What interests me less is what is said to visitors during an “Open Mosque Day” than the assumption upon which the event itself is built.
Everything about it begins with a single idea: that people do not know enough about Islam.
And whenever controversy grows, the same answer is offered: more explanation, more education, more dialogue.
But what about those who already know Islam?
Not from books, pamphlets, or guided tours, but from life itself.
Millions of people knew Islam long before they ever attended an open day or heard slogans about dialogue and understanding. They knew it in homes, schools, streets, and everyday relationships. They knew it when religion was not merely a belief held in the heart, but a social authority that followed every detail of life.
They knew it when some people knew you had missed the dawn prayer before they knew you were ill.
They knew it when a person’s religious reputation preceded them into employment, marriage, and social relationships.
They knew it when it was enough for someone to notice your absence from the mosque for a few weeks for the questions, whispers, and interpretations to begin.
They knew it when some people measured a person’s virtue by the number of prayers they had seen them perform rather than by the number of good deeds they had done.
They knew it when a woman hid her food during Ramadan, not because she “feared Allah”, but because she feared people — feared the looks, the comments, and the ready-made judgements, even though everyone knew she had a “legitimate religious excuse”.
They knew it when a young man sometimes pretended to believe things he did not truly believe, because honesty with society carried a higher cost than silence.
They knew it when some people concealed their true opinions for many years, not out of fear of prison, but out of fear of social rejection.
They knew it when relationships between people were not always built on morality, knowledge, or humanity, but on other questions: Does he pray? Does he fast? Is he observant? Is it permissible to sit with him? Is he suitable for marriage into our family? Can we eat at his house? Can we pray behind him?
They also knew it through the constant presence of halal and haram in the smallest details of life — in food, clothing, relationships, friendships, music, books, celebrations, words, and even the thoughts that pass through a person’s mind.
This is the experience that does not appear in group photographs.
This is the life that cannot be reduced to an elegant pamphlet placed on a table at the entrance of a mosque.
And so I find myself pausing at an idea that is constantly repeated: that people’s problem with Islam is that they do not know enough about it.
Many people do not look at Islam through the glass of an exhibition hall.
They look at it through a very long memory.
A memory filled with social surveillance, ready-made judgements, and the fear of departing from the group.
And perhaps here I arrive at what I consider the most sensitive question in this entire subject.
When a visitor is invited into a mosque under banners of coexistence, openness, and mutual respect, it is naturally assumed that these values are the organic extension of what this religion believes and what its history has produced.
Yet the moment one begins to look a little deeper, a far more complex reality emerges.
Much of the debate surrounding Islam in the modern era does not stem from a simple misunderstanding or an unfair stereotype, but from genuine discussions about texts, traditions, and rulings that still exist in books, references, and fatwas, and which millions of Muslims continue to regard as part of the religion itself.
This is where the gap emerges.
The issue is not about isolated mistakes or individual behaviour. One only has to browse some classical and contemporary works of Islamic jurisprudence to find lengthy discussions on how non-Muslims should be distinguished from Muslims in dress, appearance, and public life. One only has to listen to the debates taking place within Muslim societies themselves to see how takfir and accusations regarding a person’s faith are used as weapons against dissenters, thinkers, and those with unconventional views.
And one only has to look at the degree of fear that drives many people to conceal their true opinions or personal practices to realise that the debate is not always about stereotypes invented by others, but about realities and experiences people have lived through themselves.
For this reason, I do not believe the problem lies in the existence of these questions. The problem lies in acting, at times, as though they do not exist at all.
This is why I find it difficult to view an “Open Mosque Day” as merely an educational excursion.
Because the question that always accompanies me is not: Why do people not know Islam?
Rather: Why do we assume that everyone who criticises it, or has reservations about it, simply does not know it yet?
Some people do not speak from the position of a visitor, but from the position of a witness. And the difference between the two is enormous.
And if, for a moment, we move beyond the question of who knows Islam and who does not, another issue appears before us that is no less important:
Which Islam is being presented during an “Open Mosque Day”?
Every presentation, no matter how neutral it claims to be, is built on selection. And every selection necessarily involves exclusion.
For this reason, no event can be evaluated solely by what it chooses to display, but also by what it chooses not to display.
This is where the real questions begin.
Not at the tables where the pamphlets are laid out, but in the empty spaces between them.
Why, for example, are there no displays at the entrance entitled “The Difficult Questions”?
