Mosques and Suraus

There has been some discussion on the Internet regarding the Park 51 community center (aka the "Ground Zero Mosque") as to whether the prayer space in the community center will be a mosque or not. This question has devolved into one even more basic: what is the difference between a mosque and a prayer space, such as one might find in a building that is not considered to be a mosque? This is my answer:

The distinction is somewhat hazy, but there is some distinction between mosques and other places in which we Muslims pray. Generally speaking, mosques are capable of holding more than 40 people (the minimum number of Muslims required for jumu'ah, the Friday congregational prayers), have a mihrab (the central niche that points the direction toward Makkah) and minbar (the pulpit from which the sermon is spoken from during jumu'ah), and normally performs all prayers with an imam present, including jumu'ah.

Here in SE Asia, we call a non-mosque facility a surau. A surau differs from a mosque in that it usually cannot fit 40 or more people in the facility*, may or may not have a mihrab, never has a minbar, and has no imams attached to the facility. They are used only for individual prayers and never for congregational prayers. (If two or more people happen to be at the surau at the same time, they may choose to pray together, but that's not considered congregational prayer.)

The Park51 facility may or may not be a mosque; it would at the very least be a surau. The key question from a Muslim perspective is, will jumu'ah be done there with the imam physically present? If yes, then it would be a mosque; if no, then it's only a surau.

* I've used several suraus over the years, the smallest of which was located in an Ikea store here in Singapore. That surau was big enough to fit in four people praying together at the absolute maximum.

Zakat vs. Sadaqah

There seems to be some confusion among non-Muslims about who's eligible to receive charity from Muslims. The quotation in question is from Al-Maqasid, the book on fiqh by Imam Nawawi (631 - 676 A.H. / 1234 - 1278 CE), who wrote:

"It is not permissible to give zakat to a non-Muslim." (Al-Maqasid, 4:13)

Not surprisingly, the quotation is being misused by Islamophobes such as Bobby Spencer and others. Their problem seems to be that they focus solely on zakat while ignoring the fact that there's also sadaqah, the voluntary charity that can be given by Muslims to anyone. What follows below is the thread of a conversation over at Daily Kos where this issue came up. The first comment was written by a person calling themselves "Berkeley Moon":

Do you know, for example, that Islam compares wealth in a society to blood in the body? It must be circulated in a healthy society/body. If too much blood is congealed in one place in the body, the body dies. The body also dies if there is too little blood in a part. It is the same with a society. Too little or too much wealth in a part of the society means the society sickens and may die.

To which "Old Man Mountain" wrote:

Interesting... Can you please quote the verse(s) that outline this concept? Thanks.

I responded:

There is no specific verse in the Qur'an... that mentions this concept; there may be some ahadith that do, although I couldn't find anything through an online search of the best of the hadith databases (USC's MSA website). However, you can find the concept fleshed out in The Secret of Islam, pp. 17-18.

To which "Old Man Mountain" replied:

That link appears to outline... the justification for zakat tax. Now I've done some reading up on this in the meantime, and it seems that although there are some exceptions (like if there is potential to make a convert), by and large...

"It is not permissible to give zakat to a non-Muslim" (Al-Maqasid, 4:13).

I'm just an old guy, sometimes grumpy, but I just don't see what is so "beautiful" about that - unless of course one is a Muslim. I must say the teacher above sure makes it sound flowery.

And here is my latest (and, insha'allah, last) response:

I think part of the problem... is that there's a lot more to this topic than what you've read. First, the passage I linked to used the analogy of wealth in a society to blood within one's body with respect to zakat; however, the passages where I'm familiar with this analogy are normally on the topic of Islamic business practices. The use of this analogy is applicable to both areas.

Next, the quotation you used, "It is not permissible to give zakat to a non-Muslim." (Al-Maqasid, 4:13), is from a book on fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence. It's not a quotation from the Qur'an, if that's what you were thinking.

In Googling the quotation (because I was unfamiliar with it off-hand), I see that it's used in a negative manner by Islamophobes; what I don't see is that these same people don't have a more full understanding about charity within Islam. Zakat is merely one form of charity within Islam. Zakat is the compulsory charity that is required of Muslims; non-Muslims are not expected to pay any zakat whatsoever. In this regard, I don't have any problems with the idea that "it is not permissible to give zakat to a non-Muslim." It is a charity raised by and distributed back to the Muslim community.

