Date visited: August 27, 2010
Location: Hayward, CA
185 Folsom Avenue
Hayward, CA 94544
Tag-team Taraweeh: Father-son partnership
Qirat: Good
Size of congregation: < 300
Capacity of center: < 500
Parking: Plenty on the inside, but I parked on the street.
Mihrab: Yes
Minbar: Yes
Shoe shelves: Yes
Building: It fits right into the neighborhood...if you ignore the minaret. This minaret does for this masjid what I imagine MCA's soon-to-be-completed minaret will do for it. It makes it distinctive because really, the building fits into the neighborhood pretty well.
Friendliness towards women: They had a separate section, seemed large enough.
Friendliness of congregation: Ran into a friendly face, but again, everyone was Afghan and they seemed to prefer to communicate in their own language.
The location of this masjid puzzles me. Yesterday, I visited an Afghan masjid on Mission Blvd. This too is an Afghan masjid, and I had to take the same exit off the freeway as I did yesterday. In fact, these two mosques are less than a mile apart. This would make complete sense to me if both masajid had been full to the brim; why not make two mosques in the same area to deal with capacity issues, right? But no, neither mosque was full and the one I visited yesterday was almost half-empty.
There MAY be politics involved. That's one plausible explanation because it doesn't makes sense that two groups of the same ethnicity and religious backgrounds wouldn't form one organization...unless there was beef. The Afghans are a very tribal folk...
Okay, now I'm going way into conjecture. What I did notice about this masajid was that despite the overwhelming Afghan population, the short speech before the prayer was in English. Additionally, I was amused by the fact that as soon as the speech ended, the imam and his son walked into the room and took their places at the front of the room. It had to be coordinated.
It turns out the imam is raising a family of huffaz; I actually heard his other son the other night in Fremont, apparently. If anything, this and the fact that the speech was done in English showed me that Afghan-Desi relations are not as fraught as they're sometimes made out to be. There's plenty of home-spun racism in Pakistan against the Afghans but it gladdens my heart to see it hasn't impacted the East Bay communities.
One perk of going to this masjid is you get free food after 20 rakats. I'm not pointing that out so you can go for the grub; it's just another sign of this community's generosity.
Showing posts with label Hayward. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hayward. Show all posts
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
ARIC
Date visited: August 26, 2010
Location: Haystack, CA
29414 Mission Boulevard
Hayward, CA 94544
Tag-team Taraweeh: No
Qirat: Great. It was also refreshing to hear a middle-aged man's voice after a week of hearing old men and children.
Size of congregation: < 200
Capacity of center: ~ 600
Parking: Plentiful, but the lot filled up. There's lots of street parking, though.
Mihrab: Yes
Minbar: Yes
Shoe shelves: Yes
Building: Another masjid that looks like it's been built from the ground up. Beautiful structure.
Friendliness towards women: The only indication I had that there were even women there tonight was a sign for the ladies' restroom. Otherwise I didn't see any women. Granted, I did come only a couple minutes before the prayer, but still, there was strict separation of the sexes.
Friendliness of congregation: Gays have their gaydar and Afghans have their Desidar. I think they knew as soon as I saw me that I was Pakistani so the reception was a tad cool.
The first thing I saw was the sign: "Abu Bakr as-Saddiq Mosque", underneath which was written "ARIC." The only name I knew this place by was the former, so I thought for a second what ARIC could mean. I felt a flash of guilt because, could it mean...? I texted my Afghan insider and got an answer.
Yes, ARIC stands for Afghan Refugee Islamic Community. It really shouldn't surprise me that the Afghans have embraced their refugee status. Back in college whenever anyone in the CalMSA needed help with their FAFSA the go-to guys were the Afghans.
This mosque is a giant middle finger to the Russians who made the Afghans refugees in the first place. I mean, what it seemed to be saying was yes, we are exiles now, but we're sure as hell not losing our culture. This place is eye-candy; the facade was covered in tiles and the domes were lit up to make the building seem prettier. I was even more impressed with what I found inside. The Afghans went all out with the interior in that the mihrab looked like it'd been stripped from a mosque back home. I also loved how the walls were lined with tiles painted with Islamic calligraphy. The minbar and podium were made of wood, both of which had intricate designs etched into them. It was a fantastic place to visit because clearly the community spent a lot of time and resources building it.
Location: Haystack, CA
29414 Mission Boulevard
Hayward, CA 94544
Tag-team Taraweeh: No
Qirat: Great. It was also refreshing to hear a middle-aged man's voice after a week of hearing old men and children.
Size of congregation: < 200
Capacity of center: ~ 600
Parking: Plentiful, but the lot filled up. There's lots of street parking, though.
Mihrab: Yes
Minbar: Yes
Shoe shelves: Yes
Building: Another masjid that looks like it's been built from the ground up. Beautiful structure.
Friendliness towards women: The only indication I had that there were even women there tonight was a sign for the ladies' restroom. Otherwise I didn't see any women. Granted, I did come only a couple minutes before the prayer, but still, there was strict separation of the sexes.
Friendliness of congregation: Gays have their gaydar and Afghans have their Desidar. I think they knew as soon as I saw me that I was Pakistani so the reception was a tad cool.
The first thing I saw was the sign: "Abu Bakr as-Saddiq Mosque", underneath which was written "ARIC." The only name I knew this place by was the former, so I thought for a second what ARIC could mean. I felt a flash of guilt because, could it mean...? I texted my Afghan insider and got an answer.
Yes, ARIC stands for Afghan Refugee Islamic Community. It really shouldn't surprise me that the Afghans have embraced their refugee status. Back in college whenever anyone in the CalMSA needed help with their FAFSA the go-to guys were the Afghans.
This mosque is a giant middle finger to the Russians who made the Afghans refugees in the first place. I mean, what it seemed to be saying was yes, we are exiles now, but we're sure as hell not losing our culture. This place is eye-candy; the facade was covered in tiles and the domes were lit up to make the building seem prettier. I was even more impressed with what I found inside. The Afghans went all out with the interior in that the mihrab looked like it'd been stripped from a mosque back home. I also loved how the walls were lined with tiles painted with Islamic calligraphy. The minbar and podium were made of wood, both of which had intricate designs etched into them. It was a fantastic place to visit because clearly the community spent a lot of time and resources building it.
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