Why are there no sessions dedicated to discussing the most controversial issues?
Why is the visitor not told from the outset: Ask about everything. Ask about apostasy, about non-Muslims, about the boundaries between believer and unbeliever, about interfaith marriage, about the relationship between Sharia and civil law, about everything you hear in the media and everything that concerns or troubles you.
When a visitor enters a mosque on an open day, they are presented with a carefully arranged version of Islam. Everything appears considered: the selected verses, the selected stories, the selected topics, and even the questions people are encouraged to ask.
The organisers speak about mercy, charity, family, neighbours, tolerance, and shared values. But the problem does not lie in what is said. The problem lies in the fact that the picture appears complete when it is not.
When the Qur’an is displayed open to Surah Maryam at the entrance, that choice is not accidental.
It is a visual message before it is a religious one.
A message that says to the Christian visitor: Look, we too believe in Mary.
But does the visitor know that the same chapter presents Mary in a manner fundamentally different from Christian doctrine? Do they know that it presents Jesus Christ as a prophet and nothing more? Do they know that it denies His divine sonship and rejects the doctrine of the Trinity, the very foundation of Christian belief? Do they know that it does not merely differ from Christian doctrine, but rejects it altogether?
This is not about Surah Maryam alone. It is a broader pattern.
Read Here & Here.
The points that create an immediate sense of familiarity are displayed, while the points that raise difficult questions are postponed. The common ground is highlighted, while the disputed ground is pushed into the background. Any person, institution, or ideology can appear attractive if it possesses the power to choose what it will display and what it will conceal.
Instead, most tours revolve around Islamic architecture, Arabic calligraphy, the pillars of Islam, the daily lives of Muslims, and a handful of emotionally engaging human stories.
In some of these events, Islam is not merely explained; visitors are invited to experience part of it. Some children are encouraged to wear the hijab, others try standing in prayer rows, and visitors learn something about ablution. They may also be invited to participate in activities connected to religious rituals and symbols.
If the objective is purely educational, then why does the process move beyond information? Why does it move from explanation to experience, from knowledge to feeling, from presenting an idea to creating a psychological connection with it?
There is a significant difference between explaining what you believe and inviting me to taste the experience itself. There is an even greater difference between education and dialogue on the one hand, and the cultivation of emotional impressions on the other.
Is the visitor truly getting to know Islam? Or are they getting to know the version that the organisers have decided is appropriate to present?
One of the hardest things to ignore is that most of these initiatives flourish only in countries that Islamists criticise day and night.
“Open Mosque Day” was not born in Kabul, Tehran, Riyadh, or Idlib, nor in any environment where religious authorities or Islamists exercise broad influence over public life.
It was born in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, and across Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
It was born in places that allow people to disagree, criticise, object, mock, leave religion if they wish, and challenge an imam without fearing a visit from a religious police force, a morality committee, or the anger of family and tribe.
This day was born in a place where a mosque can open its doors to the public, distribute literature, organise events, host politicians and journalists, hold interfaith dialogue sessions, raise funds, establish associations, protest in the streets, challenge the government, and even accuse it of racism or Islamophobia, without fearing closure, prohibition, or persecution.
Indeed, the irony becomes sharper when we remember that these very events could not exist without the Western freedoms that are so often condemned as immoral, godless, and socially corrupt.
In many places outside this sphere, the question is not: How shall we organise an open day?
The question asked quietly is: Would we even be allowed to organise one?
We cannot ignore a simple irony: the societies that opened their doors to these initiatives are often the same societies portrayed in Islamic discourse as moral, civilisational, or spiritual crises.
Yet the freedom that allows a mosque to explain itself to others today is not a product of Islamic jurisprudence, Sharia, or Islamist movements. It is a product of the Western liberal model that granted everyone the right to speak, organise, advocate, and object in the first place.
The legitimate question here is this: if these values are so important when Muslims need their protection, why do they appear less important when non-Muslims, dissenters, or critics need them within Muslim societies?
What draws my attention most in photographs from “Open Mosque Day” is not who attended, but who did not.
After many years of these initiatives, the same images appear again and again: smiling faces, curious visitors, retirees, students, interfaith activists, people interested in different cultures, and individuals who entered the venue because they were already inclined to do so.
Yet the very people these initiatives supposedly exist to reach are scarcely visible.
You do not see the man who lost trust in this discourse years ago.
