore The Problem With American Mosques


Muslim millenials joined host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani on Huff Post Live to discuss the exclusivity of many American mosques, as captured in the upcoming film "UnMosqued" by Ahmed Eid.

More and more American Muslims find themselves at odds with the culture in their mosque communities, particularly as many of these places of worship retain strong ties to homelands that self-identified American Muslims may not relate to, say many of those interviewed in "Unmosqued."

"You go to the masjid, and so many masjids speak their own native language," commented one man. "Whether it's Arabic, Bangla, Urdu, Turkish. and our children have a hard time understanding this message."

"Where is the young generation?" asks Imam Shamsi Ali. "They are moving away, and they are not coming back."

Ainee Fatima, Ali Baluch, Ramy Youssef, and Yousef Erakat chimed in on the debate to explain their feelings about the acceptance of the Muslim community.

Filmmaker Ali Baluch commented on internal criticism of the Muslim community by saying, "We don't get hate from non-Muslims-- we get hate from within. I'm sure many sisters and women and female Muslims can attest to this-- that they get torn apart more by Muslims themselves, by saying they're not doing something right, they're not modest, they're not wearing the scarf the right way. They get torn down more by Muslims than by non-Muslims."

He continued, "So when you want to worship and be in a great environment, you're constantly bothered by this religious police who are saying you're not praying the right way. Instead of guiding you the right way, they're just scaring you away."

Watch the clip above for more.

[ډګروال]

what a hideous title

i expected you to be more sensible than this.

@topic

it seems to be nothing more than another barrage of stereotyping and demonizing of Muslims and Mosques , this time by using a bunch f weirdos who have no knowledge of their religion and have hard time fitting in.

the first guy on google stream is refering to himself as MAZLIM ,obviously he cant even pronounce Muslim and has been put here to pass judgements on other Muslims. He also says that the hate is coming from Muslims not from anyone else. what a moron. Than he goes on using Muslim women as an excuse.

the other guy in the beginning did have a point saying that the sermons at the mosques are done in their own native language Bangladeshi,urdu ,arabic,turkish because of which they cant understand what is being said or understand the massege.
that is probably the only point in this whole video.

[Admin Khan]

It's the name of the program; not my title. Please use a bit of common sense wrora gula.

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION]

Chime in

what a hideous title

i expected you to be more sensible than this.

@topic

it seems to be nothing more than another barrage of stereotyping and demonizing of Muslims and Mosques , this time by using a bunch f weirdos who have no knowledge of their religion and have hard time fitting in.

the first guy on google stream is refering to himself as MAZLIM ,obviously he cant even pronounce Muslim and has been put here to pass judgements on other Muslims. He also says that the hate is coming from Muslims not from anyone else. what a moron. Than he goes on using Muslim women as an excuse.

the other guy in the beginning did have a point saying that the sermons at the mosques are done in their own native language Bangladeshi,urdu ,arabic,turkish because of which they cant understand what is being said or understand the massege.
that is probably the only point in this whole video.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I personally think that people need to be strong. What I find problematic here is that people decided to cede ground on "their" mosque without taking responsibility to implement the change or address the issues that they find problematic.

People are into making these documentaries just to make them... they don't really offer serious conclusions or recommendations.

I have been a number of mosques around the country and find that there are multiple ways to "go to the mosque."

There are those that make it the center of social interaction (e.g. getting together with friends or cultural associates, basketball, etc) alongside their religious routine

and there are those that make it a purely religious matter to visit the mosque... they walk in, they pray, they pay some charity, and they walk out.

I have seen strict people, simple people, doctors, taxi drivers, convert crowds, mystics etc visiting these mosques and doing just fine.

What I think they fail to identify is that running a mosque takes money and time. The reason culture often dominates various mosques is that hard working and wealthy Muslims come together in many cities and make the mosque their personal project. The view of some of these people then reflects in who is chosen as Imam, who is chosen to be recognized as a community leader, who gets local scholarships, who is "Mr Popular" so as to say.

But these unmosqued types don't even think of this fact at all and just assume that people are going to remold the mosque to fit their vantage point.

Some young dedicated college students in one Midwestern city started their own mosque based on the precept that religious dedication at the mosque trumped everything else (i.e. what the unmosqued people complain about) - and they did just fine and received congratulations from the "cultural" mosques for establishing another masjid that was used even by the "cultural" folks when they were close to that location.

We see a similar cultural association going on here with our Christian friends in their churches. For some, church is a social place and a support structure (especially in the Baptist community). This has resulted in a generation that places different values in their religion turning away from the southern strict Baptist definition of "going to Sunday church."

