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The Islamic Cultural Center of New York

June 22, 2012 Bradley Farless2 Comments

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to go to the Islamic Cultural Center of New York on a field trip for my summer anthropology course: “Islam in the West”. If you don’t count my visit to the Islamic Center at NYU’s Spiritual Life Center, this was my first visit to a mosque. I don’t suppose you can count that, though. NYU’s Islamic Center had a prayer room, but this is the first full-on mosque I’ve visited. Because of how much I’ve read about mosques and how often I’ve seen them in videos, and perhaps because of my trip to NYU’s Islamic Center, the setting felt familiar to me. I didn’t see anything that I didn’t expect. That’s not to say I wasn’t impressed. I just wasn’t surprised.

The one thing that I did find a little unusual was the apparent lack of care for the exterior of the building. The colors seemed a little drab, the doors were slightly rusted and the sign was (obviously) in need of a little help. I also noticed that the trees have been allowed to grow on the front side of the building, obscuring the view from the street. I can’t help but wonder if it was done intentionally to make the building appear non-threatening to the non-Muslim majority, especially in the wake of 9/11.

Back entrance to Islamic Cultural Center of New York (From ICC Website)

The main entrance (in the picture above) isn’t used often. It’s only opened for Jumah, the Friday prayer that comes with a sermon, like Jewish and Christian Sabbath services. The ‘daily entrance’ is around the corner on 97th Street. It’s actually really nice, with wooden terracing for plants, but I didn’t get a photo of it (photo above is borrowed from their site). I was running late because I was waiting at the main entrance for quite a while. I forgot about having to use the other entrance.

When you enter the building through the daily entrance, you wind up on the bottom floor, which is below ground level. There’s a shop that sells Islamic books, Qurans, dates (the fruit) and other related items. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time browsing the store. I’d like to go back and look around. I have a feeling there’s stuff there that isn’t widely available in commercial bookstores.

Just past the gift shop on the right is a daily prayer room. The daily prayer room was lit with soft light and was quiet. A few people were praying. I saw a man sleeping along the wall. The carpet was very comfortable and the atmosphere was reverent. I suppose the people in there at that time of day are the ones that are really looking for answers, since it wasn’t close to a normal prayer time yet.

A curtain divided the female prayer area from the male prayer area. I found out that the reason for the division of genders is that when you’re in the mosque it’s to worship, not to be distracted by women’s back ends being up in the air around or in front of you. The explanation is much more common-sense than what I’d assumed.

When I went in and sat down with a few guys from my class, we started talking about the use of misbaha/tasbih, which are prayer beads. It’s sort of like a Catholic rosary, meant to help you keep track of prayers. The guy I was talking to told me that after the salaat prayer (one of the five daily ritual prayers), some people use prayer beads to continue praying a while longer. He said it’s strongly recommended, but not required.

Then my phone rang. Embarrassing.

About the time I came back, our tour of the building started, though it wasn’t so much a tour as an information and Q&A session with one of the assistant imams. He took us up to the main prayer room, which is under the dome that can be seen from outside. He told us about the basic tenets of Islam and then started answering questions from the class about women’s roles in Islam, how the authenticity of hadith are verified, polygamy, and other similar topics.

Interior of New York's Islamic Cultural Center — 99 lights hang from the ceiling under the round dome, some say to symbolize the 99 names of God that are known. According to Islamic theology, God has an infinite number of names.

Prayer lines on the carpet of the mosque.

He briefly mentioned the architectural design of the room we were in, the main prayer area. He said the room was stripped of everything except the essentials and that the decoration was kept to a minimum, to prevent distracting people from the worship of God. He explained the use of the lines on the floor and how Muslims line up foot to foot and shoulder to shoulder to pray, which is done because of the story about how Muhammad, the Prophet, told people to stand close and not leave any room for Shaitan (Satan) to get between them and disturb their prayers. Islam as a belief system places heavy emphasis on community, unity, and group actions that maintain proper behavior. It’s harder to do something bad when you’re constantly engaging with your community.

Tapestry of the Kaaba in Mecca, donated by Iran.

