Ingrid Mattson – Cordoba Dialogues The Evolving Role of the Mosque in Society
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
My name is Shamila Zaman. I'll be your
MC for the evening. I'm the manager of
Cordoba House.
I'm gonna introduce Sajna Zilgongkar, who's the head
of
the Muslim Association of Canada, the Hamilton chapter.
We'll say a few words about Korobe House
and Mac,
and then, I will come back and introduce
our speaker for the evening, doctor Ingram Massey.
Thank you so much.
Assalamu alaikum.
Peace be with you all. I would like
to welcome you here to our, annual or
not annual, monthly or almost
sorry.
Our
Cordoba Cordoba House dialogues.
I am, as Shamila had mentioned, the chapter
head here for the Muslim Association of Canada,
Hamilton chapter.
The Muslim Association of Canada or MAC is
a religious, educational, social,
charitable, and nonprofit organization.
MAC provides religious and educational services and programs
designed to assist in the comprehensive development of
the Muslim individual,
family, and community.
Our mission is to establish an Islamic presence
in Canada that is balanced, constructive, and intubated,
though distinct, within the social fabric and culture
of the Canadian society.
MACC currently has 11 chapters across the country,
each directly serving the needs of those local
Muslim communities.
So Cordoba House located here,
just across the street from McMaster University
campus is a project of the Muslim Association
of Canada.
Our revision for Cordoba House is to establish
an information center that promotes and focuses
on research
as well as providing a public space where
people can come in and gain an understanding
of Islam and engage in dialogue, hence the
this, event today, our Cordoba dialogue.
Cordoba House has a library, and it runs
events, which is intended to engage and inform
the community,
about Islam and just general things that that
are happening in in Canadian society.
As well, our mission is to foster dialogue,
facilitate understanding, promote research on Islam and Muslims
in Canada and the role of faith in
public life.
I'd like to welcome you all once again.
I hope you enjoy the the event this
evening, and I'd like to call back to
our house manager, Shamila, to introduce our speaker
for the evening.
Salaam Alaikum, everyone.
I'm gonna just get right to the point.
I'm not gonna crack any funny jokes right
now because I'm really sick. So,
our speaker is you know, I have her
bio in front of me, but, I mean,
I feel like I could go on for
pages after that. But,
I'll introduce her now. Doctor Inger Mattson is
a professor of Islamic Studies, founder of the
Islamic Chaplaincy Program, and director of the McDonald
Center For Islamic Studies,
and Christian Muslim Relations at the Hartford Seminary
in Hartford, Connecticut.
She earned her PhD in Islamic Studies from
the University of Chicago in 1999.
She is the author of the story of
the Koran, its history and place in Muslim
societies, as well as numerous articles exploring the
relationship between Islamic law and society, gender, and
leadership issues in contemporary Muslim communities.
From 2,006 to 2,010,
doctor Mattson served as president of the Islamic
Society of North America, also known as ISNA.
She previously served two terms as vice president.
She is the 1st woman to serve in
either position.
Doctor Matson was born in Canada where she
studied philosophy at the University of Waterloo.
From 1987 to 1988, she lived in Pakistan
where she developed and implemented
a midwife training program for Afghan refugee women.
Doctor Matson is frequently consulted by media, government,
and civic organizations and has served as an
expert witness.
In In July 2012, doctor Matson is taking
the position of the inaugural chair chair of
Islamic Studies at Huron University College at the
University of Western Ontario. If everyone could put
their hands together for doctor Ingrid Mattson. Thank
you.
This is just for the recording. Right? But
this is my main mic. Okay.
Alright.
Well, good evening.
Good evening. Good evening.
Maybe you got a little sleepy. I think
this was supposed to begin at 7:30,
but I
I can do 2 things. I can speak
really quickly to make up the time or
we we we actually have all the time
we need. We can be here as long
as 9:30, but I insist that we'll formally
end the program at 9. So those of
you who have,
you know, who for whom,
the program was advertised going to 9 o'clock
will be free to go, and then anyone
who wants to hang around for a little
while is free to do that.
We came I,
was invited to go and meet with a
number of,
Muslim community leaders over in Cordoba House before
coming here. And we had a really interesting
discussion workshop
on the evolving role of the mosque and
society. And and,
so I'm really happy to see the community
interested in this issue.
Some of the issues were,
probably that were raised or the emphasis maybe
was a little surprising to some of the
community leaders, but I was happy to see
the openness,
that was displayed by all those gathered. And
I think it's a really good sign for
moving forward,
in in the community here in the Hamilton
area, God willing.
So
let me begin
my talk here today with a little story.
I want to begin with a story about
a mosque and an experience I had
late one summer night a number of years
ago.
At that time, I was living with my
family in an ethnic neighborhood
on the southwest side of Chicago.
Most of our neighbors were Arab Americans,
mostly Palestinian Muslims,
and we lived directly across the street from
the mosque. Directly. I mean,
our I looked out the window,
and across the street was the mosque.
Between,
right at the edge of the street was
the playground for the mosque. So there was
the playground, and then the mosque, and all
of the parking lot. I could even see
in in the windows if I wanted to.
The mosque, founded about 30 years earlier, mostly
by Palestinians, had been built on land that
others did not want or care about.
It was part of a spread of vacant
land hemmed in by 2 highways and the
railroad tracks.
Over the years, Muslim families had bought the
land around the mosque and built homes,
and then they established 2 schools that stood
adjacent to and facing the mosque across a
large parking lot
that functioned when it was not filled with
cars during Friday congregational
prayer as a kind of public square.
The apartment we rented was in the first
house built in the neighborhood by a woman
with small children
after her husband passed away.
Even though her former home was in a
more upscale neighborhood,
she felt that her fatherless children needed to
live in the mosque neighborhood to learn
experientially
and naturally
how to be good Muslims.
So that night, I awoke a little past
midnight to an unexpected
sound,
a repetitive
squeaking.
I knew the sound well because the mosque
playground,
as I said, just faced my room and
the swings squeaked loudly.
I checked my clock again as I heard
the laughing of children.
It was almost 1 AM.
I looked out the window and saw a
man pushing 2 laughing children on the swings.
Well, in the parking lot, there was only
one car,
a taxi,
driving very slowly around the lot,
parking in spaces then backing out and parking
again.
The taxi was driven by a woman, a
woman wearing a headscarf.
For a while, I truly thought I was
dreaming. It seemed surreal.
But once I woke up a little more,
I realized this man had probably just returned
home from a long day at work driving
his taxi.
It was summer, so the kids weren't in
school yet.
And all the kids in the neighborhood, in
any case, kept a Mediterranean schedule during the
holidays.
So the family had driven to the mosque
where the father could play safely with the
children in the middle of the night while
his wife was learning to drive in the
safety of the parking lot.
Now, in Arabic,
the word for mosque, masjid,
is in the form of a noun that
signifies place or time.
So the mosque is a place where prostration,
sajda, is formed. The place of prostration is
the masjid.
Sajda being the key posture of ritual prayer.
But the mosque is much more than that
In America and Canada, where Muslims are a
small minority of the population,
it is a refuge. It is a safe
space for children.
