mosque in your building

i have a bit of spare time during my lunch break today ... i guess i can squeeze in some thoughts here... the reason is illustrated in the scenarios below...

last week i went to perform my friday prayers in klcc mosque not very far from my office in jln yap kwan seng ...the ordeal was... with slippers i have to walk along the narrow footpaths (pretty common in kl) along jln yap kwan seng, jalan ampang by the side of the 'posh first world' building - petronas twin towers (remember i was wearing my 'selipar jepun' of different colours since i lost the perfect match ones the week before in the same mosque ) under the hot sun for more than 1 km to reach the mosque. Once reached there, i could not find space inside the shaded prayer hall ... have to make myself comfortable by the side of the steps again under the hot sun whilst listening to the khutbah and continued my prayer at the same spot . On the way back i followed the same route except for slight diversion to another 'posh high end building' - avenue k (again - i still dragging my 'selipar jepun' on the polished marble floor ) for my quick bite ... and reached office 5 minutes after designated lunch break for friday of 1 and 1/2 hrs ...1/2 hour more than normal days. with sweaty body due to midday forced work out i was ready to work !

now lets compare with the friday prayer experience today ...instead of walking... i pressed the lift button to my office basement parking ... got into the comfort of controlled environment in my car and drove off to tabung haji building ...well not that smooth tough due to lunch hour traffic but the time was well spent enriching my knowledge from ikim.fm ...once reached the level 6 parking of the building ...jumped into the lift, went down straight to basement hall where friday prayer was conducted.... yes i still wore the same 'selipar jepun' but nobody noticed since i was all the while in the car and in the building where everybody wear slippers...after prayer went out to the front of the building ...got myself a tapau of nasi beriyani with 3 dishes for 6 ringgit only !...plus 2 ringgit for parking ... reached the office 20 minutes from time ... took lunch and still have 10 minutes to spare here ...relax and calm to spent the rest of the day working - no sweat at all!

mmm ... where is this writing leading to? ... don't you ever wonder why can't the mosques located in our office building like the one in tabung haji building instead? Rather than providing a small surau in the oddest corner of a building where you need pretty good navigational skills to find and hardly 7 people can squeeze in for the population of hundreds muslim in that building ... why can't provide a real mosque ...say for 200 people ? what? cannot justify the investment due to wasted rental space? ... i guess you can double up the mosque or rather the prayer hall as multipurpose hall for other usage during non-praying time... for muslims and non-muslim as well (more transparency to non-muslim) ...i believe with the added facilities sure the building could fetch more premium rental rate more than enough to cover the lost rental space ...no.. you dont have locate it on the 'expensive' penthouse level...it could be located possibly on top of parking podium where close enough to the office community ...as close as the facilities such as gym or food court ....the side effects would be ... additional avenue to promote interaction between people in that community + more covenient for people to pray (friday prayer or 5 times prayer) + more people would pray + more praying people would create people with better value + people with better value would become better and more efficient workers (well they got back to their desk quicker and fresher to begin with)+ better worker would create better society and so forth... dont forget opportunity opened up for non-muslim to get to know islam better ....better understanding of islam would make them more tolerable when announcement such as 'no lipstick for muslim women except for theirs husbands were made '...special additional 1/2 hour lunch break for friday may also not needed anymore ....... sorry ladies no more shopping on friday yaa!

the immediate side effect is ... just imagine if the futsal court on the basement of the petronas twin towers converted to prayer hall ... the sights of hundreds of people wearing 'selipar jepun' marching in front of marks & spencer in suria klcc attracting weird looks from japanese tourist would become things of the past ... klcc mosque can also nicely fit comfortable number of people .... no more sight of people from more than 50 other surrounding buildings praying on the pavement next to the mosque's steps...

you could also imagine no more sights of people praying along the klang river bank eventhough the physical presence of the mosque is on the other side of the river...yes in masjid jamek .. and also no more people praying in front of masjid jamek lrt ticketing machines competing with people buying tickets to get back to their office...all this is because buildings like bank muamalat, ocbc, hsbc and others in the vicinity have their own mosques inside.

on the environmental aspects ... less cars would jammed up the road to the mosques or to the tabung haji building ... less situation of double or triple parkings in front of mosques ....and etc etc

in the age where impression, branding and image are important, i feel that the sight of muslim people dragging 'selipar jepun' , praying on the road sides, cars recklessly double or triple park in front of mosques blocking the traffic ignoring the traffic law do not do justice to the image of islam.... afterall muslims are rule and law abiding civil people ....and muslim should always look 'hebat'... well in the case of illegal parking of course traffic police would not issue you tickets ... how worst policemen could be than issuing summon tickets to people who are praying!

of course this is just a broad brush thought that need more refinement and detailed study and planning especially on the aspects of compliance to the al quran and hadith ... but i think it worth to look at ....to make it happpen is the political will .... they key word for the present lifestyle is 'convenience'... the difficult things would distract people ... lets bring the mosques and islam to the people .... mosques are not for people to look at and admire ... but i believe it is the heart of the community .... if the muslims working in the tabung haji building can have the privillege of having mosques few steps away from their desks why cant muslims in ambank tower or wisma selangor dredging ....?