He also told us that this tapestry of the Kaaba, which is located in Mecca and the site of pilgrimage of millions of Muslims every year, was donated to the center by Iran. The ICC is primarily maintained by monetary contributions from foreign governments, most notably Kuwait. Not that that should be alarming to anyone. There are lots of establishments in the US that receive funding from overseas. Also, we have a pretty solid political relationship with Kuwait. We have quite a few military bases there. I spent a year living on one.

The Mihrab at the New York ICC — The mihrab, which indicates the direction of prayer. Muslims always pray facing Mecca.

Qu'rans on shelves in the main prayer area — Qu’rans on shelves in the main prayer area.

Donation boxes for zakat, sadaqat, mosque maintenance — Donation boxes for zakat, sadaqat, and mosque maintenance.

The Q&A session lasted up until it was time for the fourth prayer of the day, maghrib, the prayer that happens just after sunset. This time of year, that’s at 8:30 PM. I didn’t have to hang around for that, so I visited the restroom and then left.

Area for wudu in the male restroom at the New York ICC.

The restroom was the last place I expected to find something unusual, but I was surprised to notice that there were no urinals, just stalls. I double checked to make sure I was in the correct restroom. The other one had a picture of a woman in a hijab on the door and women were going into it, so I hadn’t accidentally gone into the women’s room. Also, there was a bench set up inside where people could comfortably perform the ritual cleansing before prayer: wudu.

I don’t really know what sort of crowd visits this mosque on a Friday, but during the week we were told that it’s primarily cab drivers who stop to pray and then go back to work. Either way, it seems to be a very nice, well maintained building and a great resource for people in Manhattan who need to pray, or for non-Muslims to stop in and ask a few questions.

Washington Square Park

June 16, 2012 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

My mother’s side of the family has lived in New York City since my great-grandmother immigrated here from Spain (via Puerto Rico) in 1930. Ever since I was a kid, I came here to visit family every summer and then, about every 2 to 3 years. My family has always lived in the East Village and I remember when I used to step out on the streets in the morning and see used syringes in the cracks, but I don’t recall that I’ve ever been to Washington Square Park before last Wednesday.

It’s possible. They’ve renovated it a lot recently. In fact, they were still doing renovations on about half the park when I went through there last week, but I’m pretty sure I’d remember that big arch at the entrance.

Washington Square Park is a really nice, quiet, classy type of area. It’s surrounded by NYU buildings so the crowd is diverse but generally classy. It’s the type of place I’d want to go for an afternoon of reading or people watching. I wish I had more time for that, but lately I’m always so busy.

Ramadan Workshop at NYU’s Spiritual Life Center

June 15, 2012 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Washington Square and the NYU Spiritual Life Center (short building, just left of center)

Wednesday evening, I had the opportunity to visit New York University’s Spiritual Life Center at Washington Square in Lower Manhattan. NYU has organized a series of workshops that will take place every Wednesday night from last week until Ramadan begins, with each session focusing on a different aspect of Ramadan. I attended the workshop with a group of students from CCNY as a sort of field-trip for my anthropology course: “Islam in the West,” which explores the immigration of Muslim communities to Western nations and their interactions with the cultures and communities of their host nations.

I don’t want to dwell too long on the building, but the Center is very, very nice. I heard that the building is relatively new and the interior is very well appointed and in good condition. The first floor of the building is devoted to Catholics. The first floor is for Muslims. I don’t recall what other religious traditions have space in the building, but I was told that the building has a meditation room where people of all faiths can sit quietly and pray and/or reflect.

The fourth floor was designed specifically with the needs of Muslims in mind. Separate from the bathrooms (which were really nice too) there are men’s and women’s ablution rooms, where Muslims can perform ritual washing (“wudu”) before prayer. Outside of the prayer room there are shelves built into the walls where people can leave their shoes (Muslims don’t wear shoes in their sacred spaces). The room itself is carpeted and looks out over Washington Square Park. The qibla, the direction towards Mecca, which Muslims face when they pray is marked by a prayer rug.

