The Downtown Islamic Center is, from the outside, unassuming and hard to find. Located in the heart of the Chicago Loop — 231 S State St. — its entrance is tucked away between a Foot Locker and a DePaul University department building.
The mosque, or masjid, was established in 1976 as a “pray station” for working professionals, tourists, and other Muslims in the area who needed to observe religious services multiple times a day. People often choose between the center or a nearby Muslim business (locations are passed around by word of mouth) that has a musallah, or room for prayer. Then, they carry on with their day.
As I applauded myself for making it inside (after walking up and down the block for 15 minutes) and as I took in the colorful interior (which spanned four floors), a man cleared his throat.
Muhammed Ullah, the center’s office manager, was tired. He had already entertained student reporters from Northwestern University before me that very day. He just wanted to get back to his actual job.
“You’re going to ask me the same questions and I’m going to give you the same answers,” he said, disapprovingly. He began muttering in Hindi: I haven’t been able to get any of my work done. The students should’ve all come together. She came without an appointment.
Wanting to be fully transparent that I could understand him, I said, “Mr. Ullah, I made an appointment, but I can absolutely come back later. So sorry, I could’ve coordinated better with the others.”
Though the wariness didn’t disappear from his eyes, his posture eased a little with the language connection. He told me later that suddenly, it felt less like another outsider dropping by to check off a list of questions without caring how much time we took up.
Ullah offered me 10 minutes. The first thing I did was ask about the work I interrupted.
“We’ve tried it before, but haven’t been too successful,” he said. “But we’re trying to get more people involved past the prayer services.”
Going beyond the transient
Thousands of individuals that pass through downtown Chicago for business and pleasure purposes already have a primary mosque, temple, synagogue or church they attend near their physical homes. They look to these primary institutions — where they pay membership fees — for a worship community.
Meanwhile, places like the Downtown Islamic Center, St. Peter’s Catholic Church and the Chicago Loop Synagogue operate mainly based on volunteer contributions. They were established to serve individuals’ needs while they were temporarily downtown by providing barrier-free, no-cost access to religious services.
Per day, the Downtown Islamic Center opens for roughly seven hours, beginning at noon, and sees up to 300 patrons. Friday prayers, the most popular time to attend services, bring in more than 1,000 patrons.
“All are welcome,” Ullah said. “But creating a community — it’s structured in the suburbs. Because of our location and situation, it hasn’t worked here … more downtown Muslims are worried about their profession than religion.”
Still, over recent years, two trends have given Downtown Islamic Center staff enough hope to re-launch and add on to community programming, the center’s president Maqsood Quadri said.
Downtown Chicago’s zoning has changed to become more residential and mixed-use, especially in the south end where the mosque is located. This means more families are actually living in the Loop and rely on the Downtown Islamic Center as their primary religious institution.
And — most importantly, Quadri said — the current political climate has reinvigorated a younger generation of Muslims to take responsibility for their learning. They’re volunteering more, they’re asking for language and cultural classes, and they’re more protective.
“Young people are sitting back and thinking about world events, and they’re realizing, ‘I have some responsibility to do something,’” Ullah said. “They’re smarter than us and innovative, they have more energy … We’re targeting them with our programs.”
The mosque’s staff members have considered hiring a full-time imam in the past. So far, they have invited a Chicagoan convert to Islam to be the leading speaker on the religion’s teachings every Monday. Ullah said the speaker is very popular with younger generations, who are more interested in listening to a local, modern representative of Islam.
The center has also opened its doors to community members who want a space to work (I ran into some high school students filming a video project), hosts seminars (on current events, voter registration and social welfare) and offers classes (on the Arabic language and teachings of the Qur’an). Because religious education sticks best when it begins at a young age, classes are offered for children as small as 3 or 4 years old, too.
“Some things work, some things don’t. We will see,” Ullah said of the programming, shrugging.
One thing is clear. The way Islam is viewed in America today is a different ball game. It’s one of the most diverse religions practiced, with adherents from roughly 75 countries. And yet — as Edward Said critiqued in his book Covering Islam — it has been reduced to a blanket term with a simplistic meaning. The word “Islam” is used to explain all of Muslims’ actions and beliefs, and to serve as the counter to the modern, intellectual “West” (Said, 1997).
This in and of itself is not a new phenomenon. Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon. After all, Said’s book was published before 9/11.
But today, we have bills banning Shari’a Law (a set of norms, not law) in states like Texas and Tennessee. We have an American president who through social media ardently defends the “Muslim ban.” We have right-wing individuals arguing “it’s not about rights, it’s about what is right” when promoting anti-Islamic ideas, Nadia Marzouki writes — that philosophy has caught adherents like wildfire, while opponents fail to counter it at an affective level (Marzouki, 2017).
