Mosques

By Hadiza Abdulkadir

The Presidency for Religious Affairs at the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque has launched a groundbreaking digital enrichment project using artificial intelligence (AI) to teach and correct the recitation of Surah Al-Fatihah.

The initiative, inaugurated on Saturday, is part of broader efforts to enhance the experience of pilgrims and visitors at the Two Holy Mosques. 

It offers an advanced educational platform that allows users to enhance their recitation through AI-driven analysis, listen to model recitations from imams of the mosque, and explore translations of the surah in various languages.

According to the Presidency, this represents the pilot phase of the project, which is expected to expand in the future. The platform employs advanced algorithms to evaluate recitation in real-time, connecting traditional learning methods with modern technology.

As part of Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation strategy in religious education, the initiative aims to offer a seamless and enriching learning experience for visitors from around the world.

By Malam Mahmud Zukogi

Those who did one program or the other at the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) new campus may know Malam Ahmad in two places: the university library and the now-old new campus mosque. 

For students who frequent the library for the serious business of “acada,” the likelihood of you not meeting Malam Ahmad every other day is zero. At any of his bits in the Reserve, Circulation, Serials, and Nigeriana sections, you are certain to meet a man who is calm, gentle, welcoming, and professional in his disposition. 

Malam Ahmad listens to you, guides you, and directs you where to get the books and materials you seek. Such is the man Malam Ahmad, who recently retired from the services of Bayero University, Kano, as a Principal Librarian in 2019.

Malam Ahmad obtained his Diploma in Library Science in the early eighties and was absorbed into the university’s services. He went on to do his bachelor of Arts Education in Library Science at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria and capped it off with a master’s degree in BUK.

However, his professional duty has not made Malam Ahmad renowned at the university. For over 40 years, his heart has been devoted to the mosque. Starting as an assistant Muezzin, he rose to become the substantive Muezzin, a role he held steadfastly. 

At the onset of time for prayers, you will hear Malam Ahmad’s voice waxing through the air, calling faithful to prayer. He’s as constant as the northern star. Whether sun or rain, he will be on top of time to open the mosque, clean up the spaces and hit the mic with his signature voice. Let the rains tear through the skies with intensity at dawn; his voice calling to prayer and success will wow the fierce nature into the homes and ears of adherents in the quarters. Subhanallah.

He looks frail in his mid-seventies, but his heart is still strong and firm. As a testimony to this, even after packing out of the university quarters, Malam Ahmad will still be in the mosque at the appointed time. The only time you won’t find him is when he is challenged healthwise. He is a very peaceful man, never engaging in any squabbles or quarrels. You will find him engrossed in zikr and recitation of the Holy Qur’an between prayers. 

Ya Allah, grant this your servant good health and endow him with sufficient means to live his remaining life in peace and harmony. Ya Allah, grant him a beautiful ending and enlist him into Jannat ul Firdaus.

By Bello Hussein Adoto

When COVID-19 came, we switched from receiving exegeses of the Qur’an and Hadith from masājid and physical gatherings of knowledge to virtual ones. We attended Facebook Live and Zoom sessions to listen to our favourite scholars. We followed their tafsirs on Mixlr, Google Meet, and Telegram.

These were supposed to be temporary solutions to the social-distancing mandates that COVID-19 imposed, but they have become the norm. It is about time we returned to the masājid to restore their beauty and secure the blessings of learning physically from scholars.

This Ramadan is a great time to start.

Allāh says in the glorious Qur’an, “I did not create mankind and the jinn except to worship Me.” The masjid is central to this worship. We observe the congregational ṣalāt at the masjid, perform iʿtikāf there, distribute the zakāh, and listen to explanations from our scholars.

Beyond worship, the masjid unites us as a community by bringing us together with our Muslim brothers and sisters as members of a shared community, united by faith. In preserving this faith and community, we must find a way to restore the essence of our masajid, even in the age of online communities.

Why should we return to the masjid?

