30 Masjids 🟩

By Aman and Bassam

Today I was was Bassam-less and continued my journey into Brooklyn to one of my favorite places to pray at, the Dawood Mosque.

This is a predominantly Arab mosque with a fair amount of South Asians and African Americans as well. I got there about 10 minutes before prayer and was confused why it seemed like I was one of the only one there.

But then I heard people chatting downstairs and realized that’s where everyone was for iftaar. I found waiting for me a plate filled with dates and sharbat, one of my fave drinks made from milk and rose syrup. They made it just the way I like it with lots of pistachios in it.

As I was going back upstairs to pray, one of the people there brought out this huge pot of this cold spicy soup. I didn’t know the name of it (neither did anyone else I asked) but its made of yogurt and has chick peas, tomatoes and tons of onions. If you thought having nasty breath from fasting was bad enough, this stuff was basically like steroids. But seriously, it tasted amazing.

It was time to pray, so we all went back upstairs. Seconds into prayer, the tantalizing smells of lemon rotisserie chicken began caressing my senses. But I snapped out of it and jumped back into concentrating on my prayer.

Back downstairs for dinner, my senses were correct, the volunteers there passed out trays of buttered rice, lemon chicken and salad. I took a tray and made company with the brothers around me.

Just about everyone there was speaking in Arabic, so I didn’t know much of what people were saying. But everyone was friendly nonetheless.

One volunteer with food came up to me and asked in Arabic if I wanted more food. Now my Arabic is pretty rusty. I haven’t taken a legit course in 7 years. Yet for some bizzare reason, I felt confident enough to speak Arabic back. But instead of saying “No thanks, I’m full,” I ended up saying “No, I study in a university.” It made perfect sense, clearly.

After dinner, they passed out some of my fave Arabic desserts: pistachio candies and Mamoul – a ridiculously yummy cookie filled with dates.

On a serious note, I was in deep thought on the subway ride home. One of the toughest things about this 30 Mosques project is leaving each place night after night. Right when you meet a bunch of really cool people, and may not see them again. That’s not to say I’ll never see them because I can always come back when this project is over. This journey has introduced me to parts of the community I didn’t know of, but continue to fall in love with as each day goes by.

By Aman and Bassam

In Brooklyn, go east on Ralph Ave and you’ll see two mosques. The Bangladeshi masjid.

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And then, two blocks later, the West African one.

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My good friend Ibrahim AbdulMatin pressed me hard this afternoon to go to the West African masjid. To be honest, it was difficult passing up the South Asian mosque. I was Aman-less today and wasn’t ready to be out of my element. But I had to pop this brown bubble I’ve surrounded myself in and there was no better way to do it than pray and eat at Masjid Tawhid.

The musala was fairly small. A small line for wudu trailed into the prayer area.

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The stand out piece in the prayer area was the mambar, which took quiet a bit of space.

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Like most of the masajid we’ve visited, there was a basement in where we all broke our fast. The adjacent room accommadated women. I’m not sure if any women were in attendance.

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During iftaar we had dates and a sweet oatmeal dish. All ten of the congregants watched me eat the soup and asked how it was. The soup was nice but very heavy.

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I didn’t want to disrespect the man who served me, so I tried my best to eat as much as I could. When the adhaan was called I quietly put the soup to the side and went back to the prayer room.

Dinner was kuskus with grounded meat. It was a Malian dish called “Hutto”. The meat was mixed with spinach and peanuts. Many of the congregants poured milk into the plate and offered me to try some. I didn’t have space in my stomach so I kindly rejected their offer.

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During the dinner, a brother sitting on a chair poked me and whispered.

“If you need anything, tell me and I’ll tell them.”

The brother looked like he was in his early 20’s and seemed like a serious person. I thanked him for the generosity and said I was fine. He went back to eating his hutto. When he was done, he threw his plate in the trash and left without saying a word to anyone. Even though he was black, there was a visible disconnect between him and the rest of the congregants. Most of the people were speaking Bambara and were from Mali. The brother looked as if he was born and raised in Brooklyn. (Note: I assume this because there is a certain swagger that the Muslims in Brooklyn have, ask the Brooklyn Bedouin if you don’t believe me.)

Things didn’t seem that awkward in the beginning. In fact, it was only when I started to wonder how the rest of the congregation percieved me that I began to feel uneasy. I felt like a freeloader coming in — barely eating the food offered to me — and then leaving abruptly aftewards . A bad exhibitionist, if you will. Though no one in the masjid might have felt that way, I wonder if anyone asked themselves, “Why didn’t he just go to the Bangladeshi mosque?” Maybe it’s my own insecurities that raise the question.

As I left the mosque, I saw these two South Asian kids unwrapping their new toy helicopters. I looked around and realized they were the closest Desis to Masjid Tawhid and prayed that they would only move closer.

By Aman and Bassam

Brooklyn: New York’s cultural hotspot and the place that rappers have to give shoutouts to 31 times in every hip hop record.

Step outside the subway station at Atlantic Avenue and immediately you get hit with crazy amounts of gentrification, including this huge shopping center.

Lucky for me, the place I need to go to is Masjid Al-Farooq. It’s about a block away from the subway and it’s a four story building nestled between these Islamic shops on Atlantic Avenue.

The first floor of the building are for bathrooms and wudhu, second floor is a school, men pray on the third floor and women pray on the fourth.The congregation is mostly Arabs and African Americans (I might have been the only desi person there).

I took the elevator to the third floor to break my fast. I thought I’d be late to the mosque because I had a meeting with a friend earlier today that ran long, but as soon as I walked in, they were getting ready to pray. Looks like they saved one date for me.

I wanted to take more pictures of the place, but someone there had asked me not to. I asked if it was ok if I kept the ones I already took and he said that was ok but he asked that I not take any more.

They didn’t provide dinner at the mosque. At first I was shocked, but then I quickly realized how much of a spoiled brat I sounded like with that kind of thinking. The fact that any place here in New York provides dinner during Ramadan is a blessing and it’s important for me to not lose sight of that.

After prayer, I headed out of the mosque to find this halal Chinese restaurant one of my boys was raving about. But I was quickly sidetracked by a halal steakhouse next to the mosque instead.

What did I order? Well, the chef took this lemon roasted lamb:

And shredded it on top of this cucumber and tomato salad.

EPIC WIN.

As I was eating, I realized that I had completed 1/3 of this 30 day journey. I’m not going to lie, this project is a lot more exhausting than I thought it would be. But my excitement for this project overwhelms that exhaustion. I’m discovering many intriguing places and meeting even more interesting people during this journey. I probably would have never seen most of these places or met these people unless I came up with that cracked out idea 10 days ago to step outside of my comfort bubble and try this project. For that, I am grateful, and tomorrow I eagerly begin the second third of my journey.