A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending Friday prayers at the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center, and learned a lot about Islam and the Muslim faith. I really enjoyed how we had two sort of distinct experiences, the first being the service, and the second being the conversation with the acting Imam. To start with a little very basic background about the faith, which we talked about with Brother Ahmed, or Dr. A, Islam is one of the Abrahamic religions, and is monotheistic meaning they belive in only one God. A lot of the religion comes from a book called the Quran, and there are 5 major pillars of Islam. The first is the belief in one God, and the fact that Muhhamad is his messenger, the second is prayer (5 times a day), the third is giving/donating, the fourth is fasting for Ramadan, and last is making a pilgrimage to Mecca.

 

The sermon and service was fascinating, filled with fast arabic (which I loved hearing) song, chanting, teaching and silence. The physical aspect of it all was also very interesting, starting with before you even enter when you take off your shoes, and then all the prostrating and bowing. I think the easiest way for me to talk about all this is in relation to my faith, and the countless Jewish services I've attended. It's crazy to me how many similarities there are, and I loved just sitting there quietly in the back of the room and realizing that. These similarities started from looking up— the space itself, with long diagonal wooden beams across the ceiling was very similar to my synagogue. The dynamic of the leaders of the service was also the same, someone doing the more teaching, sermon piece, in mainly English, followed by someone else leading the congregation in prayer or song. For me this is a Rabbi and a cantor, and at the Mosque it was an Imam, and the other person who I’m not sure what their title was. I loved seeing the people, and how some will enter in formal attire, sitting straight up and listening to every word, and some will come in in sweatpants and baseball caps, sneaking glances at their phone from time to time. Again this just felt so familiar. One moment that just solidified this was when the little kid started crying during one of the silent pieces; that kid was probably me at my synagogue years ago.

 

While not 100% true, most people looked very similar, with brown skin and dark hair, and I think it's a really great experience to have to not fit in. Even through all the similarities there are some major differences in the religion, arguably the most striking and present in my mind being the fact that the service is split by gender. This example of upholding and expressing their faith is intriguing to me, because the complications Muslims face with maintaining religion while living modern lives is a very hot topic.

 

Moving on to the second piece of our visit, talking to Brother Ahmed about his life as an immigrant, and as a muslim, was fascinating, and hearing him tell us about Islam and ask us why we came was a great way to give an intriguing but potentially confusing service clarity. It's always cool to hold a conversation with people who have different views on something than you, and while we didn't spend too much time on it, the conflict in Israel would definitely be something that I think one way about and he thinks another. On that note I loved his final message to us, about being curious and asking questions. There is value in interfaith dialogue, and it's not good for people to not ask things because of fear of being offensive, or when people are defensive with their answers.