Islam is not against technological innovations that would benefit Muslims. Indeed, we use microphones to project the adhan, telescopes to observe the moon, and smartphones and other devices to spread the message of Islam beyond the masajid. Therefore, we are free to seek and adopt goodness from any source.

However, attending virtual lectures or learning at online madrasahs or Islamic institutes should complement, not substitute, listening to lectures in the masjid or learning physically at the feet of scholars.

The masjid creates a veritable platform for teachers, scholars, and students to connect physically and leverage the elements of the surroundings—the sound, the sights, the mannerisms, and the divine blessings—to achieve maximum benefit from the engagement. Besides, it is the most common place to connect as brothers and sisters and focus solely on learning and worship without distractions.

So, how can we return to the masjid?

Start small

Returning to lectures at the mosque or taking in-person classes would be challenging in the first few days. You are changing a routine and need time to adjust.

So, start small. Instead of joining Twitter Spaces for morning reminders, stay back for three to five minutes to listen to short tafsirs of the Quran and Hadith. If that is unavailable at your masjid, introduce the idea to the masjid committee. Then, you can listen to your virtual sessions on your way home.

Commit to optimizing Jum’ah sessions

The Jum’ah prayer is our weekly chance to gather in our numbers to worship Allah. Thankfully, Imams deliver khutbahs on salient issues that can provide us with much to ponder for the week. We can optimize our schedules to prioritize the Jum’ah sessions.

Set out early to secure convenient spots. Those of us who sleep through the khutbah can nap before going for Jum’ah. That way, we are more likely to stay sharp until the end of the service and earn the full reward.

Leverage your local masjid

The scholars at the mosque you pray at may not compare with the exotic collection of scholars you can listen to online, but they offer a great platform to keep you grounded in your community’s realities.

They speak your language, use local examples to explain Islamic concepts, and are easier to reach than those you listen to online. Physical sessions with these scholars and teachers also provide a social presence unmatched by virtual ones.

The mere fact that they are live before you strengthens your connection and primes you to appreciate better the content and context of the lecture or discussion. So, start with your local masjid and see how a virtual platform can help you improve.

Remember, the masjid offers more than learning

Think back to the last time you were at the masjid. Perhaps you met a brother you hadn’t seen in a while or made a new acquaintance. Whatever the case, you must have said tasleem, shaken a hand or two, or even felt the warm embrace of your brother in the Deen. Such is the richness that comes with the masjid, the one that strengthens our brotherliness and fetches Allah’s mercies.

We can listen to podcasts for hours and join Mixlr, Zoom, Google Meet, Facebook, or YouTube live sessions to follow our favourite scholars. Still, they cannot and should not replace our intimate experience of physical sessions.

If anything, their many limitations—the distractions, the weaker connection between scholars and students, speakers and listeners, the transient sense of community that virtual platforms foster, and even the difficulties that come with setting up virtual sessions and following them—show that we need our masājid and our ḥalaqah now more than ever.

Ramadan is here. It’s time to return to the masjid.

By Binyamin Lawal

Researchers often point to the dominance of virtual culture and modes of visual perception that organise everyday life. However, in a place like Nigeria, “public sound is a far greater presence and comes to constitute the ambient environment” (Larkin 2014: 992). Out of these multiple sounds, those disbursed with a glaring presence are those emanating from the sacred spaces. As a focal space for the generation of piety, one wonders whether such disbursement of sounds ‘piety’ is indeed achieved. This is one of the questions we should reflect on as we step into the month of Ramadan.   

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar in which fasting (Arabic: saum) is prescribed for Muslims so as to attain the status of Al-Muttaqūn (the pious: those who fear Allah and abstain from sins and evil deeds) (see Q 2: 183). Due to the special position of the month, Muslims live a substantial part of the year attached to it. They either pray to witness the month or pray that Allah accepts their acts of worship during the month. 

Now, as the month of Ramadan begins, we need not only to reflect on improving our piety but cultivating attitudes of not inflicting harm to people as well. In other words, while we encourage people to come closer to Allah through good conduct, we should refrain from other actions capable of eating up our good deeds. 