It is a Muslim public square tucked inside
the broader American society.
It is a replacement for extended family that
has been left behind in distant lands.
It is a place where a Muslim does
not have to explain why he dresses this
way or why she doesn't want a drink.
In a world where virtual communities are increasingly
important,
we cannot forget
the importance and significance of a place, a
real place,
that provides these opportunities.
Now when I think about this incident
and about this mosque in particular, the word
that comes to mind,
when I think of this family and what
they were doing that night was that they
were comfortable.
They felt comfortable in this place to be
who they were,
living according to the time,
the timing that they wanted to during their
summer vacation,
doing what they like,
and
they came there because it was like a
home to them.
Now a home can be an escape,
but I don't think most of us think
of our homes as escapes. We just think
of it as the place where we go
for to relax and to be ourselves and
to be comfortable.
And so
I think we could look at the mosque,
certainly for this family,
as a kind of community home or religious
or spiritual home, even though there was nothing
that they were doing
that was in any way
one of the main functions of the mosque.
They weren't praying,
they weren't sitting reading Quran,
they weren't listening to a religious lesson,
but
here they felt at home.
So comfort,
is that a goal of the mosque?
Should it be a goal of
of the community to make the mosque a
comfortable place?
Is there any time we will want to
make it uncomfortable,
or at least spiritually
challenging?
What do Muslims themselves want from a mosque?
And how do we distinguish what they want
from what they have a right to have
in the mosque?
And who is to make that decision?
These are really the questions that
the
you know, I'm so used to saying American
Muslim.
You know, when we're Americans were so
American centric. You know? Canada, we don't even
even though I'm a Canadian, I'm not even
used to mentioning Canada. So I said the
American mosque, the North American mosque, let's say.
You know, our our our demographics
are so,
diverse
that we are not going to have one
kind of mosque, one kind of community.
And what's interesting,
you know, I do have,
information, the most recent information, demographic information on
Americans, specifically Muslim mosques,
there's a study that's done every 10 years
by my colleagues
Seminary at our Institute For Religion Research
called a FACT. It's an acronym that means
Faith Communities Today.
And this is a major study of American
religious
congregations.
All pretty much all of the major religious
denominations
in,
the United States come together
to create a kind of,
10 year state of the congregation study. And
so they pool their resources
to make this survey, and then each individual
community puts in questions in the survey that
are specific to them. It's It's like a
census
of,
denominations.
So the American Muslim community, the researchers who
do this, and the primary researcher is, doctor
Ehsan Baghbi, who's at the University,
of, Kentucky in Louisville.
He puts together
extra questions in this survey that pertain particularly
to the American Muslim community.
And what's very interesting is that the, the
first results of that study were released just
a few weeks ago
and more results are gonna be released in
the next, few months. I'll be writing,
a brief on,
information that,
pertains to women and gender in the community
specifically.
But one of the things we saw is
that,
the majority of mosques in the United States
that exist now were built in the last
30 years.
60% were built in the last 30 years.
That's quite amazing, you know, quite astonishing when
we think that, of course, there was a
great wave of immigration of Muslims to the
United States in the 19 sixties seventies.
Before that,
there was a, increasing presence of African American
Muslims who were making the shift from the
nation of Assam to mainstream Assam.
But really, it's very still very much a
young community.
But as we think, you know, for those
of us who grew up here or were
born here
in Canada or the United States, we tend
to think of the evolution of the community
in ever sort of developing terms.
But one of the things that we forget
is that our community is constantly
being changed by,
new,
new waves of immigrants.
And so while
the second or third generation of Muslims or,
those who,
were who converted to Islam and so are,
culturally
American or Canadian and then and then become
Muslim.
Well, we are growing and learning,
intermarrying,
learning
to how to balance our
Islamic, distinctive Islamic religious practices in broader society,
you know, trial and error and making successes
and ever going to a greater level of
comfort,
that that's not the whole community
because continually, every year,
new waves of immigrants come in.
And of course, the new waves of immigrants
are not necessarily,
they aren't at the same point as the
immigrants who came in the sixties.
In the 19 sixties seventies, most of the
immigrants were very educated.
They were professionals or they were coming for
graduate studies.
Many of the immigrants who have come in
the last 15 years have been war refugees,
who have come from places like, Somalia,
Bosnia, Kosovo,
Iraq,
Afghanistan, and other places.
Some of them are are educated
and and are professionals, but many of them
aren't. And so they come in with their
own,
very, you know, specific needs.
In the Bosnian community, for example, many
people in that community who came, to the
United States in various places, and where I
live in Connecticut, there's a large Bosnian community.
Many of them came traumatized
by by war the war crimes that they
face. Many of them had been in detention
camps. Some of them had been, women had
been victims of *.
Men had witnessed a genocide.
So this is a
community
that has,
very distinctive psychological
and emotional needs in addition to their needs,
economic needs to settle, and spiritual needs for
the community.
So
one of the things that those of us
who are already here
and who have already settled and kind of
figured things out need to do is to
have a great deal of patience and understanding
and empathy,
and not expect
that all of the Muslims who come to
this country
will immediately just, you know,
accept our agenda, the agenda that we've we've
set.
Because they do have their own needs.
And and one of their needs may be
to have
their mosque
be
also
a kind of cultural association?
This was the case with the Bosnians when
they came. Many of them had not,
had not really experienced a robust religious life.
You know, we could call them secular, but
I don't think that's a name they would
put on themselves.
But they did have a strong sense of
Bosnian identity, and that identity
was precisely what
the Serbian,
genocide, you know, it's not all Serbians, I
don't want to call it Serbian genocide, but
the genocide,
that was committed against the Bosnians was to
wipe out that cultural identity.
So the last thing that Muslims need to
do is say, oh, it doesn't matter if
you're Bosnian, we're all Muslim.
They needed to remember what it meant to
be Bosnian,
you know, because they are both both Bosnian
and Muslim, and they needed to
it was a
a very deep important psychological
and cultural need
to teach the Bosnian language to their children.
Reading and writing and convey the songs and
the stories of their community because this is
a people
who
had
faced,
extinction
for that very identity.
And so it was so important for the
rest of the community to understand that and
not say, well, we're all in America now.
We should all just be Muslim cultural differences.
You know, they don't they don't make any
difference. It was important to them. And one
of the things that that,
you know, part of being a diverse community
means that,
that we really listen to the priorities that
people set for themselves.
It's also the case in the United States,
for example, that we see that although
most of the African American community moved from
the nation of Islam
to, you know, mainstream,
Sunni Islam,
there still is a very strong sense that
there need to
be mosques that are
oriented towards the needs of the African American
community.
Now, that's not to be sectarian. It's not
to be exclusive.
Other people are welcome certainly there, But this
is a community that has been,
historically oppressed,
that until now faces
great structural injustice in the United States,
when we see the large rates of incarceration,
racial profiling,
all sorts of things. So So this is
a community that needs to,
to take seriously,
how they are
viewed and placed
within the broader American society. And as Muslims
gather strength,
together
to face that reality
and to deal with all of the issues
that that that arise from that situation.
So
when we look at the function of the,
of the mosque and society, we're going to
see that it is never just one thing.
