The Sheltering Space

An ongoing series about Inverness Masjid, the northernmost mosque in the UK. Part one  is here.

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“You’ll need to blank out my face in that picture please…” said the Imam as he heard my shutter click and noticed the camera pointing towards him. He had offered to make me tea, and framed by the doorway to the small kitchen I could not resist the composition he presented.

“Don’t worry…” I replied reassuringly “…you’re partly in silhouette and not facing the camera so wont be identifiable, it’s really just your shape and the surroundings all together that makes this one work for me as a photograph”

“Oh ok, that’s good…!” and he relaxed. Then with a resigned sigh added: “It’s just that…well…it’s bad enough as it is with the insults I get, but if people saw me in a photo wearing these robes I have for my imam duties it would be even worse…more ammunition for them…”

 

 

He handed me a steaming cup of tea, and continued… “I’m well known where I live but not necessarily as an imam and…well…hmm…anything that gives people even more to insult me about..och..well…I just don’t need it…”

“Does it bother you…or are you used to it..?” I ventured, aware that implicit in the casual way I posed the question was a tacit acknowledgment that to be insulted like this was not unusual.

“Well, you get used to it I suppose…but not immune to it..” and he sighed. Again.

He excused himself to go and prepare for Friday prayers, and I wandered into the mosque. Noticeable by its prominence in the hall was a pile of food in cardboard boxes, rice, tins of chickpeas, lentils, pasta and more, much more. I took a picture and made a mental note to ask where this was going.

 

 

Friday prayers attract a lot of people. Some arrive early and prepare carefully, others dash in at the last minute, obviously escaping from the pressures of home or work, enjoying a brief moment of calm within the mosque before returning to ‘the outside world’. Many of their faces are familiar to me now. I may not have spoken with all of them, but they see me, and some smile, others shake my hand, many nod in greeting.

 

 

But this week several new faces appeared, all of whom looked towards me with a degree of curiosity, but one young man in particular looked in my direction and his face fell. He immediately approached the Imam and I heard the word “…camera…” then they fell into conversation, the arrival of more people drowning out their voices. It’s not taken me too long to realize that, in the mosque, I’m the odd one out.

 

 

Another man approached me, a warm smile on his face, his hand outstretched in greeting. “I like your camera, what is it?”  We talked, his knowledge of photography was extensive. He was from Pakistan, had been a news cameraman there, but had moved to England, and was now living in Birmingham. But no, he could not get any camera operators jobs here so he was working at anything else he could.

“Why are you up in this part of the world? Is this you on holiday or visiting relatives?”  I inquired.

He smiled “No, I’m thinking of moving to the Highlands, I don’t like the hassle in the south, the hatred, there’s too much of it. I have children, four of them, from 4 to 11 years old, they don’t need to be surrounded by that, to grow up in all of it. They need a decent life. This is my second visit to Inverness, I took my son the last time, and he said “If I like it daddy we’ll stay, ok!” and he thought it was very nice! So we might move here.”

“Do YOU like it?” I asked.

“Yes, I do. The quality of life seems good, and the people are friendly. Oh I’d better go, prayers are starting. Good to talk with you!”

The Imam had begun to speak.

 

 

The Imam is only a young man, but confident and quietly spoken, with strikingly perfect teeth, and a dazzling smile. And when he delivers his sermon it is with forethought and passion. Although I’m continually moving around quietly looking for angles that might make a photograph, I listen.

 

 

This week he talked about cleanliness, not just a casual reminder that to be ‘clean’ in both body and mind is important, but an exhortation to make physical and spiritual cleanliness a core part of your being. The congregation sat in silence, thoughtful, affirmative nods of their heads punctuating his sermon. The imam painstakingly wove advice on intimate physical cleanliness into the fabric of his sermon, delivered with a level of detail that surprised me. No metaphor nor simile here. The rapt faces clearly appreciated his candour.

 

 

 

 

After the service, there was rice pudding. Dispel any notion of something that might resemble Ambrosia Creamed Rice that you’d casually pour out of a tin, this was lovingly home-made, an explosion of textures and flavours, rice, fruit peel, nuts, honey and spices combining gloriously. The Imam approached me. “Did you get some photographs?” I nodded, my mouth too full of rice-delight to be able to reply.

I hastened a deeply satisfying swallow, then: “I got some, thank you, movement of people, slow shutter stuff. I got a few funny looks too and one young man was a bit perplexed I think. I saw you speak with him, was he ok?”

 

 

“The Imam smiled “Relax, dont worry, he wondered why you had the camera in here, what you were doing. But it was ok, I explained your motives and…well…nothing in the mosque happens without my permission and if I say you can be trusted to be here, that is all that’s needed.” And after explaining that the piles of boxes in the hall were full of food being collected to help feed refugees from Syria, he excused himself to shake hands and bid farewell to the dispersing congregation.

 

 

It’s easy as a casual (white western) onlooker to see the mosque as simply a space, like a church or chapel, where the congregation gather to celebrate their common faith. But the mosque, I’m coming to realize, is a more significant space for the Muslim community. Its a place for them to be together where they are ‘safe’ from the pejorative gaze, the sly glance and stinging comment that many must endure in the outside world on a regular basis.

And that thought, as I stood with my large and conspicuous white-lensed camera, made me feel very, very guilty.