Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids

Our trip to the Mosque in Cedar Rapids turned out differently than I'd hoped. It seemed like we got a lot of the same information from our readings and classes and not a lot of personal opinion or experiences from our tour guide, Hassan Igram (sp?), who was the Chairman of the Islamic Center. This could also be because our previous tour guides were so good at making connections between religions and comparing practices with things that we are used to doing in our own lives. Getting to hear him read in Arabic was interesting.

Two things that surprised me about the mosque were the simplicity of their worship space and the way their members are growing in number so quickly.

Their worship area had plain red carpet and blank walls, with an "archway" in the direction of Mecca in the corner of the room. After thinking about it, it wasn't clear to me whether women were allowed to worship there with the men. Because, previously in the tour, our tour guide mentioned a room for women and children where they went during services. This is something I would have asked if I had thought of it during our tour.

I know the purpose of not having many decorations or distractions in their worship space is to help them concentrate and emphasize the focus on God ALONE, but I also know that other mosques (in bigger cities with more Muslims) are very ornate and beautifully decorated, like this one:



The picture above is more like what I was expecting from our trip. Since the Mosque in Cedar Rapids only has a weekly membership of about 150 people, they probably don't have much money to spend on decorating their spaces ornately.

However, Islam is growing at a rate of 2.9% every year, and Cedar Rapids' Islamic Center doesn't seem any different. Our tour guide said on some holidays they get too many people and need to move their service into the gymnasium. Eventually, they will need to expand their building to accommodate larger crowds of attendees.

On a more personal note, one of my good friends, Olli, is Muslim, although he doesn't take his faith as seriously as some. He's become a bit americanized, because he was born here in America. (His parents are from Pakistan.) Through him, I knew a lot about Ramadan and some other practices and holidays, so a lot of this was review for me. All in all, I wasn't extremely impressed by the center in Cedar Rapids. I hope our trip to the Hindu Temple on Friday goes better!