You do not see the woman carrying a painful experience from a conservative religious environment.
You do not see those who look at Islam with suspicion because of what they have lived through, witnessed, or read.
Nor do you see those around whom all these campaigns supposedly revolve.
The scene resembles a doctor standing in a public square to treat the sick, only to discover that those gathered before him are not the sick at all, but healthy people attending a lecture on health.
This is where the real question begins — not: How many people attended?
But: Where are the people we were told these initiatives were created to reach?
It may be easy to explain yourself to those who were already willing to listen.
It may be easy to speak about dialogue with those who came looking for dialogue in the first place.
But the real challenge begins with those who never enter the room at all.
Those who do not wish to attend.
Those who see no benefit in attending.
Or those who believe that nothing they hear there will be different from what they have heard before.
These, more than anyone else, are the great absentees from every group photograph taken at the end of the day.
Whenever I read about an “Open Mosque Day” or watch its reports and photographs, the same question returns to my mind:
Why did all of this emerge at that particular moment?
Not because Islam was unknown beforehand. Not because mosques did not exist. Not because people suddenly discovered that they had Muslim neighbours. All of that already existed.
But something else was happening in the background.
During those years, Islam was not present in public debate merely as a religion of prayer and fasting. It was present in news bulletins, political debates, and discussions about integration, extremism, terrorism, identity, and immigration. It was being questioned in a way it had not been questioned before.
It was at precisely that moment that doors began opening on a large scale, guided tours began appearing, national campaigns emerged, and open days multiplied.
When any individual, group, or institution feels that its image has come under scrutiny or doubt, it is only natural that it should seek to explain itself, defend itself, and present its own account of events.
Perhaps that is precisely why I cannot view these open days as merely an innocent invitation to a cup of tea and a tour of a mosque.
People do not arrive in these halls carrying blank notebooks. They arrive carrying memories, experiences, and impressions formed over many years. Some carry questions that have never been answered. Some carry old wounds. Some carry convictions that have settled in their minds long ago.
For this reason, it seems to me that the debate surrounding Islam in the West is far deeper than a misunderstanding that merely requires correction, or a stereotype that simply needs softening.
And so perhaps the most important question is not how we introduce people to Islam.
But which Islam we mean when we tell them: this is Islam. read more here
Everything about it begins with a single idea: that people do not know enough about Islam.
And whenever controversy grows, the same answer is offered: more explanation, more education, more dialogue.
But what about those who already know Islam?
Not from books, pamphlets, or guided tours, but from life itself.
Millions of people knew Islam long before they ever attended an open day or heard slogans about dialogue and understanding. They knew it in homes, schools, streets, and everyday relationships. They knew it when religion was not merely a belief held in the heart, but a social authority that followed every detail of life.
They knew it when some people knew you had missed the dawn prayer before they knew you were ill.
They knew it when a person’s religious reputation preceded them into employment, marriage, and social relationships.
They knew it when it was enough for someone to notice your absence from the mosque for a few weeks for the questions, whispers, and interpretations to begin.
They knew it when some people measured a person’s virtue by the number of prayers they had seen them perform rather than by the number of good deeds they had done.
They knew it when a woman hid her food during Ramadan, not because she “feared Allah”, but because she feared people — feared the looks, the comments, and the ready-made judgements, even though everyone knew she had a “legitimate religious excuse”.
They knew it when a young man sometimes pretended to believe things he did not truly believe, because honesty with society carried a higher cost than silence.
They knew it when some people concealed their true opinions for many years, not out of fear of prison, but out of fear of social rejection.
They knew it when relationships between people were not always built on morality, knowledge, or humanity, but on other questions: Does he pray? Does he fast? Is he observant? Is it permissible to sit with him? Is he suitable for marriage into our family? Can we eat at his house? Can we pray behind him?
They also knew it through the constant presence of halal and haram in the smallest details of life — in food, clothing, relationships, friendships, music, books, celebrations, words, and even the thoughts that pass through a person’s mind.
This is the experience that does not appear in group photographs.
This is the life that cannot be reduced to an elegant pamphlet placed on a table at the entrance of a mosque.
And so I find myself pausing at an idea that is constantly repeated: that people’s problem with Islam is that they do not know enough about it.
Many people do not look at Islam through the glass of an exhibition hall.
They look at it through a very long memory.
A memory filled with social surveillance, ready-made judgements, and the fear of departing from the group.
