A place to pray

They come five times a day. Sometimes it’s only a few. Other times it’s up to 60 people congregating here to pray.  The house at 601 South Fifth St. is open all hours of the day. Everyone, even non-Muslims, is welcome.

For the approximately 80 Sunni and Shiite Muslim students at the University of Montana, this house serves as the only mosque and common gathering space for UM students from as far away as Palestine and Algeria to worship and socialize.

According to Jameel Chaudhry, the Muslim Student Association’s faculty adviser, the scarce number of permanent members had made it tough for the group to have a place of its own. 

“Even when our student count was higher, the students are here for a few years and then gone,” Chaudhry said.

Chaudhry said though UM has long been eager to attract more students from the Middle East, the lack of a mosque or Islamic center had deterred governments in Muslim countries from sending their students here.

But after 2001, as the Muslim student population increased, MSA worked out a funding plan with UM.

Founded in June 2007, the MSA house is on a yearly lease with $450 of the $1,120 per month rent paid by UM. The rest is covered by MSA.

Before the house, ever-changing rooms in the University Center served as a place to pray, as did an ASUM office, the grass of the Oval and, in Muslim Student Association president Saleh Al-Harthi’s case, a bus station, for the five daily prayers.

“I just put my jacket on the ground,” said Al-Harthi, a business student from Saudi Arabia. “No one looked at me like I was strange.”

In Islam, five prayers are said at regular intervals during the day, usually led by an imam, a religious leader. Though Muslims can technically pray anywhere — and even postpone a prayer if it falls during a class — the prayers are ideally performed together.

“I like to pray five times a day at the house to meet with friends, worship together and forget about your homework,” Al-Harthi said.

Samir Bitar, an adjunct professor in Arabic studies, said that closeness in prayer shows God a sense of unity that guards against Satan. He said when he first moved to Missoula about 17 years ago, he was disappointed that there was no common place to pray.

“I prayed alone at home for many years, which was a sad time for me,” Bitar said. “Your mosque is your home.”

Only when he became associated with UM nine years ago was Bitar able to pray amongst his fellow Muslims as he had when he lived in his birthplace of Jerusalem.

Before Bitar started teaching at UM, he owned his own business, which he was managing on Sept. 11, 2001. Though he is well-liked and respected in the community, Bitar said that he remembered being scared to open his e-mail the day after the attacks.

“There weren’t that many Muslims on campus and in Missoula at the time,” Bitar said. “I didn’t know how people would feel.”

But what he received were all messages of support.  Customers and friends visited his shop and proved to Bitar that Missoula is a diverse and tolerant community.

Since Sept. 11, the Muslim student population has significantly increased, due to both the availability of visas and emphasis by Middle Eastern governments on foreign study, Bitar said.

That means that where there were once four or five people at the Friday noon prayer — the traditional day and time of group worship for Muslims — now there are about 60 who come to the MSA house. 

According to Khaled Huthaily, an adjunct instructor and curriculum developer in Arabic studies and one of the two founding students of MSA in 2002, educating the Missoula community was a principle reason the MSA was formed.

“We wanted to have an organization through which we could get together and practice religious rituals, but also to educate Americans about Islam,” Huthaily said.

After Sept. 11, the need for a recognized group became paramount, Huthaily said. Though there were only about 15 Muslim students at the time, 15 non-Muslims students joined the group so that it could gain official recognition by ASUM.

Huthaily, who came to UM as a Fulbright Scholar from Yemen, said that the policy of MSA was established on the basic principle that members will not violate the teachings of the Quran and the prophets.

“All within Islam agree on this,” Huthaily said. “Other interpretations will be disagreed upon, but this is our foundation.”

Based on this policy, Huthaily said that no one within the group has the right to admonish another member for personal choices, such as whether a woman wears the hijab — hair covering — or if members choose to drink alcohol, which is a violation of Islam.

“No one has the right to come out and say ‘Don’t do this,’” Huthaily said. “The purpose of MSA is to provide a welcoming environment for students.”

• • •

In the MSA office in the UC, a group of four men have gathered to spend time together before the third prayer of the day. Three are young and wear Western clothing; the other is older and wears traditional Pakistani dress of a white tunic and white pants.

The men are talking about the MSA’s efforts to educate the community about Islam and include Missoula in their celebrations.

To help the community understand the values of Islam, MSA conducts outreach with periodic tabling in the UC, the showing of Islamic films and through its Web site.

MSA also holds lectures and meetings with various groups and interfaith dialogues with area churches.

“We want to get to know each other,” Al-Harthi said.

Mohammad Ayaz, a middle-aged master’s student in wildlife biology from Pakistan, added that anyone who is curious about Islam is welcome to approach any Muslim student or visit the MSA house to ask questions.

“We try to give as much information as we can in interactions with teachers and classmates,” Ayaz said.  “Still, we know people feel hesitation about asking about Islam. Everyone is most welcome to ask.”

Ayaz said that the group’s gatherings function almost as a refresher course in Islam for students.

“MSA coordinates with all Muslim students from the different countries to help them both in their education and in their faith,” Ayaz said.

To Ayaz, this means expounding upon values such as honesty, trustworthiness, respect and deference for the laws and values of the Missoula community.

The community is also invited to attend the two eids, or religious festivals, that are held each year at the UC and, now, at the MSA house. The first is held to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that is marked by fasting. The second eid commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah.

Sharif Amirov, a student from Tajikistan, said that many guests, including UM faculty, students and members of the community came to enjoy the traditional food of all of the different Muslim countries represented by the exchange students at the end-of-Ramadan eid in October.

“They asked a lot of questions about the food, but they really liked it!” Amirov said.

Amirov, Ayaz and Al-Harthi all agreed that UM has been extremely accommodating in helping them maintain their identities as Muslims at UM, especially in partially funding the MSA house, which holds not only an important religious function, but a social one as well.

Because Islam forbids drinking alcohol, the Missoula bar scene isn’t the typical weekend entertainment for most Muslim students. Instead, the students gather to play soccer, chess and PlayStation, to cook and to talk.

“Whenever we are free from study or work, our first priority is to come together to share happiness, grief and to recite the holy Quran,” Ayaz said.

Al-Harthi said that in a couple of weeks, elections will be held to find a new president and chart the course for the group in the year to come. He said that MSA wants to continue to benefit the society that has accepted and generously received its students.

• • •

As he describes plans for more church dialogues and food drives for the Missoula Food Bank, the call to prayer filters through Al-Harthi’s computer speakers and more young men file into the office. It is the middle of the busy school day, so the office will have to function as the prayer room today.

It is time to pray.