Encounter with the Muslim Faith

So with the start of my second week of classes during J-term I found myself diving into what it really means to be a Muslim. With the the study of Islam comes a visit to a Mosque, more specifically a Mosque in Cedar Rapids. Today, 1/13/09, we went on a one and a half hour trip to Cedar Rapids to visit this Mosque. Keeping in mind that I have just study the religions of Christianity and Judaism, I was really excited to see what Islam had to offer in relation to the last two religions.
Even though we had spent the entire day before talking about Islam, I was still really excited to get many of my questions answered by the individual answering them. Today, I grew a little more enlightened by the religion and I came closer to understanding how beautiful a religion can became to the believer and to an individual like myself who believes in something else. With Islam being the third stop our my World Religions course, it was the next stage for me to really understand how all of the religions of the book are related.
So about this Mosque, it was surprising to me that almost ever religious building be had was very built for the community. the Mosque had a place to pray, a community center, areas to teach school, a kitchen for food!, a gym for recreation, and may other things. What I really notice was that the Mosque did not have any sacred spaces. It did have a room to where the community could pray together, but overall the Mosque did not have anything similar to a Church and it's tabernacle or the Ark in a Synagogue. The religion of Islam was something that held the sacred closer to the individual, the person was where all the ritual, space and time happened, this is mostly because the Muslims take a more active approach to their "submission" to God.
Overall, I enjoyed the visit to the Mosque and I enjoyed really learning so that in have way my growth in knowledge of this religion led to the destruction of misconceptions.