However, zakat is only one type of charity in Islam; the voluntary, non-compulsory form of charity in Islam is known as sadaqah. Sadaqah can be given to anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim. Whereas zakat is a prescribed amount (2.5% of one's wealth), sadaqah is limitless. In Islam, even a smile is sadaqah. :) So there's more to Islamic charity than just zakat.

Straight Talk About Islam

This blog post was somewhat inspired by Rob Wagner's post, Muslims in Danger of Losing Their Voice, in which Rob argued that non-Muslims and Muslim apostates are calling themselves "experts" on Islam, and that the media and the non-Muslim populace are being taken in by these frauds because, in their minds, the "Insta-Experts™" have "credibility." The potential problem from Rob's perspective is that we Muslims may lose our voice because no one will listen to us, preferring the frauds instead.

I had originally written as a comment to Rob's post:

It's not that Muslims are "losing our voice," per se; it's that you have an extremely gullible non-Muslim populace that's so ignorant about the subject of Islam that: (1) they can't tell which voices are authentic and which voices are not, and (2) they won't accept anything that doesn't pander to their prejudices. The con men, either going under a "progressive" Muslim banner or out-and-out declaring themselves to be apostates, gladly sell their souls for a miserable price. The shame of it all is that this sort of problem has arisen when the masses have lost their ability to think critically. In the meantime, there are plenty of Muslims, individually and collectively, who do speak out and try to mitigate the damage. But until the ignorant masses begin to make an effort to open their minds and seek real understanding about Islam, they will remain the greater fools.

Since I wrote that, back on April 25th, I've actually been rather angry at a number of groups of people and this blog post (and others, insha'allah, in the future) are going to be addressed to them. People claim to like straight talk and this is what I'm going to do, provide some straight talk about Islam. I intend to be blunt, and if you don't like it, too bad. But I do hope that this bluntness will be enough to get it through your skull that Islam and Muslims aren't what you think they are or want them to be, and that most of what you think you know are nothing but lies in the first place.

So, to start off, let's get back to Rob's post:

You're being lied to. If you're a non-Muslim and think that the only "moderate" Muslim voices are the likes of Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tarek Fatah, Ed Hussein, Wafa Sultan or any other "progressive" Muslim or apostate, then you're a greater fool than I thought. Let me clue you in: these people do not speak for Muslims. They have zero credibility among the Muslim community. These people do not understand Islam and cannot accept Islam as it is. What they want is Islam Lite. Chrislam. Call it whatever you will, it's not ISLAM. It's religion according to their own nafs, their own ego, which is exactly what many people do when they create their own cafeteria religion, picking and choosing what they like and rejecting anything that doesn't fit into their own preconceived notions. If you want to follow your own cafeteria religion, fine, be my guest. But don't expect Muslims to do the same. Which leads to me to my next point.

Islam will never go through a "reformation." Islam doesn't need a reformation. Islam is perfect. Frankly, I don't care what non-Muslims or the "progressive" Muslims and apostates think about Islam. We practice Islam as it is meant to be practiced, not as how non-Muslims or "progressive" Muslims think it should be practiced. Don't like it? Too bad. Think Islam needs to be reformed? Too bad. Until you know and understand Islam as well as we do, we're not going to pay any attention to your criticisms or calls for "reform." Just like the progressives and apostates, you don't have any credibility among us either. You'll impress us more if you try to learn about Islam from an unbiased source. And by the time you get to the point where we think you're knowledgeable enough, you'll probably be agreeing that Islam doesn't need "reforming" as well, insha'allah.

We're not going away. We're not going home to our own countries. For many of us, we are in our own country. Nor can you stick your heads in the sand and pretend that Muslim countries don't exist by stopping all trade and contact with them, as some wingnuts have suggested. Muslims make up 20% of the world's population, and we'll keep on growing, insha'allah. We're not trying to take over the world, as many idiots claim, but we will if non-Muslims don't have babies. That's not our fault; it's yours. We're going to continue having babies whether you like it or not, insha'allah. So deal with us! Get rational, rub those brain cells of yours together, and accept a society with Muslims and Islam in it. If you can't, then you're just a bunch of cowards.

To be continued, insha'allah.