Thoughts on a visit to an Islamic Mosque

I handed this out on Sunday and it is my reflection on a visit to an Islamic Mosque. And perhaps it has just as much to say about pop evangelical Christianity as it does about Islam.

Just Like Us?
On Jan. 21st I was able to take a tour of the Islamic Society of Delaware’s (ISD) mosque on Salem Church Rd. Part of the tour included a presentation on what takes place within the mosque and what the activities of the ISD are. Now that I’ve been able to process and reflect on what I witnessed that morning, I’d like to share those thoughts with you.

The mosque itself is rather ‘plain’ and inside the entryway was a bulletin board with sheets of paper and various informational items posted. There were cubbies for us to put our shoes and coats in, as it is disrespectful to wear shoes inside the worship area and fellowship area of the mosque. There is a separate entrance and area for women, as the sexes do not mingle within the mosque.

There was a ‘sanctuary’, although it is not called that in the mosque. And there was a large room similar to what many churches call a fellowship hall. It was in this room that the presentation was given. They offered us bottled water and some Dunkin Donuts, so we felt right at home.

The gentleman who gave the presentation was the president of the Board of Directors for the ISD. He was born in Pakistan but for the last 20+ years he and his family have lived in NCCo. He is an engineer who works at the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington.

A lot of the presentation focused on the social work that ISD carries out. They offer free health clinics for all people and they offer tutoring for school children. They also help with various societal needs in the urban areas of Wilmington. (Of the three mosques in NCCo, two are in Wilmington.) They are trying to be more involved in helping prisoners who are about to be released from prison assimilate back into society.

At present there is a building being erected that will house a two-story school. I’m not sure if this is going to be a five-day a week elementary-style school or a school for the mosque’s members to use on the weekends.

We were able to sit in on the noontime prayer service. It was brief, about 15 minutes in length. There was a call to prayer and while that was going on, men began to trickle in and have a time of personal prayer. We were told that the personal prayer was mostly the men reciting portions of the Koran that they had memorized. After a few minutes the imam came in. He then led the group in what I would label a ‘call and repeat’ style of prayer. And primarily what I heard was the phrase ‘Allahu Akhbar’, which means ‘God is great’. The imam would call out this phrase and the men would repeat it back to him. It was pretty interesting to watch this take place.

I titled this paper ‘Just like us’ because that is the primary reaction I have to the time I spent at the mosque.

The bulk of the presentation focused on all the social ministry efforts that ISD is trying to accomplish. That is just like what a lot of Christian churches are involved in and what a lot of non-Christian organizations attempt. The ISD is interested in the current health care debate and are doing what they can to improve people’s access to health care. Isn’t that what a lot of churches are doing through parish nurse programs and free health clinics?

What I took away from the presentation is that the ISD wants to project the image that Muslims are just like a lot of Christians in how they live and function.

Another aspect of the similarity is that the presenter made it very clear that only ‘good’ Muslims will enter paradise. And in order to be a good Muslim, total obedience to the Koran is required. This means that a good Muslim will pray five times a day, keep the Ramadan provisions, pay the tithe, etc. Entrance into paradise (what we might call heaven) is totally dependent on what the individual person accomplishes. Isn’t that just like what a lot of Christians believe?

There are indeed a lot of Christians who believe that their good works will help them get into heaven. Christians have bought into the false and deceptive claim that they have to pass the “Good Works Test” in order to enter heaven. And if you don’t pass that test, you better like it hot because where you are going is plenty hot. So in that regard, Muslims and Christians share a lot in common.

I find that to be extremely wearying. There is no hope for the Muslim, because no matter how much you do, that little voice inside your head is going to accuse you of not doing more. And that is the same hopelessness that Christians feel when they go to sleep at night. A lot of our Christian brothers and sisters turn the Gospel into Law and they beat themselves up with it. When their head hits the pillow they are asking themselves, “Did I do enough to make God happy with me today? Did I take advantage of every opportunity to pray, to witness my faith, to point someone to Jesus?”

All of those answers are ‘No’ because of the holy demands of God. The hope of the Christian has always been, and always will be, in the life of Jesus. God the Father demanded sinlessness and perfection and Jesus the Son provided that. I knew that there was no Gospel within Islam, but it struck me how similar this is to a good portion of Christianity that does not have the Gospel either. It is no Gospel when the grace of Jesus Christ and the undeserved mercy of God are held out as if they were a carrot so that you might act or behave in a different fashion. There is no comfort in that, only pain and despair.

Islam is a major threat in the United States. The presenter stressed repeatedly that American Muslims were not the same as the radical Islamists that are found in other parts of the world (Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia to name a few places). I’d like to believe that but the teachings of the Koran are very deceptive. The Islamic concept of jihad appears very differently at different times, all depending on the percentage of the Islamic population in the area. When Muslims are in the minority, the message of Islam is peace and tolerance. When the populations are more equal, then the message of Islam is a little more aggressive and defiant.

The message that the ISD was ‘just like’ other groups could be, at the same time, comforting and dangerous. Let us be glad for their good societal work but let us also be aware of the reality that Islam, revealed in the Koran, is not friendly to Christianity.