Ta'leef Collective (Fremont, Alameda County, CA)

My cousin and I arrived at Ta'leef around maghrib because word around the Bay is they host a potluck iftar every Thursday during Ramadan. In that sense this institution is amazing; there were people there from all over the Bay Area last night. Not many community centers here can say that they have hundreds of people from miles around show up just for iftar. There was no special program last night; it was just a group of young-ish Muslims getting together to share a meal in a nonjudgmental arena.

In that sense, it seemed very much like the average college Muslim student organization iftar. You had all kinds of Muslims in attendance: guys with ponytails, tattoos, kufis; girls with ponytails, tattoos (I'm guessing), hijabs. It was surreal seeing this crowd mixed together during iftar after having been to so many masjid iftars, but of course, this isn't a masjid.

That much was apparent when it was time to pray. Rather than shut down all activity in order to pray, someone merely informed the crowd that they were praying maghrib in the next room and invited those who wanted to pray to join them. Nobody was made to feel as if they had to pray, but conversely religious people didn't feel awkward for taking time out to pray. Oftentimes at mixed events religious people turn into THOSE people, the people who miss out on activities because they have to pray.

Ta'leef does walk a fine line, though, between the liberal and conservative viewpoints. The line to get food was segregated, but men and women were free to sit wherever. This appeased those who want to keep their distance from the opposite gender but also, as an example, let husbands and wives sit next to each other.

This is not the only place in the Bay Area which hosts events that are as free from judgement, but it is one of the few which does it on a regular basis. It also definitely serves a niche of Muslims which many masjids in the Bay Area have failed to serve.

What was also interesting was a lot of people were using this as a stop on their way to MCA, which was finishing the Quran last night in taraweeh. It's very telling that this group chose to cone here for iftar and the drive the 15-20 miles to MCA instead of doing iftar at MCA. MCA just has that reputation of not being as welcoming to all Muslims, and there are definitely many congregants who would flip out if they saw men and women eating iftar together.

Date Visited: August 16, 2012

Location:
43170 Osgood Avenue
Fremont, CA 94539

Tag-team Taraweeh: N/A

Qirat: Good

Size of congregation: 100+

Capacity of center: Seemed close to capacity last night

Parking: Lot, which they share with other businesses and a masjid

Mihrab: No

Minbar: No

Shoe shelves: Yes, but limited

Building: Structure in an office park

Friendliness to women: Any kind of woman can walk in here and she will be welcome. I hope the day never comes when I have to retract that statement.

Friendliness of congregation: Admittedly, this place can be a little intimidating if you're by yourself and don't know anyone. However, the people here are genuinely nice and it's easy to meet new people.

Islamic Center of Fremont (Fremont, Alameda County, CA)

Point Richmond, a neighborhood of Richmond, is where I live and work (play? No).  It's one of the oldest neighborhoods of Richmond and developed a symbiotic relationship with the refinery founded by Standard Oil in 1902.  Folks who worked at the refinery lived in Point Richmond and even today a great number of Chevron employees will crowd Point Richmond's restaurants during lunch.

Chevron does its best to be a good neighbor by implementing a variety of safety measures designed to protect residents of Richmond.  One of those is their warning siren, which is tested on the first Wednesday of every month at 11:00 AM.  It started going off at around 6:15 PM last night.  The first thing I did was check the clock.  No, it's not 11 AM.  I check the date.  No, it's not Wednesday.  Something was very wrong.

I immediately checked Twitter and found out that there was a fire at the refinery.  I didn't even wait for details; I packed my things and in 5 minutes and 10 seconds I was out of there.  I spent the extra 10 seconds taking the picture below.  Yes, the refinery is less than a 10-minute walk from my apartment.

Hope no one uses TJ triangulation technology to figure out exactly where in Point Richmond I live.

I didn't know what was burning but I wasn't going to wait around to find out.  Shelter-in-place warning be damned, I was not going to spend the night a mile away from what could be an oil fire.