While Ramadan is the season where Muslims come closer to Allah and increase their piety – as stated above, activities that cause inconvenience to others must be avoided since avoiding the infliction of harm to humans is in itself an act of worship (Ibadah). Against this backdrop, the usage of loudspeakers, especially at night, needs to be regulated during the month and particularly the last ten days. In this regard, I would like to recount – from my memory – what I heard from a Kano-based Islamic scholar who responded to a question on the emission of sounds far beyond the sacred space.

In his response, he pointed out that doing that causes a lot of inconvenience to people around. As such, it is ‘unlawful’. He explained that some might want to pray in their houses, and the sound of the recitation dominating the public space will not allow them to have the needed silent atmosphere. Others may just want to sleep. Both are denied the silence and decorum they genuinely deserve.

In this regard, we should also be mindful of those willing to engage in prayers the whole night but cannot due to the kind of work/business they do during the day. After all, in their case, doing the work during the day to keep up their responsibilities is wajib (compulsory), while the prayers are recommended.

The night, as we know, is a special time to seek closeness to Allah, at the same time, a period of rest; “And We have made your sleep as a thing for rest, and We have made the night as a covering (through its darkness)” (Q 78: 9-10). Sleep, which is meant to be a rest, as stated in verse 9, is complemented by the covering provided by the darkness of the night to give us respite from the exertions of the day. That must be respected as we engage in our Qiyāmul-lail.

Furthermore, the Sheikh emphasised that our public spaces are shared between Muslims and Christians who don’t partake in Ramadan activities, so why incommodes them? In addition, one could also think of the sick persons whose sleep may be interrupted. Observing the act closely, one fears the salient intent of presence-making or show-off, an act that is seriously frowned at. “Say: “Will you inform Allah of your religion while Allah knows all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth, and Allah is All-Knowing of everything” (Q 49:16).

Binyamin Lawan is a PhD student in Islamic Studies and wrote via abinyaminlawal@gmail.com.

By Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido

A person who sponsors and takes good care of a single orphan is assured of a mansion in the choicest quarters of Firdaus at the centre of the Prophet’s Estate, enjoying their eternal life as a neighbour to the Infallible Master (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam). In the Hadith of Bukhari, the Prophet says, “The caretaker of the orphan and I will enter paradise like this, raising (by way of illustration) his forefinger and middle finger jointly, leaving no space in-between.”

A community flooded with orphans and vulnerable children with no access to food, clothing, shelter, education, and medicare; orphans whose neglect aggravate their vulnerability to all sorts of socio-economic dangers; should prioritise taking care of them. If competing in building mosques even where there is less need is to get paradise, why not also invest in this sure way to Heaven?

And, why not consider endowments for fighting hunger also? When a person asked the Prophet, what is the best act in Islam, the Prophet mentioned two actions: “To feed (others) and to greet those whom you know and those whom you do not know” (Bukhari). And the Prophet also counted “feeding others” among the surest ways to paradise, alongside spreading salam, strengthening kinship ties and night prayers. Why not, then also emphasise in our society, making endowments for feeding the needy and the millions of the malnourished and unnourished children as a guaranteed path to paradise? 

My honest opinion is that rather than rebuilding or redecorating some mosques, we need to invest more in empowering our imams and their followers. We can all see how the “imamdom” is gradually being saturated with incapable scholars leading ignorant followers in prayers within well-decorated mosques. As if we have forgotten that giving quality education and “beneficial knowledge” to people is itself a sustainable afterlife investment, one that may even often have more multiplier effects and trickle-down effects in terms of fetching rewards perpetually and building the Muslim community progressively.

If one sponsors a young man to become an Islamic scholar and imam, anytime this trained scholar preaches and teaches, the sponsor has a reward commission. And when the students of the imam teach or use the knowledge, the sponsor is assured of a commission. It continues in that way till “the end of history”! So, if the search for reward is what makes us race in building worship places, then so should building qualitative worshipers. We should, in fact, see the creation of generations of qualitative Muslims as a “blue ocean”; a virgin and highly underexplored otherworldly investment opportunity.  

