One of my friends, a rarity in that he reflects and asks good questions, asked me, “Sh Yawar, how do we reinvigorate people’s love for the masjid and have it be a unified place for Muslims’ education? As Imam Mohamed al-Ghazali says in Egypt, the masjid is the heart of the Muslim community and the factory of champions. Despite the meager foundations and the small masajid back at the time of the Shahaba, we had champions who carried Islam around the world and left their thumb prints to this day.”

Lovely question. The answer is very simple. It is not love of the masjid or what happens there but love of Allahﷻ. Why do you go to a house? To meet the person who lives there, right? Unless you are going to a monument, a tomb, which is dead. You go to the house to meet the person who lives there. Think of someone who has a very beautiful house, and you go to meet him. But when you reach there, you discover that he is not home. What is your feeling? Are you disappointed? Or do you say, ‘No problem. He has a basketball hoop in the yard and a swimming pool, so let me shoot some hoops and jump into the pool. So, what if I couldn’t meet him?’ If you said that, what would anyone with any sense, tell you? That is why Allahﷻ ordered us: Fal Ya’abudu Rabba hadhal bayt. Heﷻ didn’t say, Fal Ya’abudu hadhal bayt. Worship the Rabbul Bayt. This is the problem with our Da’awa. We invite to the house. Not to Allahﷻ. That is why Allama Iqbal said:

Shouq tera agar na ho, mayri namaz ka imam. Mera qiyam bhi hijab, mera Sujood bhi hijab. (If Your love is not the imam of my Salah, my Qiyam is a cover, and my Sujood is also a cover). Let’s think about this in this month.

When people love Allahﷻ they are attracted to His Houses. Today people come to the masjid because they want to go to the gym or to play a game or because there is some fancy Shaikh who is speaking there or some activity. The masjid today is the alternative to MGM, a disco, or a Frat party. We even say this quite shamelessly. ‘Let them come to the masjid at least instead of going to the disco or bar. ‘That is why we must create something in the masjid that is a Halaal version of the disco to attract people. That is why when a lecture is detailed people get tired of listening and want to shorten it. But have you heard of anyone who wanted World Cup Football or Superbowl to be restricted to just 10 minutes? But we hear that all the time for every Khaatira or Bayan. If we loved Allahﷻ, we would realize that we are being rewarded for every second of our presence in the talk. Those Hasanaat will be on our scales on the Day of Judgment, where one single Hasana could mean the difference between Jannah and Jahannam. We would know that Allahﷻ is mentioning us by name on His Arsh. That the Malaika are present with us and will bear witness for us when we meet Allahﷻ and that Allahﷻ promised to forgive all those who are engaged in His Dhikr, even the passerby who stopped. Whereas the time we spend watching Superbowl etc. is AT BEST Mubah and much more likely to fall into Makrooh or even parts of it into Haraam. Especially if it leads to delaying or even missing Salah.

We must begin at the beginning which is to know and to love Allahﷻ over and above anyone and anything else. From that comes the love for His Rasool, Muhammadﷺ. If the heart is responsive to this, then the slave loves the masjid. As I mentioned, it is not what happens in the masjid. It is why you go there. If you go there for the activity then there is no difference between going to the masjid and going anywhere else. If you go to there to talk about Allahﷻ, to worship Him, to learn about Him, to connect to Him, to seek to please Him and to correct our lives so that they become more pleasing to Him, you won’t find standing place in the masjid, just like you don’t find standing place in Superbowl.