Two things.  First, Point Richmond was very lucky in that the wind was blowing east, thus sparing the neighborhood from the brunt of the fire, though I noticed today ash was sprinkled on all the cars left here overnight.  Second, I'm blessed to have a car and the means to get out of Richmond at will.  My thoughts are with those Richmond residents who had to breath ash all night.

I scrambled south to spend the night with my aunt.  We had iftar, but my nerves were still a little shot, so I decided to pray taraweeh to relax.

I tell you what, if you're trying to get your mind off a refinery fire and the poison it's potentially seeping into your apartment, you can't go wrong with praying taraweeh at ICF.  Forget all the negatives about ICF which people may or may not tell you.  The recitation there is superb, and it was just the thing I needed to take my mind off the refinery.  ICF hafiz school, keep doing what you do.  We need more gifted imams to help congregations take their minds off of worldly problems or help them put those worldly problems into perspective.

ICF is in a unique location because it is at the epicenter of the Desi community in the Bay Area.  Walk through this part of Fremont and a good chunk of the people you'll see will be of South Asian descent.  There's plenty of diversity, sure, but ICF is one of the few masjids located such that you can pray, have dinner and grab groceries without moving your car.  There are Muslim-owned businesses a-plenty in this neighborhood of Fremont.  If you're missing the motherland, you can't go wrong with spending an evening in Irvington.

Date Visited:

Location:
4039 Irvington Avenue
Fremont, CA 94538

Tag-team taraweeh: Yes

Qirat: Very good.  They train huffaz well here.

Size of congregation: 100-200

Capacity of center: 200 or more, they had uncles praying outside in the parking lot.

Parking: The masjid has a lot and they provide congregants with a handy map of where they can and can't park in the neighborhood.  They have partnerships with Muslims businesses and local churches to use their lots at certain times.

Mihrab: Yes

Minbar: Yes

Shoe shelves: Yes

Building: One-story affair which seems a little cramped given the size of the community.  Praying outside only works in the summertime, you know?  Good thing they have about 10 years before Ramadan moves back into the rainy season.

Friendliness towards women: Women have their own space to pray, but it's a separate room entirely.  I have no idea of how large it is, but judging from the noise emanating from it it seemed a little cramped.

Friendliness of congregation: Lots of nice people go here.  This masjid is open to all.

Ibrahim Khalilullah Islamic Center (Fremont, Alameda County, CA)

Muslims in the West have always faced a quandary when it comes to picking a location for their masjid.  Here in the Bay Area, my local mosque was always doing damage control with neighbors upset at being woken up at 11 PM and 5 AM by congregants heading to prayers in the summertime.  Picking a commercial location hurts local businesses, whose customers can't find parking on Fridays during jummah.  Light industrial?  It's a nightmare getting a permit for a mosque because of the kids.  Oh, to live in Pakistan, where you can squat on someone's land, turn it into a masjid and nobody can say nothin' because their grasp on the rule of law is tenuous at best.

This mosque is located in a commercial park, but to its advantage it shares the block with two other Muslim nonprofits: the Ta'leef Collective and the Averroes Institute.

The Ta'leef Collective is a nonprofit offshoot of Zaytuna Institute and is famous for being probably the least-judgmental Islamic institution in the Bay Area.  Anyone can show up as they are and they will be welcomed in the halls of Ta'leef.  Averroes is Islamic high school, one of the first of its kind in the Bay Area.  In any case, when you share a parking lot with two other Muslim organizations, you don't have to worry as much about parking causing any pains.  Also, when the neighbors are surrounded by 3 different Islamic organizations, they're bound to learn more about the religion.


What's absolutely stunning about this masjid is how quiet it is, given the congregation's size.  The men's room has a capacity of exactly 168, and I'd say it was a little under half-full tonight.  Despite that, it was an extremely serene place to pray taraweeh.  The children were remarkably well-disciplined and all of them old enough to know better were focused on their prayer.  A toddler did start squawking during taraweeh, but his needs were met very quickly and we returned to a space where you could here a pin drop.  If you're tired of the hustle-and-bustle of the larger mosques but still want a large-mosque feel, go here.

Hands down one of the prettiest mihrabs in the Bay Area.

