International Festival 2010, Sat & Sun, Aug 7 & 8, 2010

First Day of Ramadhan, Wednesday, Aug 11, 2010

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

 

Separation of Mosque and Community Center

Munier Nazzal M.D.

 The first Muslim immigrants to the US were slaves brought to the US against their well from Africa. Many of them lost their identity and religion because they lacked the freedom to practice, learn and to teach religion to their children.  The second Muslim immigrant wave was of Arabs who were voluntary immigrants and came to the US in the 1800s. They were of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian origin. Christian immigrants came from the same region. Many were workers and traders that had to pay their way to the US by their hard work. They settled in groups in different cities.

With expanding communities and the freedom of religion houses of worship were built and they became the centers of activity for many of the Muslim groups. The first mosque in America was built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a community that has lived there for more than 100 years.

Mosques were of utmost importance to bridge the geographical remoteness from countries of origin. Their functions have not been confined to being worship places and many filled the vacuum for the immigrants as places of social activities, learning, and helped to maintain their culture and religion in the US.  Muslims, being products of many cultures and backgrounds, that are for many of them more important than the religion, made it difficult for the mosques to play their roles.

Politicizing the mosques, absence of common goals, lack of unified ambitions and certainly differing personal agendas paralyzed the mosques and drove them into vicious cycles of actions and reactions to resolve daily issues. This created a disconnection between the immigrants and their American born children. Being Americanized, the children have a closer culture to each other and to the community around.  Their expectations from and roles towards the mosques are different from those of their parents. Being unable to satisfy their needs and getting fed up with the politics within mosques lead them to abandoning the mosques to other organizations that potentially can fulfill their ambitions to an Americanized Islamic life based on their understanding of religion and culture as well as their expectations from the failed mega religious organizations.  

In many cases this understanding collided with the understanding of their parents resulting in widening the gap between the generations. This threatens to deprive mosques of their future attendees.  It might be time to reexamine the role of mosques in Muslim lives in America. There is no question that they should stay as places for worship and carrying the religious duties including teaching religion. Imams will be confined to this job.  Perhaps this can remove mosques from the special and private agendas of persons and groups. The community center part of the mosque should be delegated to places independent from those of worship. Such centers can satisfy the needs of the Muslim community far better than the mosques. They should be professionally run and directed. Nowadays we expect the Imams to be and do everything in the mosque from leading the prayer to carrying consulting jobs on all walks of life. Such grand job description hurts both the job and the person. It is not logical to expect one person to do all such professional work at the highest level of competency with no professional preparation.

We should establish our own centers of activities that fulfill the social and education needs and ambitions of the future. This can satisfy our needs to teach our children, keep our social networks, allow social and sport activities, and resolve evolving day to day problems in a professional and modern way.

This separation will open doors for state and federal grants that cannot be obtained under the current system. It will allow us to employ responsible professionals in their specialties rather than to depend on volunteers who cannot be held responsible. It opens doors for having a real community sense by centralizing activities with better use of resources.  Furthermore, it will allow establishing more mosques geographically closer to members to better satisfy the religious needs. It will limit the friction and struggle within Islamic centers by having more choices to satisfy variable religious needs.

The separation of places of worship and social activities is not an invitation for limiting the role of religion in our lives. It is an invitation for professionalization of such activities and extracting them away from the endless politics of Islamic centers.   We should maintain our identity within the American system but get integrated within the system like all other minorities.  The separation will satisfy the professional needs of our children without dragging them into the politics between cultures otherwise they run the risk of getting assimilated within the system around with no ties to religion or culture.

Dr. Munier Nazzal is Professor of Vascular/Endovascular Surgery at the University of Toledo. His email is osomhab@yahoo.com

posted 6/21/2010