Some may remind us that the Prophet’s first thing after hijra was to build a mosque. True. But that was first because there was none. And secondly, this mosque, as a primary symbol of Islam, was built for companions who were well educated in Makkah before migration, plus the Medinan community that was also educated by no other scholar than the great Mus’ab bin ‘Umayr.

In any case, the Prophet built the mosque because it was a priority by all standards; there was a need. And so immediately after that, he also paid attention to other developmental matters, including socio-economic priorities like establishing the Medinan Market (Suq al-Madinah). He also immediately began calling companions to “purchase” homes in Jannah through addressing human needs. That was how Uthman got an edifice in Jannah by purchasing the well of Ruma and dedicating it as waqf. That was how Abu Talha got Paradise by committing a waqf of his garden to benefit the needy and his poor relatives.

In fact, as recorded, most rich companions got their direct entry admission to Jannah through spending on human needs; Uthman bought and did waqf of the Ruma well, Umar dedicated the Thamqh garden for the poor, wayfarers and the rest, and the list goes. Little did we remember that in addition to doing a waqf of his mosque, virtually all the other waqfs of the Prophet were for welfare and socio-economic empowerment. 

We need to discuss whether building the Muslims and making them self-sufficient should continue to receive our philanthropic priorities or building mansions in the name of mosques – even where there is less need – which would mostly be populated by undedicated, hungry, dirty and largely ill worshippers. Building worship places is undoubtedly required, guaranteed key to paradise, ceteris paribus. It is, however, one of many means to getting admission to paradise. Why, then, should we not start to amplify other keys to paradise, especially those in some contexts such as ours that may appear weightier on the scale of Muslim priorities?

It is not in the interest of Islam to have dirty looking Muslims attending multimillion naira mosques. Islam wants educated, neat, tranquil, self-sufficient, qualitative Muslims whose worship is knowledge-based. So, when some philanthropists focus on building worship places, others need to invest in other equally rewarding endeavours. Wherever we have no worship place, it is a collective duty upon the community members to initiate one. However, where we already have one, we must prioritise other joint obligations; taking care of the orphans, the poor and widows being one of them. We can do it through building revenue-generating waqfs that can perpetually help the poor and everlasting generate rewards to the donor.

Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido is the Chairman Zakah and Waqf Foundation Gombe, Nigeria. He can be reached via lamidomabudi@gmail.com.

By Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido

Alhaji Halilu is a popular, wealthy businessman. Famous for his continuous investment in constructing mosques, people in his town, surrounding villages and neighbouring states came to know him as Alhaji Mai-Masallatai (roughly, the Mosques Builder). His main motivation is the authentic hadith that promises a house in paradise for anyone who builds a mosque for Allah.

Thus, whenever Mai-Masallatai is approached with a request for mosque construction, he gives an automatic positive response. Alhaji dedicated all his philanthropic budget to building mosques, with virtually zero allocation to any other act of charity. He never says no to a mosque request. Within some time, he had constructed mosques for almost all the communities within his town and neighbouring villages. His ultimate goal is to own wonderful castles in heaven, and, Alhamdulillah, he has got a guarantee for that in constructing mosques from an infallible mouth. 

Now, three things happened. One, as there are not many communities lacking mosques, people started requesting him to repair the mosques he built for them last five, ten or seven years; to rebuild their mosque, repair it, or buy them new sound system, new carpet for the mosque, electricity generator, or “solar” and so on. Mai-Masallatai gradually transformed into Mai gyaran Masallatai, from building mosques to redecorating and making existing mosques “befitting” and ultramodern.