Date Visited: July 28, 2012

Location:

43140 Osgood Drive
Fremont, CA 94539


Tag-team taraweeh: No

Qirat: Wonderful

Size of congregation: 80-100 total

Capacity of center: 250-ish

Parking: Off-street parking in the business park.  People probably park on the street during business hours because they share the lot with many other businesses.

Mihrab: Yes

Minbar: Yes

Shoe shelves: Plenty

Building: A building in a nondescript business park.  You'll probably drive past it the first time you're looking for it since there's only one driveway leading to the buildings.

Friendliness towards women: Women had their own entrance and an equitable space in which to pray.

Friendliness of congregation: It's primarily an Afghan community, but I felt like everyone was welcome.

Islamic Center of Fremont

If you give your child to the MCA’s youth group, there’s no guarantee that they’ll become a future leader of the Muslim community, although many of them have. MCA’s been struggling with its youth for years; it’s such a tense relationship that on their website the leadership’s displays a banner which says, “We believe youth are the solution, not the problem,” which tells me that a significant portion of the population believes the youth are the problem, a ridiculous notion.

Such problems exist in every Muslim community, but less so at ICF. If you give your child to the masjid, they will turn them into a hafiz. I don’t know the nuances of their hafiz education program but I believe along with memorizing the entire Quran the child also studies the verses to learn more about Islamic law. The last part may be a stretch, as unfortunately too many people place an emphasis on memorizing the words without studying the meaning, but even learning the Quran by heart is an accomplishment and benefit in itself. After memorizing well more than 6,000 verses, studying must come easier than it does for the rest of us, which is why many huffaz go on to become successful professionals after graduating from college.

The mosque is located in a commercial area of Fremont nestled up against one of its nicer, well-manicured neighborhoods (se llama Irvington). It is Fremont, though, so the stench of curry permeates the air (in addition to a high concentration of Pakistani businesses in the area, there’s an apartment complex across the street from whose kitchens waft the aromas of India and Pakistan). The advantage of having the mosque itself on a commercial block is parking isn’t as big a hassle as it is in other places. Everyone who attends this mosque should be able to find parking that won’t disturb people who, oddly enough, are trying to get some sleep at 10 PM on a weeknight. It’s this kind of respect and consideration which unfortunately enough masajid do not demonstrate by purchasing a property in neighborhoods designed to support maybe 2-3 cars per unit.

That said, the mosque isn’t immune from parking problems. Smart-alecky Muslims constantly skirt the law by parking their cars in a strip mall’s parking lot, which has led the mosque to print out sandwich boards warning Muslims to stay out of there. There was also a private security guard out front whose duties probably also include making sure no Muslims park in the lot illegally. Common sense dictates that you not park on private property to attend the masjid but apparently it’s a bit too much to ask for.

The masjid is fabulous on the inside. They’ve gone with a green theme, green being the color of Islam, which makes me glad the masjid isn’t run by folks who think black is the color of Islam. Black carpet and black walls, how dreary would that have looked? They’ve also decorated the inside with calligraphy and a chandelier which hangs from the mihrab. It’s very Pakistani, and it’s a stark contrast to MCA, which either has nothing on its walls or something functional, like an update on their latest fundraising drive.

If this mosque is in the middle of a current fundraising drive, I didn’t find out about it. The only plea for money tonight was to support the famine victims in East Africa, a cause we can all get behind. Unfortunately, after the prayer, I noticed an entire tray of food left over from tonight’s iftar sitting in the back near the shoe shelves. The smart money says that at least some of that food will go to waste, a terrible thing to think about with the famine on everyone’s minds.

The center, while bigger than SBIA, was overflowing. They had set up carpets in the parking lot for men to pray, which wasn’t that bad of an idea because it was pretty nice out. I do wonder, however, if the masjid plans on building a second story to accommodate the growing population. I mean, sure, praying outside tonight was fabulous because Fremont is pretty nice in the summertime, but it’s not a permanent solution.

Men praying outside even though at this point there was space on the inside for them to pray.  Nobody can blame them because it was a pleasant night and the prayer hall was getting a tad stuffy.

