Shadee Elmasry – Reviewing Muslim Third Spaces (Do they really work )

What is the third space, your home is your first space and your work

is your second space, we all need people need a third space. The

third space, sociologists talk about it for us, most of us it's

mustered their prophesy centum established that third space

essentially not, you know, established a third space, but we

can describe it as a third space, which is the house of Allah. And

that is the greatest of third spaces. So but we're going to talk

about this in sociology is all observations of how humans behave

and analysis of how humans behave. And some of its, you know, pretty

neat to read. So one of the sociologists guy named Oldenburg,

he has these characteristics, and he says, your your home is a place

where people live. The second place is the workplace, where

people spend most of their time actually, and the third place are

the anchors of the community. The third space is where you go in

public and really, the community forms and gels around the third

space, according to the sociological view of things. And

so far, it makes sense, right? That's where the community gels

that's where norms are established. What is normal

behavior, it's usually established in all three spaces, but mainly

that third space, where r is the community addressed, as opposed to

just the workspace you don't address the community, if you have

a store or something or an office, you don't address the community.

So you address the community in these third spaces. Now, why are

we talking about this? We're talking about this, mainly because

it got a bunch of our radars, the nature of the so called Muslim

third space, that is not the masjid for the so called unmasked

types. Now, I don't have much sympathy for someone says I'm

unmasked, because I find there's some entitlement there. And

there's a lack of humility there. Nonetheless, don't those people

also need some kind of data? If you're humble, then do you need

that much data? If you're already humble, but some people, they have

a little bit of a, you can say, edge to their personality, maybe

they had a bad experience, and maybe they're not that humble.

Maybe some people are so living in such an unassuming lifestyle. All

of this is new to them and they feel too intimidated to go to a

masjid many examples of people who said they don't go to massage and

because simple reason is that they have to tattoos and physical

places. Every time they go, someone says something to them.

And he's like, sick of it already. Like what is this? And it's true.

There are some errors A guy came into our Masjid a at a tattoo

immediately. First thing says It's haram. Why are you telling someone

who's haram a can't wipe it off, you can't go to the bathroom and

clean it off. And either he doesn't know It's haram, in which

case, he's a newbie. So leave them, let them grow a little bit

or he knows how to him and you're redundant. There's literally no

point. You're a stranger, you totally feel foreign to this

person. And you're going to tell them it's haram. So now let's go

to the next point. If you give them Tao, in a space outside the

masjid like a coffee shop, now we ask the question, what is the

nature of what you're going to be doing there? So the attempt of

Osama Khanna may Allah have mercy on him and others is to create a

place a space for such people where the regular Moscow and

people who may judge them and say something to them are not there.

They're trying to flip those people. Number two, they're also

trying to create a non sacred space where you don't have to

observe the the sacred rules of the mosque. Thirdly, they want to

be able to talk to them themselves with a very simple Dow. And that

environment that looks like an environment they know like a

coffee shop. Maybe these people they don't know how to sit on the

floor. They'll feel so alien sitting on the floor. It's a

barrier to entry that is unnecessary. The culture of the

people there the nature of the sitting, what's going on here have

no clue what's going on. We go in there and we see other people

bring nephila Before Isha. For example, a guy over there making

will do a pair of socks in the masala is not foreign to us. Do

you know how many people that's all this site right there that you

just saw for 50 for 510 minutes is completely foreign to them. Now on

top of that, he's still going to learn something new about Islam,

and why all these unnecessary barriers of entry. That's the

logic behind these third spaces. So now we have to get to the

controversial part. All this I think everyone can understand this

so far. But here is where the controversial side of things come

into play, which is namely, the question of when a Muslim operates

at third space, in the name of Dawa. What Hmong Cassatt will he

be tolerant of and is that correct? Are we allowed to

tolerate monka? Sometimes you think maybe you know what certain

things a knowledgeable Muslim just cannot do? He just cannot do it.

If an ignorant Muslim does it, that's his thing, or can we bend

and look for the barely acceptable positions in med hubs to establish

something? Are we going to act like we also don't go to

restaurants and coffee shops that

Do you have music in the background? So why is it okay for

us to attend it, because you have no other place to go. But I can't

establish that for myself, I can't go and do that myself. But if a

Muslim were to do that, and sometimes these places are like

that they don't have many rules. It's just like a coffee shop. And

then, once a week someone comes gives a talk. And it's understood

that this is a Muslim, third space type of coffee shop where all

these things are not going to be forced on anybody, all these rules

will not be forced on people. That's where you start getting

people to criticize it. Because it seems like when you establish it,

when you do it, you're approving of it. You're approving of all

these more cutouts. And on top of that, the second criticism comes

when now you've actually created a very attractive place for the

knifes now you have to love and sort of getting lazy and say,

Yeah, let's just go here and feeling like maybe Are you now

doing them a disservice because you're pulling them down and

telling you what the critiques are. So for example, we have mbyc,

we never had a coffee shop around here. But let's say

hypothetically, tchotchkes became a cool hangout space, a Hiber, or

a Harada. House, right next door to MBSE. All of our meetings just

happened in the masjid, we observed the rules in the massage

at the sanctuary, sanctuary at the masjid you absorbing that whole

whole thing. This column was established, we're praying, we're

doing everything. Next Door, a Muslim guy comes in opens up a

coffee shop, great meeting space, plenty of outlets, tables, chairs,

he's got some music, and it's a mix place. Now all the people used

to have their meetings in the massage and and we're benefiting

are now just go in there. So yeah, I can You can fathom also that

that's a disappointment, that's a drop, you used to always be in the

house of Allah, now you're in a coffee shop, that is a drop. It's

an upgrade for someone who never was in any Islamic environment at

all. I do see a lot of those people feel much more at home at

these Muslim coffee shops. And that is a little step up because

they will mingle with other Muslims who are better influences,

then, let's say if they were, you know, at some other place, other

third space that had nothing, no connection to Islam. So there's

two perspectives on it. There's the perspective of somebody who

actually didn't need it, and has went from a loftier place to this

place. And there's a perspective someone who's in a worse place to

a higher place. Here's the other critique. People go there. And

they never advance that sort of, is an eyeball test. If you know

what I mean by that, like, that's not real data. Number one piece of

information. We don't have, let's say hypothetically, he stagnated

at that level. Yeah, he prays Juma? It doesn't he may read, have

Ghazali books or Rumi books on a shelf. Right. But he's still main

goal is to listen to music. Here's a question, can we ever know? Or

do we know what his alternative would have been? Like that person

who always goes to that type of Islamic thing? If in the absence

of that, what would he have been like? If all you had was ideal,

and the rest of society is very easy to fathom. It's not crazy to

think that without this, he definitely wouldn't have been at

the ideal, he would have been far worse. So we don't have that piece

of information to make that judgment call. But we do also I

can also do an eyeball test until Yeah, this guy, if he wasn't here,

he would have been somewhere else. So I as much as we could say that

he's not advancing. I could also tell you without this crutch.

Without this middle space that we don't necessarily endorse nor

condemn. He would have been far worse. That's one piece of