Shadee Elmasry – Reviewing Muslim Third Spaces (Do they really work )
![Shadee Elmasry](https://artwork.muslimcentral.com/shadee-elmasry-150x150.jpg)
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
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