Date Visited: August 14, 2011

Location:
4039 Irvington Ave.
Fremont, CA 94538

Tag-team taraweeh: No, but I did cut out after 8, so maybe.

Qirat: All huffaz leading taraweeh should strive to memorize to mesmerize. Unfortunately, most of us attending mosques here in the Bay Area speak classical Arabic, and so can’t understand the Quran. We therefore rely on solid recitation from the imams to keep us focused. The young man tonight did just that, I especially loved that he’s learned to recite the Quran with a slight quiver in his voice.

Size of congregation: 100-200

Capacity of center: 300 including the spillover

Parking: Lot and street. The masjid has agreements with local business and a church to share their parking lots.

Mihrab: Yes

Minbar: Yes

Shoe shelves: Fall far short of the demand. I always try to find a spot in the shelves but tonight there was literally no space for my flippy floppies.

Building: A converted commercial building.

Friendliness towards women: They have their own room and own entrance. I really have no idea of what it’s like in there because I’ve only been at the mosque when it’s crowded. Islamic modesty prevented me from taking a peek to see what it looks like.

Friendliness of congregation: The congregation tonight was large, but a lot of the men in attendance looked friendly.

Islamic Society of East Bay

Date visited: September 3, 2010

Location: Fremont, CA
33330 Peace Terrace
Fremont, 94555

Tag-team Taraweeh: Yes

Qirat: Depends on who it is. One of them had a voice that wouldn't stop quivering.

Size of congregation: Large, about 400

Capacity of center: There was a lot of spillover in the courtyard.

Parking: Plenty.

Mihrab: Yes

Minbar: Yes

Shoe shelves: Yes

Building: Two symmetrical structures. Kind of pretty to look at.

Friendliness towards women: Not bad

Friendliness of congregation: It was a busy night, but folks here are generally friendly.

This mosque's story always makes me crack up. When I was a young child, one day my dad bundled us all up in the car and we made the trek to Fremont for a mosque fundraiser. At this fundraiser, I learned that a Muslim group had bought a parcel of land right next to a church and planned to build a grand mosque on it. Parking wouldn't be a problem because the church already had a large lot and they could build one of their own.

Oh, and the model they'd built! It was gorgeous. It looked like a classic masjid, with a courtyard, sculpted pillars, a dome, a minaret and all in all a lot of space. These people seemed to know what they wanted and I was actually kind of excited about how the mosque would look when it was completed.

Fast forward a few years. I visited this place for the first time when I was in high school, and I noticed instead of a grand mosque, all they'd built was a relatively tiny building. Worse, they had left NO room for future expansion without destroying part of the building. This I knew they would never do because they'd built the outer wall with marble imported from India. Part of me of course wondered if they'd cut back a little on the Indian marble, could they have built a bigger space?

I do have a fond memory of that visit, though. I remember they had a sign near the bathroom pointing to their "voodoo" area.

Anyways, this place was not big enough for the crowd yesterday. And yes, I know that the mosque is never this crowded because it was a weekend night in Ramadan, but honestly, Muslims need to start building their mosques with Ramadan in mind. They should start to think like convention centers. Nobody ever books the big 4,500 person space at the Santa Clara Convention Center but they still have it because occasionally, someone will book it and that's when they'll make their money. Similarly, since mosque traffic is never as high as it is during Ramadan, the mosque boards need to build their mosques with that month in mind. More people equals more donations. Simple as that.

Basically, that's what upsets me about this space. They did have the space to build a grand mosque with the capabilities to outshine MCA but they blew it with short-sightedness. Now instead of one grand building they have two buildings which aren't even connected.

I did take my newt's eggs, cow femur and snake venom into the masjid with me yesterday, but I saw that they have stopped referring to their wudu area as a voodoo area. Sad day.

Ibrahim Khalilullah Islamic Center

Date visited: August 28, 2010

Location: Fremont, CA
43140 Osgood Road
Fremont, CA 94539

Tag-team Taraweeh: No

Qirat: Good

Size of congregation: Large. The men's section was holding about 300 people

Capacity of center: Not large enough. There were people praying in the aisles.

Parking: Shared with local businesses. Enough.

