Don Follis 10/5/2001 religion column:
"Local Imam provides care for the Muslim community"
Throughout the world,
five times a day, hundreds of millions of Muslims
are called to prayer. That same call to prayer is delivered even
in Urbana
inside the Mosque at 106 So. Lincoln Avenue.
The one issuing the call
to prayer speaks into a microphone, saying in
Arabic, "God is the most great. I testify that there is no god
but God. I
testify that Mohammed is the Prophet of God. Hurry to prayer.
Hurry to
success. God is the greatest. There is no god but God."
At 1:15 p.m. earlier this
week a Saudi Arabian graduate student called the
local Muslims to afternoon prayer. Soon nine young men (four
Americans,
two Indonesians, one Algerian, one Kuwaiti and one Saudi Arabian) had
gathered in an unfurnished 85-foot by 70-foot carpeted room.
Standing in
stocking feet and shoulder to shoulder, they faced northeast, the direction
of the city of Mecca. All Muslims face the grand Mosque in Mecca
when they
pray, believing it to be the spot that Abraham and Ishmael originally
built
a temple and dedicated it to the one true God.
The leader of any Mosque
is called the Imam. The local Imam is the
54-year-old Dr. Mujahid Al-Fayadh. With a closely cropped graying
beard
and wearing a tan jacket, Al-Fayadh stood in front of the men and led
the
prayers. During the 10-minute prayers, the men went from standing
to the
prostrate position four times. In the prostrate position, the
men's
foreheads touched the carpet. The five daily prayers at the Urbana
Mosque
are at 6:15 a.m. and 1:15, 5:15, 6:40 and 8:45 p.m.
On Friday, every prayer
service includes a sermon given by Dr. Al-Fayadh.
With between 250-400 in attendance at Friday prayers, Dr. Al-Fayadh
recites
a portion of the Quran and speaks about the issues of the day.
Dr. Al-Fayadh has served
as the Imam since July 2000. This is his second
time to live in Champaign-Urbana. In 1975 he arrived from Baghdad,
Iraq,
as a UI graduate student in Food Science. The Mosque on Lincoln
Avenue was
built in 1982, by which time Al-Fayadh had received his Ph.D. and returned
to Iraq to be a professor at the University of Baghdad.
There were plans to build
the mosque before he left, however. Al-Fayadh
gave one of the first financial gifts for the construction of the Mosque
while he was still a student. The local Mosque now serves as
a gathering
place for an estimated 150 Muslim families and about 2,000 UI Muslim
students.
Dr. Al-Fayadh was one of
20 people who applied to the seven-member board
of directors when the Imam position was advertised. The committee
wanted a
person fluent in English, knowledgeable in religion, not just Islam,
and
experienced in interacting with Muslims from around the world and with
Americans in general.
Al-Fayadh's impeccable English,
his five years in Champaign-Urbana back in
the 1970s and his experience serving first as a professor at the University
of Baghdad and then an Imam in the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia
during
the 1990s, made him the perfect candidate for the position.
Having lived in Baghdad
during the Iran-Iraq war, Al-Fayadh detests war.
"Living in Baghdad in the early 1980s, I witnessed a nightmare.
I saw
innocent people die. I got a terrible feeling about war," he
said.
The attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11 shocked
Al-Fayadh. He said he feels united with Americans as they grieve
the loss
of innocent lives. "You can expect people in every religion with
their own
evil agendas to try and justify their acts," he said. "But this
terrible
incident cannot be justified by any religion. Killing an innocent
person
is like killing all humans. It cannot ever be justified."
Al-Fayadh said President
Bush did the right thing when he traveled to a
Mosque and said he has nothing against Islamic people. Al-Fayadh
believes
the September 11 incidents must not be allowed to escalate into a war
between the West and Islam. "The consequences would be horrible,"
he said.
And yet, Al-Fayadh said
he believes the core of the problem is the
Palestinian issue and he thinks this should be addressed by the whole
world, especially the United States.
Just then a disheveled young
man stepped into the mosque and expressed a
need. After talking with him for several minutes, Dr. Al-Fayadh
gave him
$20. "You see," he said. "This is what I am about, caring
for people, no
matter what their belief."
Don Follis is an Urbana minister. Reprinted with permission from
the
Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, copyright 2001.