Doctor Essen Begbie,
did another study, an interesting study on mosques
in the Detroit area.
And one of the things that that he
showed very clearly
was that
for more educated and affluent Muslim communities,
what they
social functions,
education,
adult education classes,
do outreach,
civic outreach, interfaith engagement.
So they had they really saw their mosque
as a place of
community engagement,
learning, education.
Whereas,
those Muslims who came from,
a a lower socioeconomic
level, who were less educated,
wanted
really one thing from the mosque.
They wanted a place to pray.
They wanted a place where they could go
that would be open 5 times a day
and where they could go to pray.
Now
why is there this difference?
Well, let's think about the kind of people
who just want the mosque as a place
to pray.
Probably they're working,
what, 12, 14, 16 hours a day.
I know, for example, when I lived in
Chicago, how many mosques there were that were
specifically for taxi drivers,
who are when they're not, you know, sleeping,
they're working.
And,
so it's not that these people don't care
about the social function, it's not that they
don't care about outreach, it's not that they
don't care about these things, but the reality
of their life is that they are working
almost all the time.
And
one of the things that they really appreciate,
imagine
in these are people who can't afford
the kind of spacious home where everyone has
lots of room and, you know, someone goes
off into their own office or shuts the
doorway from everyone.
Busy,
small,
probably
pretty,
a lot of people in their home,
And then all day, they're in a taxi.
And I don't know what you've seen, but
I've seen that some of the clients of
taxi drivers are very polite and friendly,
and many others are
pretty rude and ignorant and cheap and don't
tip. And,
at night, they're probably, you know, drunk, and
some of them are throwing up in the
back seat of the car and even worse
than that. So you imagine, you know, their
life
to have a place where they can go
and open the door. It's a clean,
quiet
place where they can just go in peace
and pray
and remember their human dignity,
connect with God,
in this spiritual moment is something so precious
for them.
And
it's important that we recognize the value of
that
as we try
to look
at, you know, give an overview of our
whole community and see where the needs are.
This,
you
know, this the function of the mosque as
a place of congregational
And
And
the question is,
how do we
if we start with that function, let's focus
on that first.
Prayer is
the not only
the major pillar of Islam,
but it is the thing that most scholars
traditionally said really separates
a Muslim
from a non
Muslim. Someone who you can you can deny
or question or, you know, have a different
view on many things,
But someone who says,
I don't have to pray 5 times a
day
is is not a Muslim according to,
most scholars.
Now you may abandon prayer because you're lazy
or sinful. That's that's not the same as
saying I don't have to pray. So prayer
is so important,
and to have that place
is an absolute priority.
But that's a place for the whole community.
One of the things when I met
with the community leaders,
at Cordoba House before he came, I mentioned
to them this verse of the Quran
that says,
the believing men and the believing women are
partners of one another.
They enjoin the good, and they forbid evil,
and they establish prayer.
So here we have the Muslim men or
the believing men and the believing women
who are partners, and the word that the
Quran uses is aulia.
This is this is the strongest relationship
you can get, relationship of dependence
and care and concern for each other.
And it's quite striking
that
in talking about
the the creation of a community, of an
ethical community, which is what it means to
enjoin the good and forbid evil. A community
that cares,
that lives ethically, and tries to establish itself
as a moral community.
And by that I don't mean some sort
of, you know,
you know, popular issues about, you know,
just
whatever is the moral issue of the day.
I mean real ethics that lives ethically.
The next thing they do, the most important
thing that they do as an activity is
to establish prayer, and establishing prayer means to
establish a place for prayer.
So this is a job of men and
women.
The prophet Mohammed,
peace be upon him, said
let him know allah, messaged allah.
Do not forbid the maidservants of God from
the mosques of God. And his practice
was for men and women to be in
the mosque together. There was no divider between
men and women in his mosque.
When he came in, he would greet the
women. He would talk to them. He would
go
back and listen to their concerns.
So this was his practice, his sunnah, as
we say, his normative practice that we should
imitate.
Unfortunately,
the reality is that
in many, many mosques,
women do not feel comfortable.
And that's something that was confirmed to me
just by the discussion we had before I
came here today.
Almost everyone agreed that
the mosque still are not a very comfortable
place for women, and this is really unfortunate.
And it will hold us back
Because if we can't get the the basic
function
of the Muslim community right,
then I don't think we're gonna have much
with anything else.
So this is something that we really need
to focus on.
One of the things that this new fact
study shows,
it's quite interesting.
It shows that until now,
most communities
still have some physical divider between men and
women.
And most of us had thought that that
had changed,
but as I said at the beginning, if
you'll remember, we have had
the majority of Muslims in the United States
right now are still are first generation
because we have had so many immigrants.
So what happens is they bring their models
from the Muslim world
that are influenced by their culture
with them, and that has really affected our
growth. But what's interesting
is in the mosques
that are the most diverse, most culturally diverse,
and there were ways in the survey to
determine that. In the mosques that are the
most culturally diverse, there's not a divider between
the men, a physical divider between the men
and the women.
And what does that say to me?
One of the things, probably one of the
most
common themes
of contemporary Muslim discourse is what is the
relationship between religion and culture?
We talk about it all the time.
And of course, everyone has a culture. We
aren't going to get rid of culture, but
there's
positive culture and there's negative culture. I mean
culture is very important, in fact it's one
of the one of the maxims of Islamic
law is that good culture
is,
effective, is in fact enforced as
a, source of law, but there's bad culture
too.
How do we determine that? You know, mostly
we don't think about it until it's challenged.
And one of the most natural ways that
that's challenged
is when people from different cultures come in
the same space.
And suddenly, you find, you know, the Pakistani
Muslims in the same mosque with the Egyptian
Muslims, in the same mosque with the African
American Muslims. And
some people say, oh, we have to do
this. And the other said, no.
No. You don't have to do that,
or you don't have to do it this
way. And the other one says, what are
you talking about? That's completely ridiculous. Why would
anyone wanna do it that way? And then
this conversation begins, well, wait a minute. How
do we separate these things?
How do we separate religion from culture?
And so the very diversity
of the
community creates an opportunity for dialogue method
of,
method
of,
examining our practice begins, then it can be
very helpful with all sorts of things. First,
we have to get used to it.
Most people are not raised that way. You're
raised to do what,
you know, your parents or the imam or
the older people in the community told you
is the right thing to do. You know,
this is how we do things and so
you do it. Very often it's not even
said. You simply imitate the practice of the
person beside you.
That's how most religious practices and norms and
really any
sort of norms,
or or or habits are developed is by
imitating
people who are around you, and it's unconscious.
But suddenly
the difference or the clash of practices brings
us to consciousness
and now people have to start
talking and some people call overseas and some
people go to the internet and some people
pull out a book and some people say
sheikh so and so said this and sheikh
so and so said that
And all of these different forms of authority
are brought in. And at some point,
you know, the community has to decide,
how are we going to make decisions.
Given the diversity of opinions, and in fact,
the diversity of schools
there are in Islamic thought,
legitimate differences,
legal schools, theological schools, how are we going
to make decisions?
And so at this point,
the governance
process
becomes paramount.