And perhaps here I arrive at what I consider the most sensitive question in this entire subject.
When a visitor is invited into a mosque under banners of coexistence, openness, and mutual respect, it is naturally assumed that these values are the organic extension of what this religion believes and what its history has produced.
Yet the moment one begins to look a little deeper, a far more complex reality emerges.
Much of the debate surrounding Islam in the modern era does not stem from a simple misunderstanding or an unfair stereotype, but from genuine discussions about texts, traditions, and rulings that still exist in books, references, and fatwas, and which millions of Muslims continue to regard as part of the religion itself.
This is where the gap emerges.
The issue is not about isolated mistakes or individual behaviour. One only has to browse some classical and contemporary works of Islamic jurisprudence to find lengthy discussions on how non-Muslims should be distinguished from Muslims in dress, appearance, and public life. One only has to listen to the debates taking place within Muslim societies themselves to see how takfir and accusations regarding a person’s faith are used as weapons against dissenters, thinkers, and those with unconventional views.
And one only has to look at the degree of fear that drives many people to conceal their true opinions or personal practices to realise that the debate is not always about stereotypes invented by others, but about realities and experiences people have lived through themselves.
For this reason, I do not believe the problem lies in the existence of these questions. The problem lies in acting, at times, as though they do not exist at all.
This is why I find it difficult to view an “Open Mosque Day” as merely an educational excursion.
Because the question that always accompanies me is not: Why do people not know Islam?
Rather: Why do we assume that everyone who criticises it, or has reservations about it, simply does not know it yet?
Some people do not speak from the position of a visitor, but from the position of a witness. And the difference between the two is enormous.
And if, for a moment, we move beyond the question of who knows Islam and who does not, another issue appears before us that is no less important:
Which Islam is being presented during an “Open Mosque Day”?
Every presentation, no matter how neutral it claims to be, is built on selection. And every selection necessarily involves exclusion.
For this reason, no event can be evaluated solely by what it chooses to display, but also by what it chooses not to display.
This is where the real questions begin.
Not at the tables where the pamphlets are laid out, but in the empty spaces between them.
Why, for example, are there no displays at the entrance entitled “The Difficult Questions”?
Why are there no sessions dedicated to discussing the most controversial issues?
Why is the visitor not told from the outset: Ask about everything. Ask about apostasy, about non-Muslims, about the boundaries between believer and unbeliever, about interfaith marriage, about the relationship between Sharia and civil law, about everything you hear in the media and everything that concerns or troubles you.
When a visitor enters a mosque on an open day, they are presented with a carefully arranged version of Islam. Everything appears considered: the selected verses, the selected stories, the selected topics, and even the questions people are encouraged to ask.
The organisers speak about mercy, charity, family, neighbours, tolerance, and shared values. But the problem does not lie in what is said. The problem lies in the fact that the picture appears complete when it is not.
When the Qur’an is displayed open to Surah Maryam at the entrance, that choice is not accidental.
It is a visual message before it is a religious one.
A message that says to the Christian visitor: Look, we too believe in Mary.
But does the visitor know that the same chapter presents Mary in a manner fundamentally different from Christian doctrine? Do they know that it presents Jesus Christ as a prophet and nothing more? Do they know that it denies His divine sonship and rejects the doctrine of the Trinity, the very foundation of Christian belief? Do they know that it does not merely differ from Christian doctrine, but rejects it altogether?
This is not about Surah Maryam alone. It is a broader pattern.
Read Here & Here.
The points that create an immediate sense of familiarity are displayed, while the points that raise difficult questions are postponed. The common ground is highlighted, while the disputed ground is pushed into the background. Any person, institution, or ideology can appear attractive if it possesses the power to choose what it will display and what it will conceal.
Instead, most tours revolve around Islamic architecture, Arabic calligraphy, the pillars of Islam, the daily lives of Muslims, and a handful of emotionally engaging human stories.
In some of these events, Islam is not merely explained; visitors are invited to experience part of it. Some children are encouraged to wear the hijab, others try standing in prayer rows, and visitors learn something about ablution. They may also be invited to participate in activities connected to religious rituals and symbols.
If the objective is purely educational, then why does the process move beyond information? Why does it move from explanation to experience, from knowledge to feeling, from presenting an idea to creating a psychological connection with it?
There is a significant difference between explaining what you believe and inviting me to taste the experience itself. There is an even greater difference between education and dialogue on the one hand, and the cultivation of emotional impressions on the other.