What I would recommend is that people who feel this way learn to be strong and understand that by Islamic doctrine, the mosque is a house of God... for all. They have every right to be there and they should stand up for that right instead of messing with older folks and trying to force immigrants to adopt their viewpoints. If they walk into a mosque and a guy starts pulling at their pants, they should make it clear to that person to back off and to learn to explain their view points in a reasonable way.

The hate from within commentary that guy makes is mainly because, once again, these guys lower their own izzaat. Even if some inferiority complex type of people are sitting there (such people are not strictly in mosques but they are at work, at school, in the gym, etc) why should I lower my izzaat by caring what they think?

The basic function of the mosque is to provide a place of safe refuge to read the Quran and to pray the 5 prayers. If the mosque provides at least this much, Muslims should support their mosque and learn to make the mosque work for them.

Most of my friends are not at the mosque. Most of my even Muslim friends are in the hospital. So when I visit the mosque, I go and read a few surahs, pray my salaah and then go home.

I could dwell on their events, their schooling curriculum, the discussions that others are having, but that would be my wrong and my error, not the mosque's fault itself.
That level of interaction is a choice.

Regarding the types of Muslims one hangs out with - once again, God doesn't tell you who you have to keep as a bosom buddy. We have to look at other Muslims as amongst a religious brotherhood, but that doesn't mean that we cannot maintain some best friends, closer friends, etc. without being rude to others.

This is more often the problem girls face, but its getting better for them as well. Going to the mosque, according to some females was like a fashion competition and a gossip fest a while back. But more and more I see people, especially Turks, starting halaqas and re-establishing the role of spirituality and comraderie by emphasizing sisters getting together strictly to learn.

We also have to cut the last generation a break. They were first generation immigrants on this soil and found cultural and religious commonalities. The mosque became a cultural center for them because that was where they could meet as an enclave and feel some level of comfort away from their homelands. The good thing was that they worked hard to establish some foundation but the bad thing was that they bought some of their baggage from the mother countries with them.

In all, Admin, I find that these unmosqued people are yearning for social interactions of their liking more than yearning for the divine.

[Gulalai]

here is my 2 cents if i may...

what ever this video states or what ever dagarwal found on google, the fact that there has been a lot of racial/ethnic segregation of masjid is actually true. it obviously isn't a good thing which is why it probably angers you (dagarwal) but it is real and we should be fixing it instead of denying it.

Im going to try not to give out too much information but where i live the masjids used to be very segregated by different races. The muslim community was very small and even then we didn't end up under one masjid, instead the different races/ethnicity tried to find accommodations for their own communities, and i think these are due to the fact that most of the people creating/running masjids are first generation immigrants, sometimes even cultural or madhab differences, and obviously language barriers.

most of the adults started that created masjids around the west (or just in america, i'm actually not sure about other masjids in the west) were immigrants and they were used to their masjid being run a certain way from back home which is where the "cultural" differences comes into play. Then theres definitely the madhab differences where some people were just like "oh, they're praying a slightly different way so lets just do it our own way over here". and then lastly of course what dagarwal said about everyone speaks in their own languages for those who do not understand english. And then the other subject of not having an active youth involved in the masjids is just because of lack of role models. The clash of generations between immigrants and their children born in the west also plays a big role where the parents just grew up going to the masjid down the street at every azaan, but kids raised here have to actually want to go to the masjid. And to actually want to go to the masjid they have to see it as a positive thing not as a "im being forced to go" so they need role models that they can look up to who show them the goodness of attending masjid and what they can get out of it.

Now, alhumdulillah, where I live the races/ethnicities are more mixed than they used to be, the women's sections at the masjids are flourishing, and more and more youths are getting involved. All three of these things sort of just happened at the same time. Once the women got more involved, the children got more involved. Once the children got more involved the races and ethnicities started to mix. The solution is to have space for everyone and to have different events and activities for the youth or even the entire community.

As for what some of the guys in the video were talking about how the youth feels judged when going to the masjid. I think a lot of the youth needs to stop being sensitive first of all. I've noticed a lot of people feel guilty for some things that they could be doing better for their faith, and instead of owning up to it they blame others for judging them. On the other hand its also not correct to be calling out flaws. Sometimes some elders from back home are very strict and actually do come off too judgmental when trying to better the youth. So instead they need to learn how to grab this generation's attention because what worked for them in their youth isn't going to work here. Here you are competing with pop culture, which is sad to say but it's true. I try to work a lot with the youth where I live and my conclusion is some of them are just hopeless, some you can convince, and others are just blessed by Allah and are motivated to do things for the masjid themselves.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

here is my 2 cents if i may...

what ever this video states or what ever dagarwal found on google, the fact that there has been a lot of racial/ethnic segregation of masjid is actually true. it obviously isn't a good thing which is why it probably angers you (dagarwal) but it is real and we should be fixing it instead of denying it.