And when the community realizes that that
nothing is going to go smoothly unless they
have a clear governance process,
then you'll find that there's there's constantly
problems and conflict that never seem to get
resolved
because what happens is
they only get
pushed aside for a while. Whoever has the
strongest voice or the strongest opinion or the
most fluent Arabic and can, you know,
hit you over the head with, with some
kind of hadith or,
you know, they're gonna get their way.
And and and people will feel resentment and
they'll feel frustrated. They'll feel, well, this isn't
really right, but I don't have the,
you know, I don't have the knowledge
to respond.
And so it's really at that point that
governance becomes more important.
And it's at that point that the community
realizes, you know what? This is our responsibility,
our collective responsibility. We cannot
avoid it.
You cannot simply call a scholar overseas and
that ends the problem because why would you
choose that? What gives that scholar authority over
someone else?
That won't work.
It is our responsibility.
I remember,
I've gone to communities before, especially when I
was president of ISNA,
and sometimes people would come to me and
they said, oh, we're having such a problem
with our imam, you know, he doesn't understand
our issues and he doesn't, you know, he's
not very friendly with the women and he
doesn't speak to the youth.
And I'm looking at this person,
there's someone on the board of the mosque.
And I say, well, you know, I think
you should write to the Vatican and tell
them that this imam is not working out
for you.
I said, I said, he's your imam. You
chose him. You know, what are you complaining
to me about?
So why do we get in that position
where we end up
binding ourselves or putting in authority someone over
us, and then they're not the right person.
So
the people
are as important
as the space.
I don't want to say necessarily more important,
but if you have bad people, you certainly
can drive people away.
And
one of the principles,
the major ethical principles or foundational principles
of Islamic ethics is
it's better to avoid a harm than to
do a good.
So I would rather you bring no imam
than to bring an imam who's gonna drive
people away from the mosque.
Right?
You know, just have a well organized and
educated
laity until you can bring someone who has
that expertise
rather than have someone who's gonna drive people
away, and we all know about those situations.
You know, you can even
rent a space for a while and put
your money into having a good person,
and that person is gonna attract others.
And then you'll have the people who can
do fundraising and make that place. But who
wants an empty building? There's a lot of
empty
buildings in society.
You know, people, whether it's in the for
profit or not for profit sector,
if they begin with a building,
very often they find out that that building
remains empty.
So
what do we need? What do we need
from the leadership?
Well,
that's what you have to decide and it's
gonna differ from different communities.
How many how many people here
are on a board of a mosque or
Islamic center? Can you raise your hand if
you are? If you have been or are?
Okay.
Now how many of you people who are
on a board of a mosque or Islamic
center wrote
a a professional job description when you hired
your imam?
Can you raise your hand?
1,
2. Are you in the same mosque
or different one? Okay.
So it seems like such a basic thing,
but we we have this,
in most cases,
when I have had requests
to make referrals for Imams of Mas, and
I've asked the you know, it's it's inevitably
the president of a board of a mosque
who asked me.
I say, okay. Can you send me the
job description?
And most of the time, they don't have
one.
Now if they have one,
very often it's 5 points.
Must have memorized the Quran, must be fluent
in Arabic,
fluent in English, and can relate to the
youth.
I'm like, okay. Well, at least they thought
of some of the needs that they have
in the community. But is this realistic?
Is this realistic in one person that you
can have all of these things?
And then I ask them, what are the
benefits?
What salary are you willing
to give them? What benefits are you giving
them?
And,
what kind of what is the governance structure?
What is their authority related to the board?
Can I see that?
Very seldom do we find that.
You know, I,
I
founded at Hartford Seminary a program for Muslim
Chaplains.
It's the first program for Muslim Chaplains that's,
accredited by the Association of Theological Seminaries.
I have now that program has been going
about a dozen years, and I have
fantastic, brilliant, young Muslims, both men and women,
who are choosing this chaplaincy as their first
career.
My students have been placed at Yale,
Princeton,
Duke, and many other prestigious
Ivy League universities.
They're going working in correctional institutes, in hospitals,
and in the military.
I have not had one of my students,
not one,
who has been willing to give up chaplaincy
to be the imam of a mosque.
And each one of them has been asked,
and,
what is the reason?
They say because the communities don't respect the
imams.
It's very interesting because when you ask the
communities, they say, oh, our imam doesn't understand
us. Our imam just knows the Quran and
isn't educated.
So we have this this split. What's happening?
So I think at this point, our mosques
will not succeed
unless we take seriously,
1, governance,
2, the functions that we want performed within
the mosque, and then 3,
take a professional approach to human resources.
One,
a realistic job description. You cannot have someone,
you know, maybe there's
someone like,
may God preserve him, Imam Suhayb Webb, who
has just been appointed
as the imam of the,
Boston,
the Islamic site of Boston,
the Cambridge mosque there. Fantastic.
Muslim American
convert. He used to be a hip hop
DJ. He knows everything
about American culture.
He went to Mecca, memorized the Quran. He
went to Al Azhar.
He got his his,
alum degree. I mean, he's got everything. Came
back same person, beautiful person.
He's been in the mosque for two and
a half months. I saw him last week.
He said,
you know, the 1st week I had people
coming to me and saying, I've got you
know, this problem with,
my marriage,
other people coming in saying I was sexually
abused, other people coming saying I have addictions.
And he just said, woah, I wasn't trained
for any of this.
I wasn't trained for any of this. So
he talked to the people in the community
and they said, okay.
You know, so and so is a social
worker and she can help you with referrals
for this problem.
So and so is someone who's involved in
the, you know, local issue
youth issues who can help you with this.
And he said, I'm an imam. I've been
trained for certain things,
but I cannot do everything.
And identifying that was very important because again,
first do no harm, right? Which is basically
the epitome of the, ethical principle I mentioned.
It's better to avoid harm than to do
a good. If you don't know, then don't
don't advise people or counsel them.
So to know that and then to get
together a group, to get together a committee
that is going to be able to identify
the needs. And if you can't have the
needs served in house, then you you need
to be able to make referrals.
And, you know, that's a lot of what
my chaplain students do. Even though they're trained
in counseling,
many of the issues
are too,
you know, they're too extensive for them to
deal with to follow-up, but they know how
to identify the issues, the human needs, and
make referrals.
So very often, what we, you know, one
of the things Muslims say is that,
you know, the mosque
should be the center of the community.
And sometimes that is there's there's a misunderstanding
in that thinking that everything should be done
in the mosque,
and that's not that's not the case. It's
not always good for everything to be done
in the mosque.
With things like, you know, domestic violence,
you can't have
housing for domestic violence in the mosque. It
needs to be an anonymous place, you know,
and there's many other functions that should not
be there where people are coming in and
out in the community,
but you need to be able to say
this is these people are part of our
community,
they're welcome in the mosque,
and we need to be able to find
a mechanism for identifying
the needs and making referrals,
working with the local agencies.
Canada there is such a proliferation
of social services.
There doesn't need to be a Muslim in
front of it for it to be worked.
You're Canadian, you know, like everyone else, so
you work with those agencies to make those
referrals,
but it's very important.
So this focus on the human needs is
essential.
