Inside Scoop On Islam

by Gavin Norman, 11th grade, Potomac MD

Everyone, get down on all fours… It’s praying time in Ein Rafa! Recently, we took a trip to the neighboring Muslim Arab village and learned about the religion of Islam from someone who actually practices it. Islam can be translated to submission to God which also means that God must be placed ahead of oneself. Women, put a head-scarf on and everyone take your shoes off. IT’S TIME TO ENTER THE MOSQUE!

Inside of the Ein Rafa mosque.  The niche in the wall is the 'Mikhrab'  where the imam leads prayer

The mosque doesn’t look much different than your average synagogue except that there aren’t any seats. This mosque has an exception because they let us in for a discussion with members of the community. One fact that really surprised me is that Muslims do not use the Torah to pray. They use an equivalent text called the Quran. Yasmin, who is a resident of Ein Rafa giving us the tour, taught us a lot about the five pillars of Islam and also the six articles of peace which are the foundations of the religion. We learned about the similarities and differences between Muslims and Jews which hopefully helped everyone understand more about Islam, aside from the stereotypes we hear on the news. Yasmin explained to us that radical Muslim extremists aren’t even considered to be Muslim by the peaceful majority and that they have the wrong idea about the important parts of the religion. Islam is supposed to be based on peace and submission to God, but extremists give Muslims a bad reputation. Everyone had fun on this tiyul, and most of the information was new to everyone. The girls even got to wear a hijab (headscarf). It was a really good learning experience because if you’re like me and had no idea what Islam is about, this explained everything you need to know. If I enjoyed the tiyul and was able to focus, then you know it was good!

our meeting with Yasmin inside the Ein Rafa mosque