Masjid Dural Huda Mosque

The Experience. On December 1st, 2015 I attended the Masjid Dural Huda mosque located in Springfield VA, 22310. Masjid Dural Huda is an Islamic religious center/service in which followers of the Muslim religion pray, I attended the service on a Tuesday afternoon during the Asr prayer (afternoon prayer). My religious background and up bringing has been taught and molded with heavy Christian influence. My father is a Greek-Orthodox Christian and my mother was brought up a Protestant Christian, I have been raised with the ideologies of both forms of Christianity even though they have their differences, albeit minor ones. My parents have always been old school in their beliefs in regards to marital issues, praying daily, and overall behavior …show more content…
The reasons that I’ve been fascinated with the Muslim religion are for one, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and the second largest as a whole. I’ve been cognoscente of the fact that conversions towards Islam are becoming more common by the day, which was one of the aspects that inclined me about knowing more. Secondly, I’ve been exposed to it by having a fairly large amount of friends who are indeed Muslim and because of that it opens doors for me to be aware of what my friend’s beliefs and practices are. Lastly, for some reason I see parallels between the two religions (Christianity and Islam). I could easily be wrong but since I was younger I would always compare the two and just see some general similarities that weren’t as evident with other religions and going to a mosque would at least partially help me confirm or deny my …show more content…
I attended the service with two friends of mine; one being a follower of the Islamic religion and giving us instructions on what to be prepared for and the other being a classmate that was doing this project as well. When we arrived at the entrance the men and women had to be separated from each other and we were required to remove our shoes. When I walked into the main prayer room I saw about 7-10 people praying individually and scattered across the room, from that point on I took the observant approach and witnessed everything from the back of the room. I was observing the individuals pray and do their own thing for about 10 minutes and then an alarm went off, I was confused at first but then I realized it was signaling the Asr prayer. When the alarm rung, people started going to the front of the room; as people were coming in late the line was expanding and everyone was on their knees, lead by one imam if I recall correctly. The prayer lasted roughly 15 minutes and after the prayer came to a close, some left and others stayed and continued to do individual prayers. While the Asr prayer was taking place I couldn’t help but notice the surprising diversity I never thought I’d see, I came in expecting to see a certain demographic but to my surprise I saw men