Mihrab: Yes

Minbar: Yes

Shoe shelves: Not enough. Lots of shoes on the floor.

Building: A converted office building.

Friendliness towards women: There was a strong female presence.

Friendliness of congregation: There were lots of worshippers in a crowded space. Not too much opportunity for niceties.

The best way to find this mosque is to look for the one office park which has a full parking lot. Otherwise, you just have to keep your eyes peeled for the small sign they have out front.

I really like what they've done with the place. The mihrab is massive and made of marble. It's decorated with calligraphy on top and they've made sure the paint on the walls matches the structure's red and beige shades.

There's a few things I noticed right away about this place.

Space is a huge issue. In fact, as I was coming in, I heard a volunteer tell someone to go to another mosque in Fremont because they're all pretty close together. Yes, it may have been very crowded, and there is no dearth of masajid in Fremont, but is that an appropriate thing to say? I'm unsure.

Most of the volunteers were in uniforms. The young men were decked out in white button-down shirts and black pants, and some were wearing ties. I have no idea of why they chose to do that, but it was a little unsettling. Granted, a couple were not in uniform and I'm guessing they chose to do so because it was a fundraising night, but if they wear the same stuff every night that's a little weird.

Everything was said in Afghan first, and then English. Now that's hardcore immigrant-status. It's funny too, because due to sheer size of the crowd it was easy for me to see that there was plenty of diversity in this congregation. That said, Ramadan always attracts folks who don't normally come to the masjid so I'm sure they do this because their regular attendees are mostly Afghan.

There were plenty of guys goofing off outside when I came outside after prayer. That's the problem with building a masjid in a business park; there's nothing to distract the kids so they waste time by crowding the hallways. MCA tries to take care of this problem by having lectures after 8 rakat, but these kids probably didn't even pray taraweeh so that wouldn't do anything for them. SBIA has a basketball hoop outside their building; sure, it may piss some people off that these damn kids are playing ball during prayer but at least they're at the masjid, right?

Zaid Shakir was leading the fundraising tonight, which means there are some influential people behind this mosque. I found it hilarious that Zaid Shakir (obviously) gave a speech in English and then the MC started speaking in Dari to get the congregation ready for prayer. If there really are that many people in the crowd who cannot speak English I hope someone was translating the entire speech for the Afghans.

Taqwa Islamic Center

Date visited: August 24, 2010

Location: Fremont, CA
4673 Thornton Ave. Suite M
Fremont, CA 94536

Tag-team Taraweeh: No

Size of congregation: < 50

Capacity of center: ~ 100

Parking: Ample

Mihrab: Yes

Minbar: No

Shoe shelves: Yes

Building: A unit in a strip mall. However, it was unique in that the congregation was praying perpendicular to (also parallel with?) the walls. Odds are when Muslims convert a building into a prayer space they'll have to pray at an angle because the odds of it lining up in the same direction as Mecca are slim. This wastes precious square footage, props to this community for avoiding this problem.

Friendliness towards women: This is a women's mosque. The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the mosque was the sheer number of women. Since there was no barrier between the men and the women I was able to see that there were maybe five men and fifteen women. By the time the prayer started there were maybe 15 men and 30 women. When taraweeh started the ratio had almost balanced out but there were more women than men. Masha'allah? Masha'allah indeed.

Friendliness of congregation: Great. Small communities are always friendly. Plus 2-3 guys brought a lot of water to share with the congregation, always a nice gesture.

This mosque afforded me a unique opportunity not present at most mosques: I was able to contrast the men's section and women's section because they were only fifteen feet apart. All the men before the prayer were sitting in silent reflection, occasionally a quiet hello to the newcomers. The women, on the other hand, were yakking and yukking to their hearts' content. I won't crack a joke because clearly I wasn't myself engaged in quiet reflection if I was being amused by this spectacle.

It was the women talking that helped me figure out that most of the people in attendance were of the same ethnic group. I mentally narrowed it down to three groups: Turks, Persians and Afghans. I quickly eliminated Turks from the list because after all, it was a mosque (I kid, I kid! I know a religious Turk.) Whatever the language was, I got confirmation that all the women were speaking it when a few minutes before isha the imam addressed the women, cracked a joke and they all elle oh elled.