I found it interesting that the prayer direction is northeast. I assumed it would be southeast, since that’s where Mecca is on a map in relation to New York City. I’m probably not taking the curvature of the Earth into consideration or something.

When I first arrived on the floor, I initially felt a bit out of place, but that feeling passed more quickly than I thought it would. I didn’t ask other people in the class who aren’t Muslims, but I wonder if my experience was a bit different, given how much I’ve studied Middle Eastern and Islamic History?

Since we were new faces, a guy came up and said hello to us and showed us where to go. It turned out that he was the guy in charge of the workshops and the one who was giving the lecture that night. I think he said his name is Khalid, but I could be wrong. Regardless, he was a pretty pleasant guy. He’s also a very, very good speaker.

Muslim Prayer Room, NYU Spiritual Life Center

The workshop event was scheduled to begin at 6:30 PM, but it was preceded by the afternoon prayer, ‘asr. I know that sounds off, but the prayer times are scheduled according to daylight hours rather than Western concepts of what constitutes morning, afternoon and evening. For more information on Muslim prayer times, click here.

Watching the prayer up close and personal was an interesting experience. It seems like every popular movie that has anything to do with Islam or Muslims starts or has a scene overlooking a city-scape with the muezzin call playing in the background. It comes across as exotic, foreign, and given recent events in the world, a bit dangerous. But, when you’re sitting on a carpeted floor overlooking a park, chatting with people about life, school and work and a guy begins a call to prayer from the corner of the room, it has a different tone.

The room became hushed and the Muslims present gathered in lines (there were a decent amount of non-Muslim participants in the room), women on one side of the room and men on the other, to pray. It felt like being in a Christian church, listening to a pastor give the opening prayer while the congregation stood quietly with heads bowed. The ritual prayer (salaat) was pretty much what I’d expected to see. What was interesting, though, was noticing the differences between prayer styles. Depending on where a Muslim is from, they might do certain parts of the prayer a little bit different, but every Muslim believes in the ritual prayer as an integral practice of Islam.

After the prayer, everyone sat down and faced the lectern at the rear of the room (opposite the windows and the direction of prayer). I noticed that the women and men maintained their separation throughout the evening. When I first heard about that I assumed it had something to do with keeping women subservient, since the portion of the room where women pray is typically the back of the room, but the real reason is much more common sense than that. When you go to pray, when you go to learn about or hear about God, you’re there for God and worship, not to be distracted by the opposite gender. The only people that roamed wildly between the men and women were the children.

The actual workshop took off a bit awkwardly for me, but somewhere after the group project of coming up with an idea for a commercial about Islam and what demographic to market it to and the beginning of the lecture about Ramadan, everyone, including myself, seemed to settle in and get comfortable. The theme of the talk was to think about why you do the things you do, and not just when it comes to Ramadan, but anything. Why do you hang out with people who are bad for you? Why do you keep drinking if you know you shouldn’t? Why do you put on your hijab (head scarf that some Muslim women wear) in the morning? Why do you get up and pray fajr (the before dawn prayer)? Why do you fast during Ramadan? The point of the talk seemed to be to remind people that rather than just doing what they’ve always done because that’s how it’s been done, they should ask and know the reasons behind it.

The speaker (again, I think his name is Khalid) used an analogy of a woman who always cut the tip of the leg off her roast lamb leg because that’s how her mother had always done it, only to find out from the grandmother that it was unnecessary and the only reason she started doing it was because their oven was too small to fit the whole leg at one time.

The talk did touch on other points. The other thing I remember most clearly from the talk was a story that the speaker related. I think it was from a hadith (a recorded quote, saying or habit of the Prophet Muhammad). The short version is that a man killed 100 men and then realized he needed to change his life. He asked another man if he could be forgiven for what he’d done and the man said he could, but to be forgiven he’d have to go to another town. So, the man set off on a journey to the other town to find forgiveness but along the way he died. Two angels appear and begin arguing over whether to take him to Heaven or Hell. God intercedes and tells them that if he is closer to the second town (to forgiveness) then take him to Heaven; otherwise take him to Hell. In reality, the man was closer to the first town (Hell), but because God is merciful, he made it appear as though the man were closer to the second town, and the angels took him to Heaven. The moral of the story is that God is merciful and looks for excuses to be merciful. I thought that was a nice idea.

