TayoBlog

My experiences of Islam in Germany has been rich and varied. Finding time to write about these has been more elusive. A brief reflection on my visit to the Migrant Mosque (al-Muhajirin) is the subject of my shorter Blog.

The mosque is located in a basement. As I entered, I could not avoid the towering Church in the square. Going down into the mosque was symbolic of the architectural and public hierarchy of two religious spaces.

The sermon (khutba) was given in Arabic, and the subject was generosity. The ethic of giving was emphasized, in stark contrast to the spatial role that I felt when entering. Giving was an uplifting experience; a mark of one's place in the bounty of God. As you gave, you were simply helping in the redistribution of grace and value that ultimate belonged to God. As I sat on the ground in this place of worship, all feelings of being in the basement was quickly overcome.

The politics of space is important, but sometimes we need to go beyond the antagonisms that it generates. Many of us seem to derive a sense of self from our place, from our selves in the mirror of the other. The deep ethical value of giving turned this conception upside down.

We could then use this new conception to reject the sociology of the public square. From a vantage of a new ethic, all others could be belittled and rejected. However, this example illustrated for me how I had created the binary of high and low in the first place. I was the one who allowed the public debate in Europe to inform my perception, and I translateded it into the spatial organization of mosque and church. When the sermon challenged me, I must first of all challenge my preconceptions, not lash out at the System.

The language of the sermon was simple standard Arabic. Not as elegant as the one I heard a few weeks earlier in Masjid Nur (also in a basement, but making up in size and expanse, and eloquent Arabic).

More interestingly, the sermon was translated in German half-way through. When the first part of the sermon was over, the preacher sat down and a young man moved up to the front. He delivered a verbatim German translation of the Arabic sermon. It was equally strong and to the point. For all the talk about German not being used in mosques here, I come accross it quite often! Different in each case, but still present nevertheless.

A small story of the name was also interesting. The mosque was called the Muhajirin mosque. Upon some brief inquiry, I learnt that the "people" from this mosque had been at another mosque before. This was the beautiful Imam Ali Moschee which is the Shi'a mosque in the city on the Alster Lake. I vaguely remember that this particular mosque was used by the Tablighi Jamaat in 1997 when I first visited Hamburg. This was confirmed for me, but so also the fact that "people" moved around a bit.

Individuals seem to move from one mosque to another, until they restrict themselves to one or two. More interestingly, groups also seem to move around until they settle. I have not yet been to a Turkish mosque which is the more dominant tradition here. I have avoided them since I do not understand Turkish. Perhaps I should visit them, since languages seem not to be too fixed. And German is a common language.