Now,
who are the people who are making the
decisions? The community is the one that has
the right.
And until the board or the governance structure
of the mosque
reflects the diversity of the community,
the board will not serve the community.
So what do I mean by reflecting the
diversity of the community? The ethnic diversity,
the age diversity, the gender diversity,
you cannot have a board of 7 men
and 1 woman.
You know, we were talking in our discussion
earlier about tokenism.
This is not going to work.
Is there,
you know, proportionally, how many men are there
to women in the community? It's probably about
5050.
Right? That's
in most societies, that's how it works unless,
something strange has been going on here lately,
but I think it's probably 5050.
Do you have even close to that?
What about age representation?
I mean look at your board. Does everyone
kind of look the same? Is their hair
graying all at the same rate?
You know?
How long have you known each other? So
how do you find those people? You know,
one of the things that I hear is,
well, we we told them that, you know,
they can join, but they didn't come.
Or
where are they? We ask them to step
up. Let me give you a few,
a few things that happened. 1,
I my first experience on the board of
an Islamic organisation
was when I was my children were in
a local Islamic school,
And that school was founded by 3 very
generous,
God fearing,
you know, wonderful brothers
who put a lot of their own money
and time into founding this school. May God
bless them and reward them.
That's the founder stage of an organization.
And it got to the point where, you
know, they've been doing it by themselves now
for 10, 15 years
and the parents in the school
they weren't satisfied with all the decisions that
were being made in the school. They had
no outlet for giving feedback,
And it reached a point of quite a
lot of tension in the school
and so finally the board the board was
so reluctant
to give up any of the decision making
power. Why? Because
they just they knew
each other and they really trusted each other.
They were so afraid of what would happen.
But because of pressure of the parents, they
finally
capitulated and they said, okay. We'll let 2
parents on the board.
1, you know, representative of the fathers, 1
a representative of the mothers.
So that was fine. So I'm sitting in
a meeting. I'm I was doing my my
doctoral studies at this time.
So I'm sitting in a meeting with the
women,
and we're saying, okay.
So who's gonna do it?
So we select 1 woman. Oh, no. No.
I I can't do that. No. My husband,
you know, he won't like that. He won't
like it if I go to those those
meetings. Then another one, no, I'm not gonna
do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm
not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do
it. I I'm sitting there and some what
are you doing? We fought for this right
to be on the board, and now no
one's going to do it.
So I was so frustrated, and I knew
my husband, god bless him, who always who's
who's sitting here,
who always force me. I said, fine. I'll
do it. I'll do it for a little
while, and then one of you has to
take over because I'm too busy. I'm studying.
And
so they said, yeah. Yeah. You do it.
You do it.
Right?
Okay.
So I go to my first board meeting
a few weeks later.
And I'm like, okay. Where's the board meeting?
They said, oh, at so and so's house.
I said, what? The board meeting's at his
house?
They said, yeah. 7 o'clock at night.
Like, okay.
So I go to his house.
This is this is a very
generous,
wonderful man, lives in a beautiful home.
I go in the home. Where's the meeting?
Oh, it's downstairs.
It's in the man cave. The meeting's in
the man cave. So I'm I go downstairs.
There's 7 men sitting around the table.
I said, alright. Because this way, guess what?
His wife's in the kitchen. She brings down
tea. She brings down sweets. We're having,
So I told them, I said, look, this
isn't going to work.
I, you know, I don't want to come
to meetings here. We have to have the
meetings at the school.
All the grumbles. They really felt very comfortable
in his home, but I said, I don't.
And no, you know, if I even if
I'm comfortable,
why do you think no women wanna wanna
take this position? This is very awkward.
So we had to change the meeting,
you you know, to a professional
in one of the rooms in the school
at a reasonable time
and finish it at a reasonable time and
get out.
And fortunately, after that, it was, you know,
a good experience.
And, and after that, then women didn't only
have to be the mother's club representative. They
could be on the board in any position,
and and women after that served in that
position.
But that shows, you know, one of the
things that that, you
know, are you really making it friendly to
just say, oh yes, you know, anyone can
come is not doesn't work.
You have to really look at the structure,
at the space. Are you in fact making
it welcome?
And then the other thing is sometimes you
have to
develop the leaders. You have to do some
role playing. You have to do some orientation.
One of the things when I became ISNA
president that I implemented is that whenever we
have a new election and we have because
we have a rotating board, every 2 years,
we have some new members of our.
Every time we have,
new members coming on to the board, we
have a formal orientation. And that orientation
includes not only a discussion
of our fiduciary
responsibilities
as board members, but also some of the
dynamics,
you know? And one of the things I
I had to discuss with some of the
we have, on our
board for the Islamic Society of North America,
the president of
the MSA
and the president of MINA, which is the
Muslim Youth of North America, which is between
12 18 years old, they sit on our
board as equal voting members
with the rest of the board.
One of the things I I I often
have to counsel them is, look, when you're
in the meeting, you can't call anyone uncle.
They're not your uncle here. You can call
them uncle somewhere else, but not here. Here,
you're an equal. You're an equal voting member.
And we have this, you know, Muslim society
places a great deal of respect on on
older
people. It is,
you know, it's an important value. I really
think it is that we should have respect
for older people.
But
we should also respect
all of us. And in a board, we
have to respect,
all of those who have a voice.
And it is one of the sunnahs of
the prophet Mohammed.
He there's a beautiful story of when the
prophet was sitting in a majlis
in a meeting with many people, the old
men of the tribe. Right? What does Sheikh
mean? Sheikh means old man. Literally in Arabic,
it means an old man.
So the prophet Mohammed is sitting with the
with the with the sheikh of sheikhs of
the tribe and the mejus in the meeting,
and his little daughter Fatima walks in. And
what does he do? He moves over and
gives her a seat.
And that wasn't the only time when very
publicly
the prophet solicited
opinions of the youth.
In,
you know, you couldn't get a more patriarchal
society
than 7th century tribal Arabia. That is the
epitome of the patriarch means the elder of
the tribe, right?
And so, he was demonstrating
that need to take input from the young,
to take input from women. There's a beautiful
story that professor,
Muhajokoff.
Do any of you know her? She's a
professor of comparative literature at University of Arkansas.
She has a beautiful story
in which she which she mentions
in an article she has,
about,
Esma Bint Yazid
who was a a companion,
one of the,
Sahaba of of Muslim living at the time
of the prophet Mohammed.
And
when the prophet one time was in his,
you know, in the mosque and he's giving
a lecture,
suddenly this this woman,
Asma, stood up
and she said, this isn't Asma Bint Abi
Bakr, this is Asma Bint Bizi for those
of you who know the difference.
She stood up and she said she said,
oh,
prophet, I want to ask you, Ora Surla,
I want to ask you a question.
And he said, Yeah, ask me. And she
proceeded
to ask a question. She said, I speak
on behalf of the women.
You know, most of the time we're so
busy with our husbands, and our homes, and
our children. We don't have all of the
opportunities
to do all of these great, you know,
glorious public things that men do. So will
we get our reward?
And
and the prophet Mohammed answered her, he gave
her a beautiful answer about the reward that
they would get for everything they do and
nothing would be lost, But the important thing
is before he said that, before he responded
to her,
he did something else.
