Solar panels and rooftop prayers, yet renewed mosque reclaims traditional role
The teacher writes the equation on the whiteboard in a blue-tip marker, a simple proof in preparation for final exams.
Some two dozen young men in the classroom scribble furiously on their notepads. In a half-hour, they will be taking their science course.
Downstairs, a woman is getting a dental exam, and the final touches are being put on a doctor’s clinic and a minor surgery room. Across the way, a group of women are taking a life-skills course. Up on the fifth floor, several men in their sixties and seventies close their eyes and meditate, counting on prayer-beads while feeling the breeze.
This is not a commercial complex, university, or a hospital. This is a mosque. It is what organizers hope will be the future of mosques.
At the Al Arab Mosque in Zarqa, an impoverished city of 1.35 million in
Accidental innovationOpening closed doorsThe first mosquesA community's needsWide range of courses