My Experience At The Mosque In El Paso

Like most families in this city of El Paso, mine is Catholic, when talking about religion, I remember when I was little my mother and I attended to other religious services which my mother was invited to. From Sunday religious class I had thought that this was a sin however, my mother told me that it did not matter because we ourselves knew we were Catholic. Thus, I have the belief that people are born into religions and they must follow it as they were destined to. I tell this story to talk about the reaction I got from my family when they found out that I have attended a religious service at the Mosque. When I say my whole family, I mean my oldest aunt who is like a grandmother to me, she did not approve. Yet, this paper is about my experience

The Mosque in El Paso is fairly close to UTEP, it looks as if it is hidden in the mountains, unlike Catholic Churches, the Mosque is not at the corner of a busy street, rather is off the main street at the very end. One can perceive a building out of the ordinary, it is greyish looking almost white, two towers on each side and a blue dome in the middle. In the walls, one can see decorative patterns like mosaics which are the main characteristic of most Islam related pictures I have seen. Outside by the main entrance a plaque that reads “Islamic Center of El Paso” let us know where we are standing. The mountains behind the Mosque makes it look somewhat majestic and rare. There are two main entrances, one for men and one for women. This detail made me think about all

I have learned in class that there was no such separation, men and women were equal. I arrived an hour earlier and had 30 minutes to talk to Ibrahim by myself. I only asked basic questions, although he told me to ask me about stereotypes, I did not feel comfortable doing it. One of the explanations he gave for the separation of men and women was that they do not want any distractions. We talked about the existence of Jesus and the concept of Allah. Like in the Catholic church, I had the impression that he was telling me that his religion was better and that he was about to tell me why. He told me that Allah and God are the same yet, God is only one and that cannot be other, thus it is wrong for people to call Jesus God, he pulled out the Quran, I questioned the validity of a translated Quran, he told me that he carried the one in Arab to make sure. After we came back from prayer, he asks us if we had questions, then he gave water and a very delicious sandwich. All the time we were there, they were doing their best to make us feel