A Day At The Tempe Mosque

A teardrop-shaped crystal hangs from the center of the largest chandelier in the prayer room. Three-year-old Tasneem Youssef giggles as she walks through the sheer curtain dividing the men and the women as they pray at the Tempe Mosque. She’s fair with curly, brown hair tied with a colorful scrunchie. Her pajamas are blue, and like all the other people in the room, she’s barefoot. This is her playtime as her father and mother say their Isha prayer.

Youssef lets the curtain slip over her body, across her face, while her father’s forehead touches the floor in unison with the other worshipers. There are nearly two dozen men standing shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, in a single line facing the direction of the Holy Kaa’ba. Behind the single line of men, the room can hold another 25 rows of worshipers. A translucent white curtain separates the women prayer area where three women are praying. The women’s area makes up 1/6th of the octagon-shaped room.

Youssef’s giggles mix with the periodic “Allah-O-Akbar!� that the prayer-caller recites into the microphones in front of him. She’s oblivious to the intensity in the room.
Above her is a dome, the defining feature of all mosques around the world, along with the minaret – the tower from which in the olden days the prayer-caller would give the azaan. The minaret here is just for decoration purposes though. There are loud speakers installed outside the mosque from which Ali Alnamani’s voice perpetuates outside. He was chosen to be the prayer-caller, the one who leads congregational prayers at the mosque, because of his pleasing voice and melodious recitation skills. Alnamani, a 21-year-old Bioengineering student at Arizona State University with an unruly black beard, is originally from Kuwait and has been offering his prayers at mosques ever since he can remember. This is his fourth year in the U.S. and he graduates in May with a bachelor’s. “Before I came to ASU, I searched the website for the Muslim Students Association and that’s where I found out about the mosque.�

Alnamani tries to come for every one of the five prayers. The ones he misses are because of classes. “I try to work my schedule around the prayer times. Of course some times you don’t have a choice,� he says with a smile.

The mosque stands in downtown Tempe, within walking distance of the Arizona State University campus. The way to it is through a back-alley with trees that drop a lot of oranges in their peak season. Garbage dumpsters sit to one side of the mosque and there’s a Mediterranean café on the other side. Sometimes the musty smell from the dumpsters can be overwhelming.

In 1984 a wealthy student from Saudi Arabia studying at ASU brought a lot of funds from his family to build the mosque. No one at the mosque seems to remember his name. Perhaps the only reminder of his contribution are the six dorm rooms that were built right next to the mosque for college students to rent. However, once completed they were converted to an elementary Islamic school, the Phoenix Metro Islamic School. Along with regular curriculum, students are taught Arabic and Islamic Studies. With more students and less space, the school is relocating to Chandler next year. The dorms may be rented out finally.

Very few changes have been made to the mosque since it was built and only to the interior to make more space for praying. The city protects the mosque as an historic building.

Cream colored with a color theme of golden and dark-and-light blue, the mosque’s beauty comes from calligraphic tiles that decorate it inside and outside. The tiles contain different Arabic verses from the Quran in a decorative font which only those who are proficient in Arabic can decipher.

“It’s pretty special because most people think we imported these tiles from abroad but they were made here, in Arizona,� says Ahmad Al-Akoum, the Regional Director of the Muslim American Society. He has a well kept salt-and-pepper beard and wears cream colored trousers with a blue button-down shirt.

The mosque was designed after the famous Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem. “The design of this mosque, and other mosques around the world, have nothing to do with Islam. This is all simply architecture,� says Al-Akoum, whose name means “The Helper� in Arabic. Mosques are decorated with Arabic scriptures because photographs and paintings of anything “with a soul� are not allowed so that nothing else except God is worshipped.

Originally from Lebanon, Al-Akoum came to the U.S. for his bachelor’s in Electronic Engineering in 1983 and then got a job at Intel where he now works as a Product Development Engineer. From 1997 to 2004 Al-Akoum was the chairman of the board of directors for the Islamic Community Center at the Tempe Mosque, which is simply the room located at the lower level of the two-story mosque.

The ICC does everything from burial services and marriage-prep classes to picnics and special occasion prayers. “When people are in love, they overlook important things that must be talked about before marriage,� Al-Akoum says. “The nikahnama is a pre-nuptial, a legal contract. Both partners should put in writing what they want and do not want from each other. For example, if he remarries, she’ll take a divorce. If she works, instead of take care of the children, she must contribute towards the running of the house.�

These days Al-Akoum teaches a class there every Sunday called the Fundamentals of Islam. There are two to three converts to Islam every week. With the initial excitement of it the newly converted want to change everything about themselves, from their names to their clothes. “I tell them to slow down and relax,� Al-Akoum says. “With such big and fast changes they alienate their family, and they must not do that.�

For the first time the majority of students in his class are Hispanic. Mostly they are White women but all races are seen.

“When I moved from Louisiana to Arizona in 1995, there were only three or four mosques in the valley. Now we have about 12. But this is the only licensed Islamic burial service mosque so we get bodies sent to us from all over Arizona and sometimes even from out of state, like New Mexico.�
While in Louisiana, Al-Akoum met his wife Yuko Davis, an interracial child of an American father and a Japanese mother. Davis came from a very conservative Christian family belonging to church of the Fundamentalists of the Southern Baptist. Her parents’ marriage was very controversial in the 1960’s and severely frowned upon by her father’s side of the family. Her conversion to Islam was an even bigger shock.

“I read a lot and I questioned a lot, things that didn’t make sense to me,� said Davis, who looks more Asian than White and wears a white hijab and a black abaya. Davis was brushed off by the youth directors and pastors. “I was told not to ask too many questions.�

What lead her to leave her church and religion though was the racism. “I was told at the church that I was accepted because they considered me white, just like my father. I told them I was not White; I was Yellow.� Unhappy with the way African Americans were dealt with and after having read up on Islam, Davis converted to Islam while in high school. She met Al-Akoum in 1988 and they married in 1989. “God should not be racist,� Davis says.

As the Isha prayers finish the curtain dividing men from women is removed and a presentation on Hajj begins.
Al-Akoum and Davis get into their SUV with their three children and head home.