This community is in the process of building a new mosque. It looks as if they have finished the parking structure so far. Men and women pray in the same room with a divider (wrought iron folding screens with cloth panels). From the women's side you can only see through to the other side if you are very close to a gap in the dividers. Women's space is about a fourth of the room and looks to be as clean as the men's space. The masjid library (several bookshelves) is on the men's side - inaccessible to women. The men's wudu area includes seating, spigots, etc. The women must make do with a handicapped bathroom. Because there is only one of these there was a line to make wudu before the prayer and I missed the beginning of the jamah. The bathroom was not the cleanest - one sister warned me not to wear my socks in there. Insha'Allah in the new masjid women will get their fair share in terms of toilet/wudu facilities and books. People at the masjid were friendly although it is obviously one of those masjids where men do not usually give salaams to women - I did manage however, to get a brother to look for my husband when it was time to go. At some other conservative masajid I would have had to search out a child to do this for me. That said this masjid has excellent halaqas. Apparently, every Sunday, they hold simultaneous male and female halaqas. The female halaqa is in the community room adjacent to the prayer space, the men's is held in the prayer space (some women sit in on this from behind the women's partition). The women's halaqa I attended was excellent - the tafsir we considered really helped to bring out the deep meaning of the Qur'anic surahs we studied. The sisters seemed earnest and eager to deepen their faith. The halaqa seems to be broken into two parts - the first part Qur'an/tafsir focused and the second more shariah/aqidah based. My husband reported that the brother's halaqa was also excellent and touched on important themes. I would attend this masjid, for the halaqa (particularly the tafsir portion) alone, if we lived in Atlanta.

ruhafsa

2005-07-23