American Muslims Open Mosques to Help Open Minds and Hearts
First started by the Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of mosques and other Muslim organizations, Open Mosque Day serves as an opportunity for people of different faiths to be introduced to Islam and Muslim culture. For this 14th annual event, 26 mosques in Orange County opened their doors – a small slice of about 500 participating mosques nationwide, The Orange County Register reported.
More than 50 visitors Sunday attended the Islamic Institute of Orange County, where they were able to take a tour, participate in a Q&A session, observe an afternoon prayer and learn about Islam. Throughout the day, people had a chance to clear up confusions and misconceptions about Islam and Muslims through casual conversation – a powerful tool, said Mustafa Umar, Imam at the Islamic Institute of Orange County.
"Islam has become politicized – especially during this election,” Umar said. "With all of this Islamophobic rhetoric, this anti-Muslim bigotry that’s taking place, hate crimes happening around the country against Muslims, it’s very important for people to understand who Muslims are and what Islam represents.”
Umar said that simply coming to the mosque and meeting Muslims in person can be all it takes to completely change people’s impressions, turning what they thought they knew on its head.
"Once they make it in, they realize – hey, Muslims smile! They speak English! These are just regular people, they’re friendly and they’re nice,” Umar said. "I think there’s a lot of ignorance about Islam. People just don’t know about the religion, but a lot think they know.”
Though Open Mosque Day is a major event for mosques around the county and the nation, the Islamic Institute of Orange County never truly closes to the public. The mosque has an open house at the end of every month, and guests are welcome to schedule tours or just come and talk whenever they wish – all part of critical ongoing efforts to reach out to the community, said Jamaal Zaheen, director of outreach at the institute.
"For us, outreach is huge. It’s part of a Muslim’s daily life to make sure they do outreach in a beautiful way,” Zaheen said. "We’re very small in number here in the United States, yet you find us in the media all over the place – usually in a pejorative way. That’s the .001, but they don’t show you the 99.999 percent of people.”
Those outreach efforts reached the ears of many visitors, including Carlos Messerschmidt, a Costa Mesa resident who attended Sunday’s open house.
"I have my stereotypes too, but I know that if I’m within the presence of people who belong to a different faith, I don’t believe we’re that different. We just have different rules or ways of following within our faith,” Messerschmidt said. "They (Muslims) do not appear like how they are being described in the media. My perception of these people here is real, not at all like the picture you get from the media.”
