Islamic Community in the Mosques

The mosques are beautiful structures made by the Muslims to go and pray together. Istanbul is one of the most important places to go to find the most beautiful mosques in the world. During my visit to this city, I saw many of these buildings raised up high above the town.

There is something very special about worshiping in a mosque. Many times, it seems hard for nonbelievers of Islam to understand the culture and to fully live the spiritual and practical life of this special culture. As a Christian, it was very difficult for me to understand what was happening during a prayer service at the mosque. The call of prayer was something that looked and sounded very silly to me, but it was because my lack of knowledge and interest. During my time in Istanbul, I had three experiences that completely changed the way I was looking at the community and worship at the mosques in Islamic countries.

The first of the experiences started when me and my group went to visit The Kocatepe Mosque. During our visit we met Ismail Cosar the head Iman of the mosque. After he showed us the main chamber of the mosque he opened a time for questions and that is where the story starts. He started answering everybody's questions with patience and love, his eyes where filled with excitement and passion. Cosar wasn't only answering questions, he was showing us the way he was living and sharing his love and kindness to us. Not satisfied with that, he even took a few of our group members to the top of a minaret. The group came back from this short adventure in the minaret and Cosar overwhelmed by his passion and love for us started hugging us and holding our hands. Not soon after that he started crying and couldn't stop saying “I love this group, I love all of you.”

The second experience started when after a long night in Istanbul our group decided to go and observe the five am prayer service at the Blue Mosque. After my experience in Kocatepe, I visited a few other mosques but without any particular experience. “This new adventure to the Blue Mosque is my chance to get a good paper” I thought. So finally at five in the morning as we walked around the city, the call to prayer sounded in every single corner of the city. We hurried and walked into the Blue Mosque. Nothing amazing happened, my friend Ben and I prayed in a special area for visitors where there is a fence that divided the main chamber.

We prayed and we left, but as we walked out to where all our friends were waiting, one man in a white robe took my hand and hugged me. He asked, “Do you want to pray with me? Do you love Allah?” “I love Allah.” I responded. He put his arms around my shoulders and started walking me back to the mosque. This time he took me to a separate room that had about fifty fountains. He showed me how to washed my hands, arms, feet and face. He grabbed my hand again more intimately and dragged me closer to him and asked me if I still wanted to pray, “Yes, I do,” I said. His face was filled with joy and excitement. He stopped, looked at me and said, “I love Allah and I love you.” We hurried inside the mosque through the wooden door where the women prayed, through the visitors fence, and finally to the front row where all the men were lined up and ready to pray. At this point I forgot about my paper and started experiencing the community and the hospitality of the Muslim men around me. We prayed, and as soon as we finish praying all together, he took me outside and thanked me for praying with him. I asked him what his name was, “Hashir,” he replied. By this time, my feelings of what I thought of the Islamic culture, their community, and relationships had completely changed. There was still one more mosque to visit.

My third visit was to a mosque located in a small town in the middle of Istanbul. I was walking around with some of my friends when the call to prayer was made for all the Muslims. My friends and I started looking for a place to go and and pray but also to participate in one of the services. We turned a corner and found a small mosque that was on the second floor of one of the buildings. Just as always, we took our shoes off and walked in to the mosque. The experience in this particular mosque was very different than the ones before. There was only about ten people there praying. After the service we stood there exploring when all of a sudden the Iman came to us and asked what was the purpose of our visit. We told him that we were students and that we were studying the Qur'an. With a big smile he told us to wait for a few minutes. A few minutes later The Iman came back with one of the guys that was praying during the service and he introduced himself, “My name is Surish,” he said.

Surish told us that the Iman wanted to know if we had questions about the Qur'an, and we did have questions so the conversation started with a prayer from the Qur'an. Both men where kind and patient to us. I was surprised by their desire to explain to us and make us understand the words from The Qur'an and their own experiences. Surish took us to his jacket store and offered us some apple tea, just like back at home when people from church invited you for lunch or a coffee.

The community between believers and non-believers in the mosques goes beyond five prayers per day. The mosques were created with the purpose of having a place to get together and worship and pray to God, and that is exactly what they do. The experiences I had were natural and unintentional,but these men gave me the chance to experience their religion further than that. They did not know that they showed me the reality of the community inside the mosques. The mosques create opportunities for new and old followers to establish a relationship to prayer and worshiping, and this is exactly what they do. If you go during prayer time in the mornings you will find a very few believers praying, they line up very close from each other and in that way the enjoy the time of prayer.

The most important of the prayer times is at noon, when I went to that service there was about two hundred Muslims lining up praying and worshiping as the woman in the back of the building take care of the kids and also pray to Allah. When I asked Hashir how was his experience as a Muslim he smile at me and said, “I love Allah, I love talking to Allah. I am a happy man.” I saw the peace in his eyes and the smile on his face really back up what he was saying.

The mosques are vital in Islam culture, for people like me the mosques were only beautiful buildings with paintings and lights. There is something profound about the community in the mosques and what happens there while they are praying and worshiping. These beautiful places inspire union and devotion. It is so much easier to understand when you live it, when you walk in, when you talk to someone and put a face on the story. Inside the mosques are secrets that haven't been revealed to us, and in them the believers find rest and comfort raising their voices to Allah, and pouring their hearts to the Most Merciful.