23.08.20
The Defintion Of The Term Mosque.
Some of you may have recently heard the General Secretary of The Chelmsford Muslim Society claim that the use of the Hamptons for Islamic prayer did not make it a mosque. We beg to differ. During an interview on Chelmsford Community Radio on the 10/08/20 the General secretary of the CMS Ayman Syed was asked by the interviewer (referring to Hamptons Sports and Leisure Club)
“Is that now fully operational as a mosque ?”
His response was “ Errrr no it’s not, I mean at the moment the difficulty we have is Covid making it difficult. This was also quite big news in the newspapers about us making this into a mosque, and I think the definition of what a mosque is, and how we look at it needs to be kind of erm coccooned or recognised. So for us when you have a place of worship that has 5 times daily prayers going on, that in effect for us Muslims becomes known as a mosque”
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of a mosque is “A Muslim Place of Worship” and Vocabulary.com offers “The mosque is the traditional Muslim place of worship. Architecturally, it often features a minaret, or onion-shaped dome, on top”
Wikipedia defines a mosque as “A mosque (/mɒsk/; from Arabic: مَسْجِد, romanized: masjid, pronounced [masdʒid]; literally "place of ritual prostration") is a place of worship for Muslims.[1][2] Any act of worship that follows the Islamic rules of prayer can be said to create a mosque, whether or not it takes place in a special building.[2] Informal and open-air places of worship are called musalla, while mosques used for communal prayer on Fridays are known as jāmiʿ.[1]
The Collins Dictionary has “A mosque is a building where Muslims go to worship”
And finally Britannica offers “Mosque, Arabic masjid or jāmiʿ, any house or open area of prayer in Islam. The Arabic word masjid means “a place of prostration” to God, and the same word is used in Persian, Urdu, and Turkish. Two main types of mosques can be distinguished: the masjid jāmiʿ, or “collective mosque,” a large state-controlled mosque that is the centre of community worship and the site of Friday prayer services; and smaller mosques operated privately by various groups within society.
No mentions of five times daily prayers.
Some of you will remember the many fundraising pages that the Chelmsford Muslim Society ran to purchase the Hamptons. Take a look at the descriptions of the proposed use of the premises.
Pretty clear really.