30 Masjids 🟩

Tonight’s Isha & Taraweeh Prayer answers a minor mystery for me since the second year of blogging 30 Masjids in 30 Days of Ramadan.

I recall during Ramadan 2012, when I was riding my bike north on Main Street in Brampton, Ontario from one Masjid to the next day’s Masjid Destination, I spotted a sign for a Musallah or Masjid.

It was located along an out of the way strip mall of store fronts.

It was in the east end of a parking lot set behind a couple of stand alone restaurants.

At the time, when I took the momentary brief detour from Main Street to check out this small Musallah.

I found it was closed.

Understandable and not unexpected during that then time of day, inbetween fixed prayer times.

I made a mental note of it, and intended to return here to blog about it.

It took seven Ramadans until I returned to find it open on Night 16 of Ramadan 2019.

Somehow I forgot to blog that first stopover, even neglecting to snap a photograph, and perhaps that’s why I never included it here on 30Masjids.ca ???

And now I can’t exactly confirm when I first discovered the Main Street Musallah in Brampton.

So when you see blog posts here where I post what looks like incomplete wordless blog posts, with only an image or two or few, or only a video, and an embedded social media link, that’s partly the reason.

“If there is no record, there is no history, it didn’t happen.”

What happened tonight was that my brother Amir and I, visited the Main Street Musallah shortly before Isha Prayer time and found it open and welcoming.

For a very small and tight fit of a rented prayer space, there was everything you’d expect finding in medium sized and larger Masjids.

Mimbar for the Khateeb to step up onto during Friday Jumah Khutbahs.

A flat visual artwork design representing a Mihrab, Imam’s Prayer niche, along the Qiblah Facing front wall of the Prayer Hall beside the Mimbar. No physical architectural Mihrab, a visual one with mild Islamic Geometry using suggestions of a flower pattern, in dark forest green.

There was a number of those small book tables that you see in Madrassas where little kids learn Qur’an, suggesting they teach Qur’an here to little ones.

Sisters prayed in the area immediately beside the entrance, there was that wooden folding screen often spotted in single room prayer halls, identifying the brothers’ and sisters’ sections.

Bookshelf with Islamic texts at the front and side.

Hanging Daily Prayer Times displayed in the wooden case with clock hands pointing out the five fixed Salah times plus Jumah.

The red carpet was Masjid carpet with individual prayer spots suggested in the woven design of pillars and arches.

The carpet is what you’d find in many larger Masjids anywhere in Canada.

Again, pretty much what you expect in larger Masjids and bigger Musallahs.

In my travels of blogging Masjids of all sizes and conditions all over Toronto and Canada, a pattern exists where some smaller prayer spaces make an effort to adorn as much as possible to identify itself as a Masjid, a Canadian Muslim Architectural Identity.

Larger prayer halls in larger Masjids might restrain, aiming for simplicity, or perhaps modestry and humility in design.

Walls with only a suggestion of Islamic Geometry, and just enought Islamic Calligraphy as artwork to ensure the Empty Room with a Carpet is indeed more than that, it is architecturally, a Canadian Muslim Prayer Space.

A slight surprise, then again, not surprising, is the use of an amplified sound system in the Main Street Musallah.

Toronto’s Muezzin, Adnan Sirajuddin would likely approve.

Masjids and Musallahs, small and not small at all, all share the presence of a Sound System.

Sound carries very well, bouncing off the walls in this one room Musllah.

The young brother tonight called Adhan Al Isha using only his voice.

We had arrived shortly before Isha Time, and found the Masjid almost empty.

Moments before Isha, this small Main Street Musallah filled up very, very quickly.

I had wanted to learn more about the history of this little Masjid/Musallah in Brampton, but the timing wasn’t exactly right to do that, without disturbing the number of worshippers present.

We prayed 8 Rakats (units) of Taraweeh after Isha, and that was it for tonight.

A few mysteries remain for me, meaning I need to return to Al Fajr Islamic Learning & Cultural Centre whose nick name is Main Street Musallah in Brampton.

Staring at the shoes, outside the front door, I think well, for people trying to find the Main Street Musallah in this strip mall, look for the shoes!

Shoes are one way to tell there’s a Masjid inside.

Stepping into my shoes and towards the car, I see there’s plenty of parking spots for all the worshippers who fill those shoes.