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Dar Asalaam
Dumfries, VA

by Justin Martz

Where I used to work, everyone was Muslim, including the employees at the surrounding businesses. The back of the shop was the central praying place for all the local working Muslims and they would constantly be walking to and fro. When I first started to work there I didn't know anything about Islam, and an older gentleman from Afghanistan was glad to talk to me about it. We would talk about Islam and Christianity, and he would give me CDs and tapes to listen to. Abdul had a paperback Qur'an he let me take home. After a while I felt I had a good understanding of Islam and asked him if I could visit his mosque. He was ecstatic. Abdul told me to wash everything very cleanly before I came and to wear clean clothes. 

We met at Dar Asalaam off of Route 234 in Dumfries for Friday prayer. Muslims are supposed to offer five compulsory congregational prayers a day, but Friday prayer holds special significance. Held around noontime, everyone takes off from work or wherever they are and come to mosque, or "masjid" in Arabic. Abdul told me to take off my shoes before entering and I did so, stowing them in a cubby outside the main door. "When you enter masjid, step in with your right foot and say 'Bismillah.'" I walked in and saw a bath in the foyer. Muslims greet each other by saying "As-salaamu alay-kum," which means "peace be upon you" in Arabic. Everyone who came in said this. 

Abdul invited me to perform ablution in the bath. I politely declined. I just wanted to see what went on in a mosque, so I watched Abdul do it. He took off his socks and washed his feet. Then he cupped water in his hands and rolled it over his arms up to his elbows. Then he washed his face, ears, nose, and mouth. He dried off and put his socks back on. We walked into the main room. 

I wanted to stand or sit in the back and watch but Abdul compelled me to sit at the very front with him. Since this was my first time at a mosque, I had no idea what was going on. A man sang into a microphone in Arabic. This was the call to prayer. We were all on our knees. Then they started the ritual of prayer, or Salat. Praying involes touching your forehead to the ground in prostration, standing up, bending down, sitting back down. It's a workout. The speaker talked in Arabic at first, then started to speak in English. I noticed I was the only white person in the room, but not every one was an Arab. For the Qur'an being revealed in Arabic, only about 13% of Muslims worldwide are Arab. A lost of the Muslims there were Pakistani and Afghan. The topic of the speach was the sniper, who was still sniping at the time. The speaker talked about how the sniper left a card for the cops that read "I am God" and everyone in the room gasped and murmured. God, or Allah, is the focal point and only thing worshipped in Islam. Allah is highly revered, respected, venerated, and loved, so for this man to call himself "God" was outright blasphemy. 

After the praying was finished Abdul introduced me to the speaker. He told me that Islam is a "very simple ideology" and really isn't difficult to understand or practice. Everyone there was very nice to me. One man put his arm around me with a smile and welcomed me. We put on our shoes and left for work. 

I left the mosque with a better understanding of Islam. Since then I have leisurely studied Christianity in comparison to Islam by reading the Bible, the Qur'an, and various texts while talking with different Muslims to further solidify my general knowledge and comprehension, which is still a modicum of knowledge compared to the scholars of Islam, and even the lay devout Muslims. A Christian friend recently visited the same mosque on his own accord and shared similar observations. While I hold no subscription to any religion, mysticism, or spiritual belief, out of all the religions I would choose Islam to follow because it makes the most sense to me. The way of life is very spiritual, non-materialistic, monotheistic, and reverent, and to me this is how a religion should operate. 

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