Jumeirah Mosque

The second that Will and I got some time off, we made Jumeirah Mosque our first stop. The Sheikh Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding who's motto is "Open Doors, Open Minds" does tours for the public everyday at 10:00am (between prayer times). It is the only mosque in Duabi and allows non Muslims to enter. Just as a Muslim would, shoes had to be removed and women had to be modestly dressed with scarfs covering their hair.

The cultural session was lead by two women who had been British Christians and then converted to Islam. They both had very interesting and different paths that lead them to Islam. The beginning of the session was a brief history of Islam and an description of their religious practices and then it was opened up to the group to ask any questions that we may have.

While I learned many things some of the most interesting thing that I learned were (but don't quote me on all of this) :

• Muslims believe that Jesus was a a prophet, Mohamed was just the most recent prophet. 
• The call for prayer is live; it is not a recording. A Muslim man is actually singing at each call for prayer.
• Islam is very close to Christianity. In fact, it is my understanding that they believe all of the stories in the bible, they have just added on to it. 
• Muslim men can marry non Muslims, but Muslim women cannot marry non Muslims because it is believed that children should take their father's religion. Thus a male Muslim's children would practice Islam, but a female Muslim's children would not unless that father was Muslim.
• The reason the women's prayer rooms are smaller than the men's in the mosque is that only men are required to go to a prayer room to pray. Women may pray wherever they are...at home, in a park, etc. Most still go into a prayer room and thus that is why women's prayer rooms are much larger than the men's at the mall!
• The black abayas (dresses) that women wear are more of a cultural thing than a Muslim thing. The two women that lead the talk said that they only wear them while they are in the UAE and when they are back in London they just wear clothing that is very covering. 

The session was very interesting and I am very happy to of learned so much about the Islam faith.

The outside of Jumeirah Mosque. It was built in the 1970s. 

Will and I inside the mosque after the cultural session.

Bare feet! No shoes inside of the Mosque.