Bay Area Cultural Connections (Sunnyvale)

There is nothing to indicate on the center’s website that there are prayers held here. Likewise, as you enter the center, there are no architectural features to indicate that this is a mosque. For these reasons, I apologize in advance if I’m blowing the lid off of a well-kept secret: there are religious Turks in the Bay Area, and they have centers in Sunnyvale, Burlingame and Albany (all three of these centers’ addresses were posted on the wall, so it’s not like I did any serious detective work).

Before I continue, I’d like to inform you, if I may, that back in college I spent a semester abroad in Ankara, Turkey. There, I learned many things (or so I told my parents), but two that come to mind in this context are most of the students I met were not religious and the prayer space on campus was primarily frequented by the support staff of the university. The vast majority of students I met, in fact, had a disdain for religion, although a lot of them did worship a god and his name was Ataturk.

It was because of the secularism I observed in my semester abroad that I wasn’t too surprised by the way the center was run. Maghrib rolled around and while nobody started eating before sunset, it was not like a masjid where folks eat a little to break their fast, pray and then get back to dinner. No, folks started lining up at the buffet tables and eating dinner as soon as the sun had sunk below the horizon, and if you wanted to pray, you went into a side room where an admittedly sizeable number of people were praying in waves. So clearly, there were lots of religious people in the building, just not enough to halt dinner to pray. Praying en masse would also have been a logistical nightmare, as the only space large enough was the banquet hall in which we were eating.

When taraweeh rolled around most of the crowd had disappeared, but it seemed like most of the people who’d coordinated the dinner were part of the congregation. The banquet hall where we’d all eaten was cleared out, vacuumed and prepared with sheets. That’s when it started looking more like an Islamic center, although curiously, they closed the doors to the main hall during prayers, thus preventing anyone passing by outside to see or hear what was going on. Quite a different environment from, say, those mosques who lower neighborhood property values by doing the adhan so loudly you can hear it down the block.

Taraweeh was different; instead of sets of two, Turks (ALL Turks. No exceptions) pray taraweeh in sets of four. Kind of throws you off if you’re not expecting it, but of course they have a scholarly opinion to back up that practice. The imam’s Turkish accent also bled through during prayers; close your eyes at some Desi masjids and you wouldn’t be able to tell if the imam was Desi or Arab, but here it was very clear that the imam was Turkish. Kind of makes me wonder how taraweeh at the holy cities was like when the Ottomans ruled Arabia.

Date Visited: August 28, 2011

Location:
1257 Tasman Drive, Unit B
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Tag-team taraweeh: No

Qirat: Better than average. I still find the Turkish accent quirky, so I enjoyed the recitation.

Size of congregation: 40 men, 20 women

Capacity of center: 200-300

Parking: A lot in an active business park, which of course was mostly closed on a Sunday. I imagine it must have been difficult to find parking around dinner.

Mihrab: No

Minbar: No

Shoe shelves: None, the center’s not designed for prayer so they didn’t have any.

Building: Good-sized unit in a business park. Kind of hard to find because even though the address says Tasman, the door doesn’t open out that way so if you’re not looking out for it, you won’t see it. In that regard, it’s a stark contrast to most mosques I’ve visited this month.

Friendliness towards women: Women were very active throughout the night. While it was true the men outnumbered the women during the taraweeh prayers, during dinner I’d say the place was split 50/50. This is definitely not a place where a woman would feel even remotely uncomfortable simply because of her sex.

Friendliness of congregation: I was regarded with suspicion by a couple people at first, but generally, everyone was warm and welcoming. It wasn’t as welcoming as the Bosnian masjid I visited last year, but it was a good evening nonetheless. Once the prayer started all linguistic barriers disappeared anyways.

Community members enjoying dinner.  Again, because this is a cultural center first and a mosque second, isha didn't get started till 10 PM because the emphasis is on the community coming together over dinner and not necessarily through prayer.  In contrast, MCA starts prayers at 9:15 these days.

Taha Education Center (Sunnyvale)

Santa Clara Valley used to be famous for its orchards before it was known as the Silicon Valley. Now most of the orchards are gone, replaced by tons of steel, glass and concrete. In Sunnyvale, however, it’s apparent that the local Muslims have planted the seeds of a nascent community which has already started to bear fruit.

I found out about this masjid through Twitter, similar to how I found about the Marin City garage musallah through a comment on my blog. I’m no fool, so before I visited I Binged the address and verified that this was an established mosque.

For such a small center, they seem to be doing a lot. Despite the mosque being a few rooms in a small commercial building, they run a school where they teach their young about Islam on the weekends. I was glad to see that this community values education; some mosques concentrate on developing their prayer area without thinking to provide services to better the community. Truth be told, the fact that they had a school should not have surprised me. This is, after all, Sunnyvale, home to Yahoo! and other tech giants. The Desi community did not make it here without obtaining an education and it only makes sense that they’d pass on the same values to their children.