And just imagine,
okay, just imagine even if you were in
your regular mosque and there's a visiting scholar,
a very respected scholar, think of someone who
you think is, you know, the most respected
scholar,
standing there giving a talk,
the men are sitting and the women are
sitting, and a woman stands up and interrupts
in the middle. She says, oh, shit. Excuse
me. I have a question.
Now just imagine what everyone's thinking.
Right?
This is what I like that, but this
is what's the Messenger of God, the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him.
So
what does the prophet do before he answers
your question? He turns to the men and
he says,
Have you ever heard a more eloquent woman
than this woman here?
So what does he do? He affirms
her right to ask that question.
He affirms her eloquence,
he affirms her question, her questioning
of a very, you know, important theological issue.
And of course,
the way the prophet asked it in the
form of a question,
you know, now everyone, all the men have
to be sitting there, oh yes, no, we
never heard, you someone
that as eloquent as that, right? They have
to answer it in their heart.
So it's a beautiful example of affirming
that. Now
if those women had been in another room,
how would she have asked the question?
How would she have asked the question?
This is a problem we have.
How are women's
questions going to be answered if they can't
even raise their hand,
If they can't be seen?
This is a serious problem that we have,
and it needs to be addressed.
One of the things,
and I wanna close-up so we have some
time for discussion,
one of the things that we talked about
in our group over there is the fact
that,
you know,
a beautiful
aspect of the mafalla, which is the prayer
space in a mosque, is there are no
benches.
There are no chairs.
And
every
everything is relational.
We stand in relation to each other. We
form the space by how we stand in
relation to each other.
So,
yes, the the
the,
traditional,
Sunna way, I would say, of praying in
congregation
is that
the men are in front of the women
so that men aren't behind women. Let me
put it that way.
But
when the prayer is over, I mean, when
I'm praying, I'm praying to God and whoever's
in front of me, whether it's another woman
or a man, whoever it is, it doesn't
really matter. We're just praying line after line
after line. Right?
But when the prayer's over,
is there something sacred
that's called men's space or women's space?
No. It's just space.
And this space can be divided any way
that we like.
I have been in there are some mosques
that have enough money to have a nice
separate lecture hall
or a meeting room, and so after the
prayer is over, everyone goes down, men and
women,
youth, and has a discussion,
adult forum class, board meeting, something like that.
But most mosques are not big enough.
They don't have that space. So where is
the public square?
You know, where is the public space? The
mulsala
has to be that then.
And you know what?
When the prayer's over,
you can divide it whatever way you want.
And I know it feels awkward at first,
but there's nothing wrong with it. I remember
when I was at the the,
Islamic Center in Plainfield, which is where ISN'S
headquarters
is, it's a beautiful
modern
design, very beautiful, no minarets, no domes,
but a very beautiful modernist design, this mosque.
It's another question, you know, what are we
putting our money into? Do you know how
much a dome or a minaret costs? It's
a lot of money,
you know, if you're not gonna be
climbing up that minaret to make the call
for prayer.
But
in this mosque, there's a beautiful,
open mulsala.
There's also a balcony
with glass in front of it for those
who would like to go up there, and
some women pray up there.
But in the open mulsala, we have the
men and women praying, and I was there
for a wedding one time, and after we
prayed,
then the sheikh,
wanted to have a public witness of the
marriage contract.
And he was he he moved back from
the,
from the mimbar, so he moved back towards
the middle of the mosque.
He sat on the floor and he said,
okay, now I want the groom and all
the men on my left side, and I
want the bride and all the women on
my right side.
So now we just
switch the space, right?
Now we just turned it And it was
very interesting to see
people
getting used to that. It was,
it's so easy for a practice
to turn into a taboo.
So it almost seemed like it was wrong
for the men felt awkward like walking in
the space where usually the rows of women
were, and the men felt awkward walking in
the space where usually
the rows of men were. But why?
It's just a carpeted room. Right? And so
we did that and then he,
proceeded to,
to marry this bride and groom in front
of the witness of the whole community. It
was very it was just a beautiful occasion.
But, you know, also, traditionally,
if you go to the Middle East
and you go to the oldest mosques, what
you will find
along along the, aisles, usually
around the center where there's a center pillar,
you will find a very high an elevated
chair called a,
means chair or throne.
And in fact,
these were endowed chairs for lectures
in mosques.
It's where the idea of an endowed chair
in a university comes from. If you read
the research of George
great research he did on the transfer of,
and models of endowed
institutes of higher learning
in the Muslim world, how that was transferred
into Europe,
after the crusades. Really, the crusaders,
took that knowledge and transferred it, or the
people who came with them transferred it into
Europe. So the idea of an endowed chair
comes from
these chairs that could be in universities or
they could be in what are called jeni
mosques, the congregational
mosques.
That chair is not where the the minbar
is, at the front,
where the imams
or where the khatib,
the preacher
preaches on Friday.
It's at the side
so that when the prayer is not going
on,
anyone who wants can gather around
the scholar and listen in that space and
there's still space on the other side if
people come in and they want to pray.
So what I'm saying here is that we
need to be more creative with our space,
and creative doesn't mean,
you know, the the
the evil word
that that, Muslims know, which is what?
Bida.
Right. Bida.
Because because Muslims have always been creative with
this space, go travel, I encourage you, urge
you,
go travel
across the Muslim world, and go look at
old mosques and see how the space is
split
up, and you will see that they use
the they use the space well,
and they had the form followed function, and
one of the beautiful things of having, as
I say, of having a space with no
chairs or benches
is that you can make
what is the the,
you know, really the hallmark of,
Islamic learning and community is the halaka, is
the circle.
Wal Hallaq, who's a professor of,
Islamic law, he used to be at McGill,
now he's at Columbia and he has a
new book on Islamic law. He spends a
lot of time talking about the as
really the unit of learning
in Islamic society, and that circle can be
created anywhere.
So
when you have the visiting scholar
come to the Masjid,
or the imam who wants to talk outside
of prayer, move him, you know, move him
to a place so all of the community
feels comfortable coming around in that circle and
hearing and learning and cannot only hear. These
aren't monologues.
Only the chutba, only the Friday sermon is
a monologue.
The rest
should be interactive,
you know, and that form needs to be
established.
You cannot have that interaction without having the
space to do that, without constructing,
an opportunity
for all to be involved with that. Well,
I have so much else to say, but
I did promise that I would let you
go by 9, so I'm going to close
here and have some time for discussion. Thank
you.
Thank you, doctor Matson, for that enlightening talk.
We're gonna take about 20 minutes of q
and a. I actually have a volunteer here.
She's gonna be passing the mic around. So
if you could just, stand up and just
raise your hand,
and, we'll come we'll come to you. And,
please keep your questions, short and brief. Do
you have a mic over there? Yeah. That's
okay.
But if you leave if you need to
leave by 9, please, I won't be offended.
You know, just step out.
The different mosques in terms of removing the
barrier or the partition that separates the sisters
and my brothers. Because what often happens is
Well, first of all, I don't think it's
the responsibility
only of the women. I mean, it's the
responsibility
of the whole community. So for the men
to leave the women hanging in this situation
is really unfair.