The talk ran a bit long and by the end I was ready to get going, but overall I enjoyed the experience. It could probably be considered overgeneralizing, but the experience reinforced my belief that Muslims as a whole are average people with average hopes, average problems and average dreams, just like anyone else. It also reinforced my belief that there are more similarities between Christianity, Judaism and Islam than differences. I think people try to create and widen differences whenever possible out of fear and misunderstanding, but sitting in that room and hearing messages about hope, mercy and fasting to remember the poor and hungry, I felt as though it could have been any religious youth group; not necessarily just Muslims.

Sweating It Out On The Track

June 10, 2012 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

I should be at home finishing my homework but I really couldn’t miss my Sunday evening run. I have to burn off those extra helpings of curry.

The Original Angry Birds? – AMNH Exhibit

June 8, 2012September 4, 2021 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

A few weeks ago my wife and I went to the American Museum of Natural History here in New York City. I’ll post more about that later, but I just wanted to share this image first. When I saw it, the first thing I thought of was the Angry Birds games. I think Rovio (the makers of Angry Birds) is based out of Finland, or at least that’s what their site says, but maybe the person who came up with the concept was thinking of this display window in the AMNH. It has the whole idea in one scene: broken eggs, angry birds, and the hogs (pigs) who are responsible.

Burning Out Stress on the Running Track

June 7, 2012 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

When I was living in Singapore, my wife and I would go jogging 3 times a week or more. Even though it was hot over there all the time, even at night, it was exhilarating. Besides being in good shape, every time we would run and hit our target, it gave us a sense of accomplishment. Participating in the first Run350 event on Pulau Ubin Island and finishing the 5k in 31 minutes, despite the god-awful big hills on the course, was amazing!

Something I probably didn’t think too much about at the time but realize more now is that jogging is also a great way to burn stress. Last semester was hell for me. I took on way too many classes and had way too many assignments due. I’m still sleeping almost 11 hours a day recovering from the lack of rest, especially over the last few weeks.

Despite the time crunch I was under, I still took time to jog. Why? Because it gave me an opportunity to stop thinking about due dates and complicated research questions for just an hour or two and gave me a sense of achievement and accomplishment when I met my running goal. Every successfully completed run was a pat on the back that motivated me to not only keep running, but to get back to my classwork as well.

The bonus on top of it all? It’s an opportunity for my wife and I to bond. She runs too and we almost always run together. This month is going to be a little different. She’s working full time and I’m busting my ass to get my master’s degree as soon as possible, so I’m taking summer classes. The summer class I have this month is at night so on Wednesdays we’ll have to run solo like I did yesterday. It wasn’t as much fun, because I enjoy the competitiveness of running with my wife. She’s almost as fast as I am, so she keeps me moving when I start to get lazy.

Weekend Outing to Times Square

June 4, 2012 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Times Square, New York City, June 3, 2012

This past weekend was the only weekend in my one and a half week break between the end of Spring Semester and the beginning of Summer classes. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. My wife was encouraging me to relax and have a good time. I was thinking about doing some heavy reading and trying to get ahead on the books assigned on the syllabus for my first summer class.

I never did get around to that, mostly because I decided to migrate my blog from Blogger to WordPress. It’s taking a lot more time to complete than I thought. The import was a little complicated. I had to export from Blogger, import to WordPress.com, export from WordPress.com, and then import to my WordPress installation. Needless to say, there are tons of formatting errors, not the least of which is that images are either really blurry or not loading at all, depending on the browser. I have to fix that. I’ve been working on getting the categories and tags set up first though. Maybe I’ll be done by next weekend!

Anyway, I didn’t want to spend all weekend in front of my computer screen. Luckily, one of my wife’s teachers from med school was in town so we went out to meet up with him at Times Square. After chatting and walking around with him a bit, he left to meet up with other friends, so my wife and I did the tourist thing. I pulled out my camera and started taking photos. We did some shopping and window shopping and wound up eating out. It wasn’t a spectacular day but it was a great day and a good weekend outing.

