The Mosque in Singapore

On our tour, one of the places that we stopped was an Islamic Mosque. This was a new one. We’d crossed into about every Christian denomination, visited countless Jewish Synagogues, Buddhist Temples, and even Hindu Temples, but this was the first Mosque.

We had no idea what was going on.

First of all, it feels a lot like many other houses of worship. You go in the front, and there’s a foyer with brochures, notices presumably about upcoming potlucks, mission programs, youth meetings – what you’d expect in just about any church.

There was a young man wearing some lightweight cotton pants with a long shirt over them – the shirt was mid-calf length, and a prayer cap. He explained that he was the receptionist, would answer any questions we had and would be glad to show us around if we’d like.

Turns out, you can see most of the mosque from the front lobby. We don’t mean any disrespect by trying to name things with familiar names; we’re just trying to put it in perspective for people who might not have seen it before.

If you go in the “sanctuary”, you’re asked to wear a shirt with sleeves, long pants (over the knee, at least), and you take off your shoes. Other than taking off your shoes, that’s the same process as at the Vatican and most of the Christian churches in Rome. One difference is that you have to buy those little paper pants there, whereas the Mosque had a closet of wraps and shawls available for you to borrow if you needed them.

There were people in prayer in the Mosque, so we didn’t go in. What we figured out, though, was that it wasn’t a scary place. In fact, it wasn’t all that far off of lots of other religious organizations. They have a set of beliefs that overlap the Bible tremendously.

Unfortunately, we hear about the wack jobs in the newspapers. Nobody talks about the nursing homes they run, or the soup kitchen, or any of the other good things that people of good heart do.

So maybe we all ought to do a little more reading, and a little more listening, and maybe invite someone to a conversation – not a preachin’, but a dialog to both listen and be heard – about what they believe, and why.

They asked us not to take pictures in the Mosque, but we were allowed to take them in the entry hall.  These posters showed people who were in both the Bible and the Quraan.  We had no idea -- lots of the same characters, even the same stories.  There's always a little twist to them one way or the other -- for example, one of their stories has Jesus talking (as an infant) and explaining that Mom ain't no 'ho, but in fact he's the son of God.  We grabbed a lot of brochures and explanatory material to see what they got to say.