Do they not have daughters? Do they not
have sisters? Do they not have wives?
Even if they have none of this, what
about the you know, how many
new Muslims do I know
who have been so excited
to come to the mosque only to feel
shut out.
They have so many questions. They wanna have
a part be part of community. They want
to learn something,
and they face literally a wall
between them and the source of that knowledge
and sense of community.
So,
I
I, you know, I really think the men
have to step up and understand this responsibility
as well. This shouldn't this is not just
a woman's issue.
Right? This is an issue for the whole
community.
So I would say first of all, there
needs to be that community discussion.
2nd, there needs to be,
you then you need to to look at
how are decisions being made. I mean, how
do these things happen?
Sometimes, as I say, it's simply because someone
is particularly pushy or vocal.
And and clearly, most people do not go
to the mosque
to engage in conflict or controversy.
And by nature,
most people
are conflict diverse. This is how we're made.
We don't want to get involved in in
in conflict.
But the reality is and and I don't
like it. I'm extremely conflict averse. But sometimes,
you know, you see an injustice,
you have to deal with it. You may
not like it.
It's not,
you know, why you came to the mosque,
but the reality is you find an injustice
there, you need to deal with it.
And so I I really wish that
people would understand that and take that responsibility,
both men and women. This is why, you
know, we it is a partnership,
so we need to work together.
Then you have you have to look at
the way things, decisions are being made, and
I think honestly,
issues like this need to be put in
the bylaws,
or the founding deeds of these institutions. These
are not non profit institutions
because otherwise
you can get, you know, the ebb and
flow of suddenly a new group of people
comes in, and there's one person who's particularly
vocal about this and can change the whole
dynamic.
And something that is foundational, I mean literally
foundational
to the structure of the mosque,
needs to be taken care of in the
deed. And you'll see this,
I mean, when you look at the history
of endowments, charitable endowments in Islamic society,
and this was all of
all mosques, all madrasas, all schools
were,
funded by endowments
in premodern Muslim societies.
Unfortunately, the colonialists took them over, and then
the nation states, they were all nationalized and
put under these ministries of,
religious endowments and religious affairs.
So most of them under a government control
in the Muslim world.
We don't have that here. We have the
right to do what we want,
but so we need to really take pay
attention to these founding documents,
and the founders
of endowments were very particular. If you look
at the founding deeds
for,
for mosques,
you can you can find things like, I
remember, doctor Omar Abdullah was telling me about
one endowment he was reading, a mosque that
was founded by a woman in which she
not
only,
you know, designated,
describe the space and what activities would go
on, but she even said,
the imam or the preacher
should not yell at people
and put them down, and I mean she
gave very detailed instructions about the kind of
religious,
lessons and teaching and presence that she wanted
in that.
So,
I think these issues are so important that
we really need to get them
at the ground at the groundwork
and we shouldn't always go, you know, there's
this
is the difference between a right and a
need. Okay?
Women
have the same right
as men to go to the mosque,
and it's not sufficient.
The fact that men can say,
oh, women aren't required to go to a
Jummah prayer, does not
at all in any way impact their right
to be able to go to the mosque
and to have that space, and to be
part of the community.
That has those are completely two separate things.
And so I think once we understand these
and really understand
the law, Islamic law, as well as our
tradition,
I think we'll make some progress.
Thank you so much. And I just want
to see if I'm still in the questions.
I just have 2
you know,
we here at McMaster University and and part
of the NSA,
and a great supporter, have a female president.
So so we can come to that point,
we can have female president.
Nevertheless, the amount of struggle and difficulty
and and Harrison and the hotspot and pasta
went about just to change
just to change the basic structure of a
very,
well attended famous kind of health of
the MSA
Mhmm. Was a huge ordeal. Mhmm. It wasn't
one that I had to
circle because the speaker, who is male, sits
on one side and everyone else sits on
the other side and women are kinda at
the back. Right. Question became why do they
mind being? Why don't they
sessions, workshops, all that is being done to
implement. This is a huge problem in our
community. Right. And these practical steps, never we
we are aware of them, but
No. I think I mean, I'll tell you
there's a there's a lot of change. One
of the things that we see the difference
between
okay. This fact study I mentioned was done
in 2,011.
10 years before the study in 2004
showed a huge difference
in the attitudes
of Muslims towards,
women's
participation in the board.
The vast majority, over 90%
of of American Muslims, these are Americans,
believe
that or have they have no obstacles to
women serving on the boards of their mosques.
Now 90%
have not had a woman on their board
in the last 5 years. The number, I
don't have it in front of me, but
it's only about 60%.
But the shift in attitude is tremendous.
The shift in attitude is something like, a
30% increase.
I mean, it's a huge increase
in 10 years, which shows that the education
that we're doing, the modeling that we're doing,
I think are helping very much. One of
the things that ISNA did
over 10 years ago was to develop a
document called best practices for Islamic Centres.
There's 8 different aspects to that. One of
them is women's participation in the mosque. The
other is governance, financial stability, interfaith engagement, youth,
you know, these kind of things. We not
only develop those guidelines in consultation with the
community, but we go around to communities and
we give workshops on it, talk about it
in the convention,
and then there's a separate document that was
prepared by the,
Islamic Social
Services Association.
Those of you who know such as Shahina
Siddiqui
and,
in conjunction with Women in Islam, which is
a New York City based organization run by,
Aisha Adawiya.
They consulted a number of scholars and prepared,
a document called, women friendly mosques,
something subtitle.
But any case, that was supported, you know,
care signed on onto that ICNA,
ISNA, all sorts of organizations signed onto it
so it be
began to be disseminated
on the internet. I think that's really affected
attitudes,
but
so that's a huge step. I mean, changing
attitudes and perceptions is big, but then you
have to move on
to the things like,
making sure that that the atmosphere is truly
welcoming and friendly
possible.
You know, as I said, like my example
with,
not having the meetings in, you know, in
the school rather than in a man's home.
And then there has to be,
also training. You know, one of the things
there have to be opportunities
for that
because it's it's a question of getting used
to treating each other
with dignity and respect and equally without these
kind of hang ups,
that unfortunately,
you know, some people have.
And and realizing that there are different, you
know, there are priorities.
I mean, I understand that
that, for example, I don't think there's anything
wrong
with, say, young Muslim men who aren't married,
thinking that it's better if they spend more
time, you know, in a kind of more
all male environment
than with young women.
I understand that, but the reality is they're
spending all day in school with women, and
they're able to treat them respectfully
and focus on their work. So they need
to be able to model that as well.
I mean, you're focusing on the the lesson.
You know, you have to learn how how
to do that. So I think I think
here,
we have to have some respect for each
other and understand the concerns, but at the
same time,
realize that,
you know, if someone's struggling with something, we
can empathize, but it doesn't it that that
isn't a reason or an excuse for
for excluding or marginalizing half of the community.
Well, first first of all, there's the laws
of the land. So you have to respect
whatever. I'm not familiar with the laws governing
political speech in Canada.
But one of the rules that I always
put in place is for me whenever I'm
in a position of authority or leadership
is that I do not have a right
to represent the community on matters for which
they did not give me that authority.
