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> Editorial
> What's the Story?
> Mrs. Fixit
> Desperately Seeking Ingredients...
> Passionate about Mill Road
> Caribbean Masterchef
> Everything is Possible!
> A Sanctuary on Mill Road
> Boat People
> Going Green with Al-Amin
> The Akashi Project
> Open All Hours
> Mesmerised by Meze
> Come Together
> The Girl from Arapau
> Still Sweet and Spicy
> A Real Neighourhood
> Lei Si Fan Mei?
> Flight from Baghdad
> Streets of Revolution
> Stepping up the Ladder
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A Real Neighbourhood
The congregation of Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque must be one of the most diverse conceivable, with something in the order of 70–80 nationalities.
Walk along Mill Road where it meets Mawson Road any Friday afternoon after prayers and see for yourself. Or rather, hear. As the worshippers spill out shaking hands, back slapping and making for the Café de Paris or Carlos’ takeaway, I hear Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish, Urdu, and Estuary and American English. But isn’t that Spanish? And Chinese?
Abdal Hakim Murad, who sometimes leads Friday prayers, explains. ‘We have a group of Chinese worshippers of the Hui ethnic minority. Islam goes back over a thousand years in China. There are also a few Venezuelan converts, and some African-Americans who drive in from the US airforce base at Lakenheath. Our main Imam, Sejad Mekic, is Bosnian. And there’s me, an English convert to Islam.’ |
When Abdal Hakim Murad is not wearing his preaching hat (or turban) he is Tim Winter, fellow of Wolfson College and lecturer in Islamic studies at Cambridge University. Is it confusing having two names? ‘It’s got its advantages’, says Abdal Hakim/Tim. ‘It means I can write glowing reviews of my own books.’
Abu Bakr Siddiq mosque is said to have started life as a synagogue, then for years did service as the Coop warehouse. Converted to a mosque in the 80s, the building has been extended right back into the bay fronted window of an east facing terraced house in Tenison Road, from where Abdul Hakim leads Friday prayers. But as Cambridge’s only functioning public mosque, besides various prayer rooms and a small university mosque, its congregation is literally spilling out into the street.
‘There are a potential 3000 Muslims in Cambridge who may want to attend the mosque at any time,’ says Abdal Hakim. ‘On big holidays, like Eid el Fitr at the end of Ramadan, we use Kelsey Kerridge sports hall. But most Fridays we’re literally praying on Mawson Road! The local residents are very good, I must say, only the traffic wardens get a bit uptight.’
At the moment the mosque is having an upstairs extension to make room for the devout forced to spread their prayer mats in the street. It will also enlarge the upstairs gallery to accommodate more worshippers, many of them women, the fastest growing group of British converts to Islam. One such convert is Sheridan James, Britain’s first female Islamic chaplain at Anglia Ruskin University. ‘Most British women convert through their own spiritual questing. For many, conversion comes with marriage to Muslim men. Others, as in my case, convert because they are opting out of liberal western expectations of what it means to be a woman. Such stereotypes proved the opposite of liberating for me personally.’
With numbers rising, the mosque is looking for new premises. Funds are being raised through donations and Cambridge may soon have a purpose designed Islamic centre. Hopefully, the Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque will remain as an annex.
‘I hope so’, says Abdal Hakim. ‘Many Cambridge streets have become just an impersonal strip of chain stores and gin palaces. It’s starting to happen in Mill Road, but with the new Hindu shrine, St Barnabas church and the mosque, hopefully it can remain a real neighbourhood.’
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