Prayers tonight started at 9:45, and since I’m (now) used to eating quickly, I was there a little early. I used my spare time to explore the tiny mosque. One thing which caught my eye was a list with 11 points about how one could get involved in the masjid. Numero uno was pray at least one prayer at the mosque. I approved because they easily could have said pray all five prayers at the mosque; there are some imams in MCA’s stable which make it seem as if you’ll have a terrible day if you don’t pray the dawn prayer at the masjid. Number two was invite others to come to the masjid, which to me implied the mosque leadership implores its congregation to focus inward before reaching out to others.

“Donate” was down the list at #5, which was great. I like how this mosque wants you to focus on getting yourself to the mosque first and learning more about your faith before thinking about supporting the community financially.

The other thing I noticed on the bulletin board was a taraweeh schedule. From it I learned in the beginning of this month the masjid had enjoyed the recitation of three hafizes* every night, and were now down to two. In addition to posting the starting rotation, the schedule also had which chapters of the Quran the hafizes were going to recite that night. Wonderful idea; I know at MCA you can ask any other hafiz what chapters Sheikh Jibreel is going to be reciting on any given night, but it may not be a bad idea of Web-2.0 the concept and make it available via Twitter/Facebook. I’m sure the congregation would appreciate it, as I’ve seen many people holding Qurans following along as the imam recites the verses.

The one issue I have with this place is the restroom. As I mentioned earlier, it’s in a commercial office space, and all the tenants share the restrooms. Because of this, there’s a long list of rules written on the door instructing the congregation on how to use the restroom. Simply put, they recommend avoiding doing wudu in these restrooms, which seems kind of silly because if you’re heading to the restroom you’re going to have to do wudu anyways. In any case, if one absolutely must perform wudu here, one must ensure no water is spilled out of the sink and to wash one’s feet one must do it over the toilet and then use toilet paper to wipe their feet to prevent any dripping whatsoever. The detail to which they went in to how to do wudu in this restroom tells me the congregation has a hard time understanding something simple like, “If you do wudu, don’t spill any water anywhere.”

Otherwise, the mosque reminded me of MCA’s old days, right after they’d moved into the big center but hadn’t done any remodeling. There was tape on the commercial-grade carpet to delineate the prayer lines and the center’s size far exceeded that of the congregation’s. I’m sure this place gets full-up during jummah, as it’s located right off of a major tech corridor, but tonight was relatively intimate.

The congregation is exceedingly Hanafi (read: Desi) and that was apparent during taraweeh prayers. I almost felt bad for cutting out after 8 because all Hanafi taraweehs are a relatively quick 20 rakats, but shoot, you gotta do what you gotta do on a weeknight. Because of the Hanafi influence, however, the hafizes they had were extremely skilled at reciting the Quran at a fast pace. Tonight’s starter was sublime and I’m glad I had the opportunity to hear such a talented pair of young men.

The inside of the mosque.  The women's section is behind me.  The pink sign on the door is one of the many written instructions the mosque leadership has lovingly written for the congregation's benefit.

Date Visited: August 21, 2011

Location:
1260 Persian Drive, Suite A1
Sunnyvale, CA 94088

Tag-team taraweeh: Yes

Qirat: Great! Both of the hafizes were either young men or old boys, and they were both very talented.

Size of congregation: 20

Capacity of center: 50, if even that much

Parking: Lot, though there are instructions (this mosque is big on written instructions) to not park in front of the mosque during business hours. Instead, for jummah prayer the congregation is asked to park as far away from the actual mosque to ensure the other businesses’ customers are not impacted. There is a La Quinta hotel or something next door and I’m willing to bet tons of Muslims park illegally there.

Mihrab: Yes. It wasn’t anything gorgeous, but it was functional and is definitely better than nothing.

Minbar: Yes

Shoe shelves: A few shelves by the entrance

Building: A couple of suites in a commercial office space which they share with businesses like a dental practice. The parking lot is very small considering how many Muslims can fit into the center and the restroom situation is clearly not ideal for any Muslim community. I’m sure this is not going to be the permanent location for this mosque, but I do have to note I saw a flyer on the wall which implored the community to donate as only a couple families support this place, apparently. The masjid, however, clearly belongs to the community as yet another note implores the last one to leave to lock up behind themselves.

Friendliness towards women: They have a section which was open when I arrived but as more people showed up was closed off by a door. The section was more than enough to hold the female congregation tonight, and women use the same entrance as the men.

Friendliness of congregation: Everyone seems to know each other here, so I did stick out, but everyone said salams to me and asked about my well-being. Had I stuck around I’m sure I could have made a few new friends.

* My editors have told me I can no longer use words like masajid (plural of masjid) and huffaz (plural of hafiz) if I insist on using words like hijabis (not the proper plural form of hijabi).