So for example, when I was ISNA president,
in fact, there were many issues that I
had a personal opinion on politically that I
did not speak about
because it would be impossible even in that
situation to separate my role because I was
the head of the organization
from personal speech. And at that point, it
wouldn't even be appropriate for me to say,
well, this is just my personal opinion.
And I refrain from speaking on a number
of matters that I felt I was not,
I didn't have the author my authority came
from the community,
and they hadn't given me that authority
to, you know, take make some partisan position
or even on some controversial social matters,
take a position. There were other things that
were clear cut, and I had the authority
to speak on their behalf
because I had their feedback or, you know,
some other mechanism of determining that. So I
think that's really important.
And
it is good to educate the community generally
about their about issues that will affect them
as Muslims.
You know, in their distinctive
identity as Muslims,
how,
you know,
being involved in civic society,
political society, how you do that in order
to retain your rights and be a responsible
citizen. But I don't think it should be
a political place. I think the most natural
the natural the most natural outreach for a
mosque is multi faith engagement.
This is a religious institution after all. That's
that's what it is, right? It's not it's
not a,
it's not a secular social justice organization.
So it's a place for for
faith and religion and belief. And of course,
our religion
speaks on all these matters, but all almost
all these matters,
are
are subject to Ijtihad,
different opinions. So there's a lot of discussion
about which side we should take, you know,
even whether
should Muslims be have be more politically
towards a political,
socialist position or libertarian?
You know what? It's really not that clear.
Yes, we believe in taking care of anyone,
but what's the best mechanism? You know? So
you can't just assume that everyone
is sort of on board on a certain
political philosophy
or economic philosophy. That's not it's not right
and they need to be debated.
But I do think that there is so
much space for multi faith engagement or interfaith
engagement
because there's a we can learn from those
people. They are they are our next circle
of community.
After,
after the believer,
the Quran talks so much about Ahlul Kitab.
We are part of Ahlul Kitab,
right? We have our Kitab which is Al
Quran
and we are part of that community. That's
our next, you know, that's our extended family.
If the Muslim community is our family
of faith, the Ahluqitab are extended family, and
then beyond with other communities of faith, people
who who believe in God, and then on
to humanity, etcetera.
They can help engaging with people of other
faith. In my experience, and the experience of
everyone I know,
can really help affirm your faith.
And it can help, especially young people who
feel,
you know, they shouldn't feel like there's Muslims
and non Muslims. Wow. What a strange dichotomy.
They should feel that they're Muslim
in a
landscape peopled
with those who have faith.
Right? And then they're gonna feel more natural
being who they are as Muslims, being able
to
not
evangelize
or to make dower or anything like that.
I'm saying just not to censor yourself.
Should I not be willing? Should I not
be able in a in a simple conversation
with someone to say something like god willing,
you know? Did I not ever use the
word God in my speech? You know, this
kind
of censoring out any kind of religious speech.
You know what? If you talk to if
you talk to a Jewish person, they will
absolutely
understand god willing, and they'll they'll say it
too, you know. And then you feel, hey,
you know, maybe I can be a Muslim
naturally in society without you know, don't use
Arabic. No one's gonna understand you. You're gonna
say, they're like, what did they just say?
I have no idea. You can say, god
willing, it means the same thing, and they'll
understand you. You know? So I I think
that we should first look at,
interfaith or multi faith engagement.
You know, bring people in to to give
some
basic information if necessary, if this is the
the only place where you could get it
in the mosque or where you think it's
gonna be the only place. But I don't
think it should be a place the mosque
itself should be a place for political
speech.
So like you said, there was
some studies that continuously changing because of immigration,
because of conversion, and, just growing.
In Europe and
the the society or the community creates the
mosque, but also the mosque empowers or influences
the community. Mhmm. So can you to give
us a road map or or tips or
or how to go about,
bringing change into into, into MSG? Not just
the the issue of tolerance. So there's a
lot of intolerance towards children. Mhmm. Especially in
in Ramadan, the prayer that night, there's always
intolerance for for children.
So all of these issues there's lots of
issues.
Yeah.
It's funny though because when people say children,
they usually say sisters, get your children.
Yeah. As if men don't have children. Yeah.
It's very odd.
Well, you know, I can't give you a
road map, and I but I do believe
that look. The the the crucial
is that you have a clear governance process
and that those who are in the that
you have a a mechanism
for continually renewing your leadership,
and that leadership must
represent the diversity of the community, must reflect
the diversity of the community. You know, in
miniature,
that it will look like the community looks.
And then you're going to be able to
have open discussions and make your priorities, and
it's gonna be different for different communities.
And you may say, okay.
You know, there's lots of different solutions.
Maybe your community can,
you know,
designate a certain space for for children.
Maybe you don't have those resources.
Maybe you'll come up with some something creative.
Maybe for the month of Ramadan,
you will,
have a daycare that's just for that month
so that,
those who have children can leave the children
there and pray. Maybe you'll come up with
something else. I mean, I you know,
people also have to have to
look at life cycles. Like, I remember when
my children were very young, and I lived
across the street from the mosque.
I'm going to Tarawee and standing there and,
you know, really trying to to get deep
into my prayer
while my kids were back and forth screaming
and yelling. They were bothering everyone and I
certainly wasn't, you know, focusing on my prayer.
So I said, you know what? I can
just pray Taro at home.
And then actually, my husband and I, we,
you know, we switched off
between ourselves. Why were we bothering everyone? And
and, you know, I certainly wasn't getting it,
and they weren't enjoying themselves.
So,
and then when they got older,
I had all the time in the world
to go there, and it was no problem.
So we kind of have to look at
different life cycles, and some of the solutions,
they have to come within the family.
I mean, you know, husbands and wives, parents
of children, they need to
to look at each other. Tataway is not
an obligation,
you know, in is not an obligation for
men any more than it is for women.
Right?
It's it's it's not an obligation.
So I think husbands and wives need to
have a conversation in their home as well
about how they're gonna manage,
taking care of the children and also, you
know, giving that kind of relief and offer
an opportunity.
But it really comes down to, you know,
whatever it is, whether it is I heard
a lot today from the youth. You know,
the youth feel that there's a lot of
lip service to we have to care about
the youth and pay attention to the youth,
but they really don't have they're not being
listened to.
Very few of the mosques have a youth
representative on board,
which surprised me. I thought, you know, I
mean, we have,
you know, a national organization like ISNA,
we have our youth representatives on the national
board voting.
For Amas to not have a youth representative
on the board really surprises me.
So you need, you know, once you have
the people in there, then there will be
and they're they're given equal voice and equal
vote, then these issues can be,
solved, god willing.
I think we said that people could leave
at 9:10, and I I just wanna I
really respect people's time. You know, I really
value the fact that people are coming and
listening. So I think we should close-up
and then if there's, you know, I can
stick around for a few minutes.
Thank you so much, doctor Matson, for that,
enlightening and wisdomous words.
Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight. If
we can just get another round of applause
for our speaker here today.
For those who stuck around, I really, really
appreciate it. We all really appreciate it, and,
please have a safe drive home. Thank you.