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Religious diversity: rethinking religion
Religious diversity: rethinking religion

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3.1 The East London Mosque

To start this process, we will return to a specific place, but this time to consider how it is used by those who go there.

Here we are going to look at the East London Mosque on Whitechapel Road. London’s Muslim population originated from the Muslim seamen who arrived in the nineteenth century. Often they were paid off from their ships and obliged to seek accommodation until they could find new employment or passage home. Sometimes they ended up remaining in London.

Since then, there have been several other waves of Muslim immigration to Britain. In London, many immigrants settled in the East End and the first provisions for communal Muslim worship were in converted residential spaces in the area. Today’s purpose-built mosque was completed in 1985.

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Figure 15 East London Mosque, Whitechapel, London, aerial view. Photo: © A.P.S. (UK)/Alamy
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This is an aerial photo of the ‘new’ East London Mosque. It is situated on a main road. It is a large brick building and complex. On the side facing the main road there are many arched windows and the main entrance has a tall, arched doorway. This is flanked by two turrets. On the right hand side of the picture (and the building), the prominent minaret (almost 30m high) is visible. The mosque is capped with a large golden dome above the prayer hall. Its alignment with the rest of the building is skewed as it is oriented towards Mecca. To the right of the mosque is the large (six-storeyed) London Muslim Centre complex. There is an additional nine-storeyed building behind the main mosque building which is the Maryam Centre.

Figure 15 East London Mosque, Whitechapel, London, aerial view. Photo: © A.P.S. (UK)/Alamy

Mosques are primarily a place where Muslim communities can gather for prayer. However, mosques are also used for a wide variety of religious instruction and other communal activities. As scholar Sophia Gilliat-Ray explains, mosques:

Exist at the heart of the community and all the obligations associated with the five ‘pillars’ of Islam involve mosques in one way or another. … Mosques are spaces for discussion and debate, for the settlement of disputes, for the performance of rites of passage, for education and for social welfare.

(Gilliat-Ray, 2010, p. 182f)

The East London Mosque has sought to expand its ability to serve a variety of functions for its community. It added a building to host more community services, the London Muslim Centre, in 2004. It completed building the Maryam Centre, making specific provision for women, in 2013.

The London Muslim Centre and the Maryam Centre

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Figure 16 The position of the Maryam Centre in relation to the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre. Photo: Roshni Amin
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This is a colour photograph of the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre and the Maryam Centre. There is an arrow at the top of the picture, pointing to the position of the Maryam Centre (which is itself circled in the picture), which is behind the Mosque. The mosque itself is a large brick building with three arches, one of which is the entrance. There are three minarets of differing heights. The tallest has a large crescent atop it. The Maryam Centre is a taller building of many storeys. It is also a brick building and has several windows on its front. There is a wide street in front of the mosque and a few pedestrians as well.

Figure 16 The position of the Maryam Centre in relation to the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre. Photo: Roshni Amin

The London Muslim Centre hosts a large range of community services, including education for children in supplementary schools and education in Islam and Arabic for all members of the community. There are also a number of culturally specific charities hosted by the Centre. These include the Somali Development Association (Al Shafie Institute) and the North African Community Association (NACA). The Centre offers pro bono legal advice for members of the community. It also includes a library and archives documenting its history and activities.

Historically, Muslim women’s use of mosques has been significantly different from that of men (Katz, 2014, p. 7). Women are not required to attend collective prayers in mosques on Friday. There are also regulations regarding modesty, dress codes and the avoidance of sexual temptation by separating the genders, particularly during prayer time.

Although the primary purpose of the Maryam Centre was to provide prayer facilities for women, it has come to hold a much broader role.

Activity 8

Take a moment to reflect upon your assumptions on the separation of women and men in religious contexts.

Now, listen to this interview with Sufia Alam the manager of the Maryam Centre at the East London Mosque, who will explain how the Maryam Centre is used. As you listen, reflect on if your assumptions about women’s spaces – does Sufia Alam say anything that surprises you?

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Figure 17 Sufia Alam, East London Mosque, October 2016. Photo: Roshni Amin
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This is a colour photograph of Sufia Alam. Sufia is shown sitting in her office on a red office chair. There are files in front of her on a desk. In the background, behind her, are shelves of ringbinders and other office paraphernalia. On the left of the photo is a wall with many notices stuck on it. Sufia is in the centre of the picture. She is wearing a green headscarf that covers her hair and drapes down over her chest and shoulders. She is wearing a black top with long sleeves that covers her arms up to her wrists. She is wearing glasses and is smiling. She has a green lanyard around her neck with the word ‘Staff’ on it.

Figure 17 Sufia Alam, East London Mosque, October 2016. Photo: Roshni Amin
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Transcript

Stefanie Sinclair
Hello - I’m Stefanie Sinclair. I am a lecturer in Religious Studies at the Open University and I am sitting here with Sufia Alam, who is the Centre Manager at the Maryam Centre in the East London Mosque.
Sufia, can you tell me what is the Maryam Centre?
Sufia Alam
Okay so the Maryam Centre was established in 2013 primarily to accommodate prayer facilities for women. My role in the Maryam Centre is to develop projects that meet the needs of women in the community um to provide a service that um supports women and women’s rights. Also to enhance um their learning pathways um and to really empower them you know through education, through social programmes, through um seminars and conferences that I hold on issues that relate to our community. So
We have to look at the history of um migration in this area and of course we had men and women obviously the first generation had men who had come in and then they later brought their families um and when at last the – the community came um together it was the Seventies um and early Eighties where um there was a lot of racism in this area so a lot of the women stayed at home um there was a lot of the rag trade around this area so a lot of people were working especially women, they were working at home or they were um basically housewives because the men were primarily the bread winners so they'd go out but there were um at a time where there was a lot of tension so women kind of stayed indoors. But I think what happened in the late Eighties um coming up to the Nineties was I think through religious institutions like us the East London mosque where people um felt a bit more comfortable um to come because it was a religious obligation to find out about your religion and to educate your children as the children were growing up. Also in this particular area um their local authority worked really well with the communities to stamp out racism and fascism that existed so much in this area and I think that gave empowerment for women to come out of the houses and as a community worker I feel that you know this is what I've worked on for the last twenty years to get women out of the houses and empower them and I think um a setting like the Maryam Centre is that ideal hub where people can come together and they can thrash out their ideas and really the Maryam Centre could be whatever you wanted it to be so you knows if they’ve asked for counselling we've got a counsellor. We've got yoga. We've got a gymnasium you know keep fit classes to karate classes. Whatever people want it’s – I think why we are successful is because we've portrayed this mosque or the Maryam Centre as um theirs you know. It was the peoples. It didn’t belong to the trustees or it didn’t belong to the workers. It belonged to the community and I think that sense of belong, the sense of it’s our mosque um is really powerful and I think um that’s really helped in terms of empowerment.
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Discussion

The Maryam Centre may be primarily a prayer space, but it also offers a variety of other services. It offers a women’s only gymnasium and exercise area, educational facilities specifically reserved for women and free counselling with professional female therapists. Although not mentioned in this short interview, Sufia Alam also works closely with the local council on issues of child welfare and domestic violence. She is able to make interventions within the community by communicating with the women in what is perceived by the community to be a safe space. The Maryam Centre allows the women of the community space to network and make decisions about their needs without involving the men of the community.