Im going to try not to give out too much information but where i live the masjids used to be very segregated by different races. The muslim community was very small and even then we didn't end up under one masjid, instead the different races/ethnicity tried to find accommodations for their own communities, and i think these are due to the fact that most of the people creating/running masjids are first generation immigrants, sometimes even cultural or madhab differences, and obviously language barriers.

most of the adults started that created masjids around the west (or just in america, i'm actually not sure about other masjids in the west) were immigrants and they were used to their masjid being run a certain way from back home which is where the "cultural" differences comes into play. Then theres definitely the madhab differences where some people were just like "oh, they're praying a slightly different way so lets just do it our own way over here". and then lastly of course what dagarwal said about everyone speaks in their own languages for those who do not understand english. And then the other subject of not having an active youth involved in the masjids is just because of lack of role models. The clash of generations between immigrants and their children born in the west also plays a big role where the parents just grew up going to the masjid down the street at every azaan, but kids raised here have to actually want to go to the masjid. And to actually want to go to the masjid they have to see it as a positive thing not as a "im being forced to go" so they need role models that they can look up to who show them the goodness of attending masjid and what they can get out of it.

Now, alhumdulillah, where I live the races/ethnicities are more mixed than they used to be, the women's sections at the masjids are flourishing, and more and more youths are getting involved. All three of these things sort of just happened at the same time. Once the women got more involved, the children got more involved. Once the children got more involved the races and ethnicities started to mix. The solution is to have space for everyone and to have different events and activities for the youth or even the entire community.

As for what some of the guys in the video were talking about how the youth feels judged when going to the masjid. I think a lot of the youth needs to stop being sensitive first of all. I've noticed a lot of people feel guilty for some things that they could be doing better for their faith, and instead of owning up to it they blame others for judging them. On the other hand its also not correct to be calling out flaws. Sometimes some elders from back home are very strict and actually do come off too judgmental when trying to better the youth. So instead they need to learn how to grab this generation's attention because what worked for them in their youth isn't going to work here. Here you are competing with pop culture, which is sad to say but it's true. I try to work a lot with the youth where I live and my conclusion is some of them are just hopeless, some you can convince, and others are just blessed by Allah and are motivated to do things for the masjid themselves.

The divide often is:
Bosnians, Arabs, South and Central Asians, Young people

What I noticed in some places is that over time, population statistics overwhelms these inclinations.

One group of Arab and Pakistani physicians built a large prominent mosque in one city and also had control of the prior smaller one. As the Muslim population in the city grew, you would see more and more diversity in the larger central mosque and eventually the young generation took it over peacefully.

Sometimes these smaller mosques that are culture associated are not created just because of culture affinity but because of location. For instance in the current city I am in, the Afghan mosque falls in the district where the majority of Afghan grocers and other Afghan businessman live... but these folks also come to the central mosque to pray.

[Gulalai]

The divide often is:
Bosnians, Arabs, South and Central Asians, Young people

What I noticed in some places is that over time, population statistics overwhelms these inclinations.

One group of Arab and Pakistani physicians built a large prominent mosque in one city and also had control of the prior smaller one. As the Muslim population in the city grew, you would see more and more diversity in the larger central mosque and eventually the young generation took it over peacefully.

Sometimes these smaller mosques that are culture associated are not created just because of culture affinity but because of location. For instance in the current city I am in, the Afghan mosque falls in the district where the majority of Afghan grocers and other Afghan businessman live... but these folks also come to the central mosque to pray.

Here the divide was initially afghans and somalian. as the community grew Indian muslims and Iraqis joined our "afghan" masjid, and the growing somalian population and muslims from other african countries joined the "somalian" masjid. These days we try not to over book events at different masjids on the same day instead we alternate weekly in order to get the entire community at both active masjids (other masjids just stay in their corner for their little neighborhood).

That makes sense in larger cities but in suburban and rural areas there isn't really an "afghan neighborhood" or an "arab neighborhood" they are all over the place, but some people actually go out of their way to attend their preferable masjid instead of the one near their house.

[DaZahroJaam.]

I never liked the idea of going in but after witnessing a few political debates where worship should have been happening, I decided not to bother anymore.
Two years ago, we started a program where students are given Dari, Pashtu as well as Quran and Islamic lessons by selected members of the afghan community in a classroom environment and we prefer it that way. At the moment, the majority of our students are young adults but we are hoping to expand that further.