A Quaker mosque

Metford Robson writes about lending a hand in Bury St Edmunds

It will be a long time before we will forget Friday 3 February 2017, the day when Bury St Edmunds Muslims invited us to be present during their Friday prayers (Jummah) at our Meeting house. This was because they had lost the use of the room they were previously using for this purpose and we had, therefore, welcomed them to use our premises, as a temporary measure.

Prayer mat rolls were brought down from their place of storage and briefly laid out to cover most of the floor in our large Meeting room. The rectangular patterns on them indicated where worshippers should position themselves and were set at right angles to the east wall of the room, so that all present could face Mecca.

In addition to the seventy or so regular Muslim worshippers, our eighteenth century ministers gallery, together with the fixed benches along one wall and the upstairs gallery, were packed with a similar number of members of the Meeting, the West Suffolk Interfaith Forum, and other people of faith and no faith. It turned out to be a memorable occasion.

As is customary, the congregation was male, but perhaps in deference to our known testimony to equality there was also a small group of women and children. Most of those present had taken a brief break from work and consequently came into the room in ones and twos. The majority were present throughout the main period of worship.

Members of the Meeting and particularly those who were in the ministers’ gallery could, perhaps, ponder on the momentous changes that have taken place since our Meeting house was constructed and give thanks for the opportunities we now have to share in the culture and expressions of faith of so many others.

The Imam, who came from Cambridge, delivered a sermon in Arabic and English – the latter not just being in deference to us, but to the congregation as well, many of whom had a variety of first languages. As with Quaker ministry, it is not really possible to catch its essence in writing after the event. However, much of what he said was rooted in his experiences as a scientist, while his references to what Muslims, Christians and Jews had shared in their past religious history were entirely appropriate to the occasion.

The stark simplicity of Muslim worship fitted in extraordinarily well with our simple Meeting room and the Muezzin’s call to prayer had an almost ethereal quality, which in our closing moments deepened the sense we had of being present in a shared holy space.

After the proceedings were formally closed those members of the Muslim community who did not have to get back to work circulated round the large crowd of participants with drinks and delicious savouries. For once we could relax and simply enjoy being together.

The day was not yet at an end, as in the evening the documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell was seen by a representative audience. This movingly chronicles the remarkable story of how Christian and Muslim women in Liberia worked to end the previously non-stop civil war and bring peace to their shattered land. It was a most fitting end to a wonderful day.

Praise be to Allah (or whatever other words of gratitude speak to your condition).

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