Worship

A mosque is a building used by muslims for worship and prayer.

Muslims remove their shoes and perform ritual washing before entering a Mosque to pray.

Internally, a Mosque is sparse, having little or no furniture. There will be no artwork or statues in the chamber. Islam does not condone any form of representation of Allah – to attempt to create an image of Allah is regarded as profane.

A niche is made on the wall which denotes the direction of Mecca – the direction in which people are to pray – this is called the qibla wall. Everyone is considered equal and all in attendance sit on the floor. Women may attend the mosque, but they sit separately from the men.

As one of the five pillars of faith, a Muslim is duty-bound to pray five times a day. These prayers do not have to be made within the walls of a Mosque. Wudu (ritual washing) must be performed prior to prayer (when water is not available, there are other acceptable practices). During the prayer recital there are also ritual movements (rak’ha) which should be performed. All prayer is performed in the direction of Mecca.

Mosques offer talks on Fridays by the Iman (a Qur’anic scholar) just before the midday prayer.