Is the visitor truly getting to know Islam? Or are they getting to know the version that the organisers have decided is appropriate to present?
One of the hardest things to ignore is that most of these initiatives flourish only in countries that Islamists criticise day and night.
“Open Mosque Day” was not born in Kabul, Tehran, Riyadh, or Idlib, nor in any environment where religious authorities or Islamists exercise broad influence over public life.
It was born in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, and across Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
It was born in places that allow people to disagree, criticise, object, mock, leave religion if they wish, and challenge an imam without fearing a visit from a religious police force, a morality committee, or the anger of family and tribe.
This day was born in a place where a mosque can open its doors to the public, distribute literature, organise events, host politicians and journalists, hold interfaith dialogue sessions, raise funds, establish associations, protest in the streets, challenge the government, and even accuse it of racism or Islamophobia, without fearing closure, prohibition, or persecution.
Indeed, the irony becomes sharper when we remember that these very events could not exist without the Western freedoms that are so often condemned as immoral, godless, and socially corrupt.
In many places outside this sphere, the question is not: How shall we organise an open day?
The question asked quietly is: Would we even be allowed to organise one?
We cannot ignore a simple irony: the societies that opened their doors to these initiatives are often the same societies portrayed in Islamic discourse as moral, civilisational, or spiritual crises.
Yet the freedom that allows a mosque to explain itself to others today is not a product of Islamic jurisprudence, Sharia, or Islamist movements. It is a product of the Western liberal model that granted everyone the right to speak, organise, advocate, and object in the first place.
The legitimate question here is this: if these values are so important when Muslims need their protection, why do they appear less important when non-Muslims, dissenters, or critics need them within Muslim societies?
What draws my attention most in photographs from “Open Mosque Day” is not who attended, but who did not.
After many years of these initiatives, the same images appear again and again: smiling faces, curious visitors, retirees, students, interfaith activists, people interested in different cultures, and individuals who entered the venue because they were already inclined to do so.
Yet the very people these initiatives supposedly exist to reach are scarcely visible.
You do not see the man who lost trust in this discourse years ago.
You do not see the woman carrying a painful experience from a conservative religious environment.
You do not see those who look at Islam with suspicion because of what they have lived through, witnessed, or read.
Nor do you see those around whom all these campaigns supposedly revolve.
The scene resembles a doctor standing in a public square to treat the sick, only to discover that those gathered before him are not the sick at all, but healthy people attending a lecture on health.
This is where the real question begins — not: How many people attended?
But: Where are the people we were told these initiatives were created to reach?
It may be easy to explain yourself to those who were already willing to listen.
It may be easy to speak about dialogue with those who came looking for dialogue in the first place.
But the real challenge begins with those who never enter the room at all.
Those who do not wish to attend.
Those who see no benefit in attending.
Or those who believe that nothing they hear there will be different from what they have heard before.
These, more than anyone else, are the great absentees from every group photograph taken at the end of the day.
Whenever I read about an “Open Mosque Day” or watch its reports and photographs, the same question returns to my mind:
Why did all of this emerge at that particular moment?
Not because Islam was unknown beforehand. Not because mosques did not exist. Not because people suddenly discovered that they had Muslim neighbours. All of that already existed.
But something else was happening in the background.
During those years, Islam was not present in public debate merely as a religion of prayer and fasting. It was present in news bulletins, political debates, and discussions about integration, extremism, terrorism, identity, and immigration. It was being questioned in a way it had not been questioned before.
It was at precisely that moment that doors began opening on a large scale, guided tours began appearing, national campaigns emerged, and open days multiplied.
When any individual, group, or institution feels that its image has come under scrutiny or doubt, it is only natural that it should seek to explain itself, defend itself, and present its own account of events.
Perhaps that is precisely why I cannot view these open days as merely an innocent invitation to a cup of tea and a tour of a mosque.
People do not arrive in these halls carrying blank notebooks. They arrive carrying memories, experiences, and impressions formed over many years. Some carry questions that have never been answered. Some carry old wounds. Some carry convictions that have settled in their minds long ago.
For this reason, it seems to me that the debate surrounding Islam in the West is far deeper than a misunderstanding that merely requires correction, or a stereotype that simply needs softening.
And so perhaps the most important question is not how we introduce people to Islam.
But which Islam we mean when we tell them: this is Islam. read more here
إرسال تعليق