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When Is A Mosque Just A Mosque? |
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 by Lilit Marcus, July 3, 2009 |
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From this Series
I've been in Israel for a couple of weeks on a fellowship (more on that to come), and before coming back home to New York I decided to do a quick three day stopover in Istanbul. While friends in Tel Aviv told me Istanbul was a great getaway for a long weekend and the airfare was pretty cheap, I still had some reservations about journeying to a Muslim country. Yes, I'm well aware that Turkey is a pretty secular country, but the reality of being a white Western woman traveling alone makes me a little bit more anxious about any destination. (Note: I am meeting up with a friend here, but I had the first 24 hours to myself. You can stop worrying, Mom.)
After a whole day in Istanbul, I can definitely say it's a beautiful city with helpful people and good food. (You know how pretty much every culture has a food that is potatoes, cheese, and/or meat stuffed inside fried dough? The Turkish one is called a burekha, and it is rad.) I'm staying in a pretty touristy neighborhood, so there are always lots of people walking around on the street and I feel very safe coming and going on my own. I have definitely had to get stern with a couple of men who didn't take the hint that their advances weren't welcome, but this is far from the only country where that's happened. This morning, I got up, caught a bus, and headed over to the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, arguably Turkey's two most famous sites.
So, if lots of the women dress in Western style and people speak English with you, what's the problem with being an American here? The issue, of course, is that I'm not only an American - I'm also a Jew. And, as a Jew, is it right or proper for me to descend eagerly into a mosque, wearing a scarf on my head and snapping photos? As a person who writes often on the subject of religion, it seems logical that I'd want to visit important religious sites all over the world - after all, in Jerusalem I went not only to the Kotel but to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount. Is there anything odd about wanting to see in person the famous Hagia Sophia art and architecture that I studied in college? Shouldn't I, as a person of the Book, believe in expanding my knowledge? And does wearing a scarf over my head mean I'm trying to look like a Muslim or that I'm just being respectful of local rules and customs?
At what point, I wondered to myself, does a mosque stop being an art museum or a tourist attraction and start becoming a place of Muslim worship? As I walked out of the Blue Mosque, I noticed that the guards at the front were not allowing any more tourists to come in. By the time the midday call to prayer began, I was already in a tram, heading back across town.
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Hillary Fields
RonL
The Haigai Sophia is a mosque only thanks to the conquest rape and pillage (par for the course for a Jihad) of Mehmet II against Constantinople, the capitol of the Byzantine Empire. As the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople, this cathedral of Divine Wisdom was the Eastern Orthodox analogue to St. Peter's in Rome. You should no more pray there than in the Dome of the Rock, at least until these are liberated.
Argaman
The Aya Sofya/Hagia Sofia was a church when it was conquered by Mehmet II. It was then turned into a mosque. Since the 1920s it has been a museum. When I visited Istanbul in 2006 it was full of tourists, not people praying (either Muslims or Christians). All of the literature at the site presents the history of the place, without glossing over its Christian origins or the period when it was a mosque. I see nothing wrong with visiting there.
And as for Jews, in general, visiting mosques - what is wrong with it? The Blue Mosque is beautiful place, well worth visiting. As a woman visiting I also put on a head scarf, as a sign of respect, not as a statement that I too was a Muslim.
Empress Trudy
Why not cheer and support the folk who maintain that it is a capital crime for infidels to set foot on in or near any of the 2,745 most holy sites in all of Islam, including all of the Old City in Jerusalem?
Yisrael Medad
If we're on the subject, more or less, why can't I visit the Haram ASharif compound built over the Temple Mount precincts as a Jew but only as a tourist, bereft of any special identity? If I read a Bible, siddur, shuckle a bit, I'm out of there.
Even Jewish secular activity - archeological digs or preventing destruction of Jewish artifacts - is prohibited. And we won't go into whether Arafat really believed there was no Temple ever there.
Odd, no?
Yisrael Medad
www.myrightword.blogspot.com
telavivacious
A mosque becomes a place of worship when it is time to pray.
I think wearing a headscarf to go into a mosque is no different than from when I asked my non-Jewish 13 year old friends to please wear dresses with sleeves/kippot on their heads to my Bat Mitzvah. It is a request to be respectful of the culture - even to participate in it - and benefit from an experience you clearly came to seek.
This is the issue of travelling as a Jew sometimes - the matter isn't being Jewish, it's the fact that you simply aren't a member of the local clan, but what difference does that make? I acknowledge that sometimes travelling as a Jew can be a bit unnerving, the whole point of travel is to experience the world first hand and make your own realizations.
PS Why didn't you visit the Jewish community?
Milk and Honey-ite
A mosque, unlike many other houses of worship, does not [necessarily] contain an area of restricted religious hierarchical entry. There is no holy sacrament, no ark of scripture and many times no pulpit. But, the area of prayer should remain clean for worshipers and so many times one must remove their shoes as the floor is used for sitting and kneeling. So, a mosque is not necessarily a mosque when there is no prayer 'meeting'.
On the other hand, a space is a possible mosque when there are worshipers there. As seen recently in Iran where a large area was prepared for mass worship. Were Abu Hamza's outdoor meetings making the streets a mosque? Possibly.
Current beliefs are based on past information