We also have generations of Muslims who have grown up American but have constantly been told that these two identities are inherently contradictory. That they must always reinforce their American-ness and they must selectively choose parts of their religion to remain American. That they must format their religion into a faith radically different from what we see terror groups espousing, in order to be a “good” Muslim (Marzouki, 2017).
Even when they do something seemingly mundane — like preparing for Ramadan at an iHop — it will get scrutinized: Are they just trying to prove how “American” they are? Is it enough? Is it too much? Are they hiding something? People fail to consider: Maybe people just like iHop and its 24-hour service.
Muslims, especially younger ones, are pulled in different directions on how to think, how to act and how to practice their religion. Whatever the answers are, many are realizing they don’t have to figure it out on their own.
That’s the point of going beyond transience, Quadri said. So people know that the Downtown Islamic Center is here for that guidance. It’s more than just a stop-and-go.
The others in the Loop
St. Peter’s Catholic Church is an “oasis in the desert,” or in the Loop, Father Elrich Sampson told me over the phone one Wednesday morning. We’re not trying to build a permanent community, he said. That’s not what this church is there for.
In fact, though late Cardinal Francis George initially wanted the church to become a parish — with a roster of people obligated to support the church and attend services — he decided against it.
So the church remains unattached and focused on people’s more immediate needs, offering 10.5 hours of confession every day, seven masses on weekdays, six masses on weekends and special programming for each season.
“The older parishioners who traditionally volunteer and donate are getting older and retiring,” Sampson said. “And I don’t think young people give as much as they used to. Can’t do anything about it.”
Still, Chicago Loop Synagogue has the same idea as the Downtown Islamic Center.
Executive Vice President Albert Karoll said the synagogue is expanding to include cultural events, lectures and cooking and dancing lessons — all “various aspects that reflect the diverse needs of the Jewish experience” for the increasing residential downtown population and for visitors or professionals.
Though the synagogue’s mission is still about creating widespread appeal, especially for passersby, being patrons’ secondary synagogue presents community building and fundraising challenges staff members now hope to address.
“People do not feel compelled to attend religious services in same way they once did,” Karoll said. “We have to look at how we can evolve to meet the changing needs. How can we make it interesting, viable and applicable to their lives? How do we engage them, get them to stay for more?”
It’s different when your religion is part of a minority: In this political climate, in this era of uncertainty and mistruths, of distortions and changing perceptions, people are looking for something authentic. They want something that makes them feel good, and that’s what a faith institution has to convey, Karoll said.
Topical and contemporary programming, especially related to domestic terrorism like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, has successfully done that, he added.
Similar to what Ullah and Quadri noted within the Muslim community, young Jews have also been mobilized to get involved with downtown religious organizations. However, Karoll said the synagogue hasn’t benefited as much from that mobilization as other Jewish groups in the Loop because it doesn’t have a permanent rabbi — a challenge the Downtown Islamic Center also faces with the lack of a permanent imam and is trying to counter by inviting the prominent, converted Chicagoan as a weekly speaker.
“We are in a search process currently to fill that position, and then I think we would be the beneficiary of the resurgence of young people,” Karoll said. “You just have to keep throwing stuff up against the wall.”
A note on reporting
Ullah and I ended up speaking for an hour and a half. He showed me around the floors of the building, talked to me about a weekly “feed the homeless” program run by the mosque and even taught me some Arabic words.
Before I left the center, he put his hand on my arm.
“I’m going to make you feel a little good. When you asked questions, I could tell you wanted to know the answers. You wanted to get as much information as you could. Others didn’t do that.”
Ullah went on sick leave for weeks afterward, and I couldn’t contact him for a while. But our beginning and ending exchanges stuck with me and, I’m sure, will continue to stick with me. I had to prove to Ullah that I was worthy of his time. It was also an example of previous reporting gone wrong, reporting that alters how people from marginalized communities view journalism as a whole: a profession that doesn’t hear them or help them, it just treats them like a means to an end.
Just look at The New York Times 2017 article misstating that religion was the “common denominator” (rather than race) during a weekend of supremacist rallies in Tennessee, the premise of which was challenged in Indiana University professor Winnifred Sullivan’s response. Just look at The Times (the England paper) 2017 piece on a Christian child being “forced” into Muslim foster care, the premise of which was destroyed (due to factual errors) by a Guardian analysis.
We are not entitled to people’s stories, their words, their minutes. Even if we technically did everything the “right way” (scheduling an appointment, calling ahead, etc.), we are not owed anything. And if people do grant us an interview, we need to be 100 percent focused, so that we don’t waste their time.
Because as someone who is marginalized, you can spend weeks, months, years (a lifetime really) creating a community and programming for people who need it. But it takes just one poorly conducted interview or one poorly written article to encroach on the space, the safety and the progress you’ve built.
Bad reporting, no matter how well meaning the reporter, is still bad reporting. We cannot forget that has consequences.