Muslim Space

On the potential and politics of transformation

Some weeks ago, I was in New York for work.

It was a Friday, so I looked about for a place to do jumma. The closest masjid I could find was a fifteen-minute walk away, so I set out on foot about half an hour ahead of time. Google Maps reviews of the masjid said it would likely be crowded, since it was in the heart of Manhattan.

I arrived at the address and entered the building. It was an older, rundown sort of place. The building directory didn’t say anything about a masjid, but I knew it was on the first floor upstairs.

Yet as I waited for the elevator, something felt off. This didn’t seem like the place. I looked around, walked over to the stairs, and pulled out my phone to read the description more closely.

Now, I’m no fan of AI (I have failed students for using it on assignments in my classes), but I do appreciate that Google Maps has now integrated an AI feature that summarizes a location’s reviews into a single sentence, offering a succinct encapsulation what to expect based on others’ experiences.

The summary said something like: “Reviewers say to be sure not to miss the entrance - it’s through a garage full of food trucks and street carts.”

What?

I was clearly in the wrong place.

I exited the building and walked a few steps down the block. There, sure enough, was a series of heavy-duty plastic curtains concealing the opening of a garage door. I pushed through.

Inside was met by a massive courtyard-like space. Sheets had been laid down for folx to pray on, transforming what was a parking lot for food trucks and street carts into a masjid.

A few men were lounging or had already begun some salaat. And in the corner was a set of stairs leading up to a small carpeted room: the masjid. I ascended, removed my shoes, performed my sunnah/nafilah, and got set for jumma.

The visit to this masjid flashed me back to a moment from my doctoral work in Manchester, UK, during Ramadan. There, at the back of a famous halal Indo-Chinese restaurant, the owners had set down sheets in the parking lot for folx to do salaat on. Many local community members came to this restaurant for iftar, but only three people at a time could fit in the single, purpose-built room that the restaurant had for salaat - others had to go outside.

I’ve reflected on this elsewhere (in my book, Making Muslimness - DM me your email address if you want a free PDF of it, by the way!), but it strikes me that this is a thing we Muslims do: transform spaces from “secular” to sacred.

I put “secular” in quotes because I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “secular” space, in the truest sense of the word. This is not least because of the Prophetic hadith about the entire earth being a masjid, and therefore wherever you are at the time of salaat is an appropriate place at which to perform it. Think, for example, of the recently revived video of folx doing taraweeh in Times Square (thanks to comedian Mo Amer for featuring it on The Daily Show) - a transformation of one of the most sensorally overwhelming, capitalism focused, entertainment oriented spaces in the world into a place of prayer.

This happens everywhere. And it isn’t an accident. From café rooftops in Kuala Lumpur to vacant classrooms in London, the transformative potential of the Islamic politics of space is everywhere.

I sense that this speaks to an even wider phenomenon. I sense that part of what’s at play here is a deep unease (in a good way) with us being souls stuck in physical bodies.

Let me explain.

If the soul is oriented towards the Divine, yet is trapped in physical form, then yearning to reconnect with that Divine - even in fleeting moments like daily salaat - requires transforming the soul’s physical environment into a spiritual one.

Soulfulness cannot fully flourish in a physical environment that is not set aside, or is not particularly focused, or is not specifically oriented towards the Divine.

And when whatever we find, see, and touch around us does not remind us of the Divine, we have to make it remind us.

This necessitates changing one’s physical into something metaphysical, where laying down a jacket or blanket or spare bedsheet with the intention of connecting to the Divine suddenly makes it a sacred space.

How many times have I put down some kind of cloth on the ground, to do salaat in an airport while on a layover?

Immediately, the purpose and function of the location becomes something different. It becomes a space that resists the logics of the place’s design. It becomes a reflection of one’s commitment to prioritizing the Divine, wherever one may be.

This, I think, is one of the things that sets Islam apart from many other religions. Ultimately, you do not need a specific physical location to be a Muslim.

What you need is a spiritual transcendence that goes beyond the tangible and into the realm of the ethereal.

What you need is a commitment to the cause of connection.

And what you really need need is action that activates attachment to the Absolute, actions that are not limited to keeping the Divine in a single place.

How could we even do that, when the Divine is the one that created all those places in the first place?

The Qur’an tells us repeatedly that this world was not designed for play or amusement. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why, in this day and age of constant entertainment and frivolity, we so regularly transform it into a place of prayer: as a reminder of and return to its original purpose for existing, that of hosting human-Divine connection.

And with that, a du’a: I pray that whatever space you and I find ourselves in, we are able to harness the courage to establish connection to the Divine on whatever ground is before us, with whatever materials accompany us, and with whatever purity can join us, in order to bring to light and into practice closeness and nearness to the Divine, which is, in and of itself, the ultimate gift of all.