Sunday, we hit the track and ordered pizza.

Now, the time for fun and games are over. I have to get ready for the first day of my first summer class: Islam in the West. It should be exciting!

Boka Bon Chon & Wafels and dinges

April 3, 2012 Bradley Farless12 Comments

I just can’t get enough of those damn fried chicken wings and drumsticks! I don’t know how they make them, but they come out so crispy and delicious that I don’t mind that the spicy ones are burning my face off. I just keep eating them! They also come in soy & garlic flavor, which is great.

I’ve been gradually getting my wife around to all of the places I want to show her here in NYC that I already know about and Boka Bon Chon finally came up on the list. We were in the mood for something Asian and we were in the neighborhood, so we went on in.

Besides the wings, which are an absolute must if you ever go to this place, we got the kimchi bi bim bob and an order of beef bul go gi. The servings are generous. Maybe we were hungry, or it was just particularly good yesterday but we cleaned our plates and stripped the bones.

Then we saw a food truck. A bright yellow food truck with a delicious scent coming from it. It turned out to be “Wafels and dinges,” which sells different types of waffles with a variety of toppings, including one called a “WMD” and, gross as it sounds to me, waffles with bacon or pulled pork.

Brussels waffle with chocolate and powdered sugar from Waffles & Dinges truck.

We were feeling the food we’d just eaten, so we got one and shared it. It was incredibly good! I’m looking forward to the next excuse we can find to eat at this food truck again. =)

For a Sunday afternoon, this was a great meal. I love NYC.

Occupy Union Square?

March 30, 2012 Bradley Farless1 Comment

Yesterday I went to Petco at Union Square to pick up two 20 pound boxes of cat litter while they were on sale. Carrying that cat litter was a pain in the ass because I couldn’t get a cab and had to take the bus, but that’s another story.

On the way to Petco, I noticed a lot of people standing around the 14th street side of Union Square with signs. I’m not surprised. It seems like there’s a protest there at least once a month or more. There was a protest there over the Trayvon Martin incident, for example.

I can only assume this group is protesting police brutality, but I didn’t stop to ask for specifics. There was something about the way most of the people looked, the way they carried themselves, that screamed low class and potentially dangerous. One guy looked homeless and the girl in the purple tube top (just to the right of the pink tree on the left of the photo) kept pulling her top up and down, like she was moments from stripping naked to add flavor to the protest. I wondered if they were drunk or on drugs. I know it’s not good to just throw a judgment out there based on how people look, but on the other hand, if you want to be taken seriously, you should look serious.

The group of people protesting wasn’t actually that large. It’s hard to tell from the photos where the protesters end and the normal Union Square crowd begins, but they mostly seemed to be huddled into one corner near that pagoda subway entrance.

There were police hanging around and I had things to do so I just minded my own business and kept going. The reason I wonder if these people are trying to ‘occupy’ Union Square is because I saw them there again today, including the guy that looks homeless. He had a ruck sack with what looked like a yoga mat. Maybe he slept on it? Also, a few of them seemed to have luggage with them (right side in above photo). The police were still there today too.

Man At Astor Place Dancing With a Bra on His Head

January 29, 2012 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Just another day in New York City’s Astor Place, right?

Wait? Is that a guy with a bra on his head?

Why yes, yes it is.

This guy slowly took off his clothing while doing a very unusual dance that resembled a combination of a swimming, robot, and peek-a-boo dance. I’m not sure why he needed to have a bra on his head to do it, but nothing about the whole routine made sense anyway. He had a little guitar looking instrument with him, but never played it. I only watched for about a minute, before going about my business.

As entertaining as this is, it’s a shame that he’s on the street and isn’t receiving the mental care that he really needs. Given how much we pay in taxes every year, you’d think the government would be able to take care of the people in our society who really need it. No one can tell me that they think this guy is just playing and should get a job, or that he isn’t suffering while we make light of his situation. I really wish our government did more for people like him.