I'm a big fan of this dimming-of-the-lights-for-taraweeh business. The only time I can recall the MCA dimming its lights during prayer is for qiyam, and I get the feeling that's so they don't disturb the sleepers performing itikaaf. It must be a hanafi thing...

I concluded that this was was Afghan mosque because clearly, these were strong, confident women in the congregation, to be outnumbering the men, and there was market named Little Kabul next door.

One final note: if you do visit this mosque, bring a prayer rug or else you'll be the one chump who didn't.

Islamic Center of Fremont

Date visited: August 22, 2010

Location: Fremont, CA
4039 Irvington Ave.
Fremont, CA 94538

Tag-team Taraweeh: Yes. They had a starter, a reliever and a closer.

Qirat: As mentioned earlier, they had three huffaz. It went from great to good to excellent

Size of congregation: < 600

Capacity of center: Not big enough for the crowd, they had prayer mats laid out outside

Parking: What the mosque has done is uploaded a parking map on their website. It's a simple Google satellite map, but they've crossed out the lots in which patrons can't park and checked off where they can park. Because of this handy map, I found in addition to parking on the street, I could have parked in a neighboring church parking lot and the lot of a restaurant I won't mention because the owner's not paying me to advertise. This, by the way, is why mosques should have websites; makes everyone's life easier. Some mosques have such useless websites they don't even put their address up.

Mihrab: Yep

Minbar: U know it

Shoe shelves: Lots

Building: A good-sized single-story affair

Friendliness towards women: Such strict segregation I'm pretty sure it's a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I've talked to women about mosques designating a completely separate room for their kind. They say while they understand that some men can't bear the sight of the fairer sex, the problem is a lot of women use the relatively isolation to start chatting with their gal pals, thus raising the noise level to uncomfortable levels for those who actually want to pray.

Friendliness of congregation: Very much so. I made a new friend, whom I'll refer to as the ICF insider, who was invaluable in my understanding of the mosque's dynamics.

The motto of the mosque could be summed up as follows:

If you're brown, stick around.
If you're white, you're all right.
If you're black, please come back.
If you're Arab...get out of here, you lousy Arab, this is a Desi masjid.

Ha, well, okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a Semite in this crowd. That's okay, though, like I've said before, a lot of these mosques are built along ethnic lines. I found out from my father today that the Jones Straat mosque I hit up last night was founded by Yemenis, which explains why the speech afterward wasn't in English and there was an Arabic US Census sticker near the entrance.

The most fascinating aspect of this mosque is its hafiz-development program. A huge part of its programming is focused on finding youth in the community who have the potential to become qaris. And they do excellent work; I went to college with one of their products and his voice made straight guys swoon.

Everyone leading taraweeh tonight was a product of the program. Their logic is it's not enough to teach the kids how to recite the Quran; to be a really effective school, their policy is to throw the kids into the fire by making them lead taraweeh. The guy who started taraweeh tonight was a mere 17 years of age. Truth be told, when he first stepped up to lead I wondered what kind of hafiz didn't have a beard. Upon learning his age from the insider, I suppose it is too much to expect a baby to have a beard.

I learned that the imam of the masjid (also the closer, by the way) was in the middle of an alim program to become certified as an imam. He'd already finished two years of the program and apparently was heading to Africa del Sur to complete the last five years. This begs the question, does a guy really have to go all the way to South Africa to become certified as an imam? How is it possible that there isn't a decent program in the US?

The length of this program also leads me to conclude that it must be impossible for anyone to pursue a university degree AND become certified as an imam. IT of SBIA is quite proud of the fact he doesn't even have a high school diploma because he started the alim program so early. The takeaway lesson here is if you see a hotshot young imam, you can bet that he sacrificed a higher education to get to where he is today and must be commended for the love he has for his religion.

I do wonder, though, if Islamic religious studies will get to the same level as Christianity. After all, it is very possible for you to earn master's and PhDs in divinity at any Christian university these days. How long before you can earn a PhD in divinity with an emphasis in Islam?