Muslim Neighbour Nexus is the name of this non-profit, founded ten years ago this August.
MNN is an unusual name for an unusual masjid serving the Erin Mills area in Mississauga, Ontario.
There are 10,000 Muslims here and this temporary-permanent building serves as their masjid.
The Dome opened in 2019 before the pandemic began.
Before that, this growing congregation of Mississauga Muslims held Friday prayers in area schools and local public libraries.
Eid Prayers were held outside in an open air field.
Muslim Neighbour Nexus still holds outdoor Eid Al Adha & Eid Al Fitr Prayers in the field.
Back in July 2016, MNN signed an agreement to purchase five acres of land.
By March of 2017, they had taken possession of the land.
In June 2018 they applied and received a building permit for a one storey dome structure on their land.
Less than one year later in May 2019, their Dome Building opened for prayers as the now temporary-permanent Muslim Neighbour Nexus Masjid.
And the MNN Masjid Dome was our 30 Masjids Isha & Taraweeh stop for Night 14 of Ramadan 2022.
Plenty of masks being worn, excellent cross air circulation, many people brought their own prayer mats.
Wall fans were turned on and rotated.
It was such a delightful experience praying here tonight.
A most important part of the night, was the guest speaker.
You can decide for yourself how important his words and message were…
“Firstly, this is not a fundraiser, so don’t worry, we will get you to your regular programming.
My name is Omar Khan and I’m the Director of Outreach for the Yaqeen Institute.
Now,
I’m here just to raise awareness about the rise in Islamophobia.
This is a serious issue that has been plaguing North America for a long time.
This is a billion dollar industry,
That’s main focus is to take people away from the religion.
They want to spread misinformation, lies, and they’re heavily founded and heavily funded.
What has the results been?
So far in the last couple of years,
One out of every four Muslims born in North America are no longer a Muslim.
They no longer identify themselves as Muslims.
We are losing a battle where our youth are the people that are suffering the most.
I think you might know of people that have left Islam.
They’re no longer practicing.
They no longer believe.
Why?
Because of what the media has said, because of mistakes and misconceptions.
The second thing that they’ve done, is that they have radicalized the haters of Islam.
People don’t like me, I have no problem with that.
But the moment that you give people the power to do crazy things, you have situations like we have in London, Ontario.
You have situations like at Masjid Tawheed and different places where people are coming forward and doing things that are dangerous.
The Yaqeen Institute was founded by Shaikh Omar Suleiman.
And our major focus is to stop the rise of Islamophobia, to take back the narrative of what Islam is really about and show people the perfection of it.
What have we done so far?
Many things, MashAllah, that I don’t have the time to share.
But one of the things we did is that when we started, if you were to Google “Islam is” and you would just watch Google fill in the rest.
The top three search results were negative.
Number one was Islam is a religion, not of peace, not a peaceful religion.
Number two was Islam is a death cult.
And number three was something really bad as well.
Yaqeen Institute took on Google.
And in something that was unprecedented, Google reset their algorithm, putting it so that when people type “Islam is” it’s not some negativity that will push people away.
Onsite, what Yaqeen is trying to do is help the community.
We have been in Canada now for three years.
We’re a registered charity and all of our services are free.
We go around to masajid like MNN and we help them enhance their programming.
Why?
Because our youth needs to be taught the true Islam.
We need to teach them that Allah is real.
We need to teach them about the Prophet’s (saws) perfection, about the Qur’anic perfection.
And so in this next year we’re spending heavy amounts of time and energy in going around Toronto, GTA, and around Canada to focus on this mission.
Now I’m here to ask you to do three things.
Number one is that we do have a table in the freezing cold, MashAllah and Alhumdulillah.
Come and see us and learn more about the Yaqeen Institute.
Number two, support us.
We do have pledge forms and donation boxes and they’re here and we would love for you guys to help us on this mission.
And number three, please keep us in your Duas.
All of the masajid and organizations like this mosque, that are working for the same cause.
We will be there at rakat number four, eight, etc.
JazakAllahKhairun, AsalamAlayKum.”
After Salat Al Isha, a number of worshippers stood up and left.
The numbers of people leaving was notable because it was not something I usually see.
People leaving right after Isha Prayer.
A trickle of brothers also left after the first two rakats of Taraweeh.
That was unusual.
Worshippers also exited after four rakats of Taraweeh.
More worshippers left after six rakats.
What is going on?
The fans are on, it’s not hot inside the dome.
Perhaps they were tired or had family waiting?
This created an unusual phenomena during my Taraweeh prayer.
My brother and I had brought our prayer mats and spread them before us, they became our Prayer Spots.
However, with each passing pair of rakats, gaps appeared in the lines ahead of us, and beside us, as individuals were done doing their preferred number of Taraweeh rakats.
Normally, worshippers simply step forward even in a state of prayer and fill in any gaps in the prayer line.
However, many of us brought our own prayer mats.
Stepping forward meant abandoning our initial prayer spot on our own prayer mat.
Some brothers who were praying on the hardwood, or the carpeted portion of the prayer hall, did step forward.
Because many who were standing on their own mats did not advance, people starting stepping forward during the prayer in a zig-zag manner, advancing into the next line and then the line after that, ever closer to the front line.
In the Tetris video game, we have to create a horizontal row from randomly shaped groupings of square blocks.
These blocks are dropped from above, and there is time, decision making, strategy and skill involved to form those horizontal rows.
Each completed row disappears and the game continues.
During tonight’s Taraweeh prayers, worshippers needed to step forward and fill in any gaps in the next line.
But not everyone stepped forward to complete the line.
I didn’t. My brother did. Others stepped forward, and others did not.
I am calling this phenomena The Taraweeh Tetris Effect.
An unusual effect inside an unusual masjid with the unusual name.
