Brooklyn Muslims Hold Friday Prayer in Car-Free Street
Every Friday, rows of orange and yellow floral mats are laid out on the roadway of Chester Avenue in Kensington. Muslim men kneel, touching their foreheads and palms to the ground normally occupied by vehicles.
The weekly community gatherings on Chester Avenue are made possible through the city Department of Transportation’s “open streets” program, a pandemic-era initiative that closes off roads to traffic to give more space to pedestrians, cyclists and restaurants.
DOT officials said the open street, which began Sept. 15, is the first in the city in partnership with a mosque. Worshippers at Masjid Nur Al-Islam said the extra space for Friday prayer — known as jumma in Arabic — is essential.
“We need it. This masjid very small. Thank Allah that we finally got it,” said Miah Mohammad Yousuf, 65, who attended the streetside prayer on a recent Friday afternoon.
Yousuf and other community members said the mosque’s congregation has grown significantly since the pandemic, when they hosted socially distanced prayer outside without a permit. About 150 people fit inside the mosque, but as many as 500 people show up on Fridays, said Yousuf, who is a member of the mosque’s executive committee.
Islam asks Muslims to pray five times a day, typically at home. Muslims traditionally come together on Fridays at a mosque for a midday prayer called dhuhr and listen to a sermon from an imam, who leads the congregation. Friday prayers align with the dhuhr prayer time, typically between noon and 1 p.m.
Before last Friday’s gathering, Mohammad Abul Khair, 49, and Mohammed Moinuddin, 51, blocked the entrance to Chester Avenue from Louisa Street and Church Avenue. They laid prayer mats on the street as crowds of local worshippers arrived to pray.
‘A community builder’
“This Muslim community, we've really embraced taking to the streets for our faith and to keep our neighbors safe,” said Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who represents the Kensington neighborhood. “It's really a community builder.”
Hanif helped the mosque with its application for an open street. The Department of Transportation allows the road to be closed between noon and 3 p.m. on Fridays. The open street permit must be renewed every year.
An agency spokesperson said the department has a similar open street partnership with a synagogue on Staten Island.
Kensington has a sizable Bangladeshi Muslim community, dubbed “Little Bangladesh,” which is home to more than 100,000 Bangladeshi immigrants.
“The Masjid Nur Al-Islam congregation has grown and they haven't been able to efficiently accommodate the space needed. So they were already spilling into the streets and the sidewalk,” Hanif said.
Mayor Eric Adams announced in August that broadcasting the adhan, or the Islamic call to prayer, would be allowed without a permit every Friday and every evening during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.
Moinuddin said the call to prayer is an essential tradition for Kensington's Muslim community and that anyone who hears it is a “witness for God.”
“So many people come here to pray and practice our right to religion,” said Moinuddin.
Concerns over harassment
Hanif praised the partnership, but expressed reservations about launching similar initiatives at other mosques too quickly.
She worried that such public displays by Muslims could result in harassment or violence. Last year, a survey found that nearly half of Muslims in New York City said they had been victims of a hate crime.
“There are some security and safety issues that we often need to consider,” Hanif said.
Good ties with neighbors
Masjid Nur Al-Islam is located across from a Jewish elementary school. Abul Khair said relations between the two faith communities have always been peaceful.
“We talk with them. They are nice,” said Abu Khail. “We don’t have any problems… we appreciate them.”
A neighbor, Stephen Tyler Kent, said he appreciated the block’s diversity – and the lack of cars on Fridays.
“I like it. It cuts traffic down for us. I also like that the neighborhood is a good mix of everybody and it’s awesome that people are tolerant of each other,” Kent said.
Source: gothamist.com