The second trend then followed. Since Mai-Masallatai is not the only aspirant for paradise, other wealthy persons joined the mosque construction endeavour. As a result, the number of mosques increases – two or more mosques in an unnecessarily close distance. A  community that needs one mosque would request a second one for flimsy reasons; we have Sheikh XYZ, who should be an imam and has no mosque; why not get one for him so the society would benefit from his imamship! And any rich man who builds a new house would ensure that a mosque is embedded from the inception of the architectural design. So, each neighbourhood or street, and almost each “big” house, has a mosque attachment built by a person who wants paradise. Soon the third issue began to arise; imams scarcity.

It is noteworthy that Mai-Masallatai and all his emulators live and do business within a Muslim community that has thousands of orphans who live in hunger, disease, illness and squalor. They coexist with hundreds of widows who survive in shabbiness, battling the spiritual ills, psychological traumas and socio-economic vulnerabilities associated with poverty, ignorance and starvation. They reside in neighbourhoods bedevilled with noise, air and dirt population, with zero consciousness of environmental challenges; where people often urinate and defecate in the open, at public passages and places as crucial as mosques and marketplaces and stadia. They live in communities that use firewood as an energy source but with near-zero interest in planting trees.

Mai-Masallatai builds mosques for communities where well above 80% of the people cannot correctly recite the Fatiha and are mostly ignorant of the basics of purification, ablution and prayer. The worship places are beautiful, “befitting”, and “ultra-modern”. But the worshippers are ultra-ignorant, extra-hungry and super-poor. While the mosques are decorated, the mosque attendants are neglected.

The community severely lacks qualified imams and doesn’t have a plan to train religious scholars or imams. Nearly all are accidental scholars and imams. Most imams are less qualified, semi-qualified, or simply unqualified. Those with minimum requirements have no access to any “on the job training” and retraining. They have no grounding in jurisprudence nor appreciation of the complexities of their time and place. They might know a little of actually elementary Islamic texts, but not of their context. They continue to recycle their khutbas, reading for their congregation – often with a lot of mistakes – imported sermons presented for the 20^th-century audience in Egypt or Morocco or Saudi Arabia or Algeria (depending upon the inclination of the imams), which are compiled in a collection of sermons or al-khutab al-minbariyya. The sermons are in Arabic, reread for an audience dominated by over 90% of people who do not understand Arabic except, perhaps, “Allahu Akbar”!  

Dear reader, to what extent is your community better than Mai-Masallatai’s? Should building worship places take priority over building the worshippers? Should we continue to construct “befitting”, “ultramodern”, and “world-class” mosques for largely poor, ignorant and confused Muslim communities? Should we, while, of course, building mosques where they are truly needed, not also prioritize producing a Muslim population that is religiously educated, morally upright, intellectually sound, socio-economic dignified and religiously conscious. What better serves the essence of the mosque as an Islamic institution: a beautiful building or an educated congregation? Should building mosques be the only priority in a village where there is not even a single person learned in the Qur’an and the jurisprudence of purification, ablution, prayer, fasting, and other rituals?

More questions are begging for answers. For example, what will be more critical between saving people’s faith through addressing their basic needs of life, thereby shielding them from the onslaughts of evangelism and other anti-Islamic missions on the one hand, and mere building a mosque where there are no qualified imams and scholars to teach them creed and worship on the other? Should we continue to have “comfortable places” for ignorant and hungry worshippers rather than building conscious and educated worshippers? 

Given the current religious and socio-economic realities of Muslims in Nigeria, what should be the focus and priority areas of intervention in terms of philanthropy? Please don’t mistake my position. No Muslims will disagree regarding the centrality of mosques as Islamic symbol numero uno. Where there is no mosque, it is a collective responsibility upon the Muslims to build one to the best of their ability. What, however, may need reflection is the question of when, where and why building a mosque should take primacy vis-à-vis other Muslim priorities and when not. Is it not imperative, for instance, for us to begin to remind ourselves that much as we can get a shortcut to paradise through building mosques, there are other philanthropic acts that not only guarantee paradise but even assure of a choice area and unmatchable edifice in Jannah?

Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido is the Chairman Zakah and Waqf Foundation Gombe, Nigeria. He can be reached lamidomabudi@gmail.com.