Happy Masjid

By Jawad Ali

I feel sad about all the people here who don’t have a decent mosque to call their own. I don’t go to the mosque very often, but it is always my own fault and never the community’s. I want to tell you about the happiest little mosque on God’s green earth.

It is a little storefront African American mosque at the corner of Fulton and Divisidaro in San Francisco, down the block from the now defunct Justice League club. The masjid’s old timers would take me out back to the office and beat me with their walking sticks if they ever found out that I called it an African American masjid. Then they would beat me a second time, extra hard, for calling them old timers. During last week’s khutba, Imam Amin said that he had bought a heavy punching bag that he is planning to put to use right after Ramadan. He was making some point about mind-body-soul fitness connection, and the jab double hook combination that he threw in the air looked convincing.

“This here aint no African American social club,” said imam Salahuddin, this week’s khateeb, “this is Allah’s house for all of humanity”. This is one masjid where they really do mean it. The message at this masjid is relentlessly about openness and inclusion. “I saw two white dudes coming out the door the other day. How can you claim to be Muslims?” One of his friends wanted to know, way back in the day. “You don’t say. How many of them was there?” the imam responded in a worried tone. “Two. I saw two white dudes,” came the reply. “Well brother we got lot more than just two,” came the punch line like a finely tuned stand up routine. “We got Chinese too. And Mexicans!”

Each Jumma gathering is an outpouring of love. Each khutba forms a deep and intimate bond with the audience. That little anecdote about the two white guys captures two of my favorite signs of love: stand-up comedy and friendships that go back generations. Quran and Islam are as serious as life and the universe itself, we are reminded. But each week the message is delivered with enormous intelligence, humor and wit.

Sometimes the imams are reminded to stick close to the microphone on the little podium. They have a tendency to pace around and act out parts of their speech. “Each time you leave the door open on your ego, the Shaitan sneaks in like this,” the imam demonstrates. “I aint mad acha,” Shaitan speaks in ebonics sometimes, as if he is Tupac Shakoor himself. Some of this theatrical skill probably comes from childhood exposure to black churches. This is ironic, since the church-less Islam is supposed to make an imam out of every individual. Yet many of us chose to hide safely behind the professional molvi class that we have invented for this purpose. We can’t even compete with black churches on something that is supposed to be our very own turf.

I have a slight natural suspicion towards people who are as beautiful and charismatic and brother Amin, the lead imam of the masjid. Yet his life has been an open book to this community for generations. Many of the statements are sprinkled with intimate phrases like:

“Brother Moosa and I were just talking about this point last night after dinner, weren’t we?”
“You can ask my wife, she is sitting right there.”
“Brother Eric was the same age as his son right here when this happened.”
“There is a great article in the Muslim Journal by Imam Hakim of Chicago. Many of you probably remember him from when his family lived up the other side of the hill.”
“We know first hand what guns and drugs can do to a community. You know who you are. We have won many of these battles together.”

The khutba discusses the state of the Ummah, civil rights, and globalization. But the heart is firmly planted in the business of the local community. Last week, one of the announcements was about Brother Ibrahim and his family relocating to Paris. Hugs all around. Another was that Sister Karima is having some health problems. She is moving back to the neighborhood to be near friends. People are needed Saturday morning to help her load boxes in the truck.

I have heard khutbas delivered by a middle-aged Caucasian brother with a ponytail. He was just a little less flamboyant, but equally rigorous and inclusive. The sisters seem to be fully invited and included. They are still outnumbered and sit at the back, but there is not much other segregation. The masjid has only one prayer room, one entrance, one way to go to the two restrooms.

The small group that is not African American is truly a United Nations of the world. This week the famous DJ Aikut of Istanbul was there. He poked me in ribs from behind and winked at me, and gently touched his hand to his heart. I see Omid. He is an Indian who grew up with a mostly Jamaican masjid near London. We greet each other as fellow yardies rather than fellow desis. There is a polite Chinese guy from the medical school, and the sufi scientist from Europe, and a few others that I still need to befriend.

Don’t let all those black folks fool you. This is not an African American masjid. They will remind you in case you ever forget.