Urban Mosques
From Amsterdam Wiki
Contents |
Introduction
Over the Down jacket course of about Carousel Day School three weeks from July 25, 2010, to August 16, 2010, John O'Meara and Derek Reinelt conducted a research project which analyzed the identities, activities, and inter-communal relationships of the Aya Sofya mosque with its surroundings in Western Amsterdam. In order to perform rigorous social scientific methods, John and Derek researched and discussed pertinent academic studies and then executed participatory observation Key Environmental Inc by spending many hours amongst the Aya Sofya mosque community and the De Baarsjes neighborhood. This Wiki page serves as the complete presentation of their findings.
Group Members
Derek Reinelt: Vashon Island HS, entering his Junior term at the UW
Computer Science major
John O'Meara: Mercer Island HS, entering his Junior term at the UW
International Merchant Services Protection Plan Studies major
Research Question
What Chetan Kapur is the Aya Sofya community?
What are its boundaries and how bankers life does the Aya Sofya community interact with the surrounding area?
Abstract
We set about answering the questions, "What is the Aya Sofya community? / What are its boundaries and how does the community interact with the surrounding area?" in a two-pronged method. In order to acquaint ourselves with the subject matter and with the men we would be speaking with, we poured through numerous academic studies on the topics of Muslims in Europe/the Netherlands, social and religious identity, and the ins and outs of establishing connections with a Muslim group in a foreign country.
Through participatory observation and focused interview, for which we must thank Imam Osman, Veli, Yusuf, Murat, Mert, Cengiz, Turgut, Omar and Mohammed for their steadfast help and hospitality, we found that the Aya Sofya mosque community is not what we initially expected. The group, composed predominantly of Turkish-Dutch Muslim males, is purposefully insulated from the rest of Amsterdam in order to provide a safe bastion for Turkish values and culture as well as to provide a place for congregated prayer. Within this community, we found extremely tight bonds that crossed families, generations, and backgrounds with three main connecting factors -- language, heritage and Islam. We also came to find that the community is not solely comprised of Muslims from the surrounding neighborhood; instead, Turks from all over Amsterdam regularly converge on the eastern edge of Rembrandtpark in order to pray and to socialize. The Aya Sofya community is therefore tethered to the mosque compound -- as one entity, it does not encompass any other part of the city.
From the perspective of the surrounding neighborhood, the Aya Sofya mosque community is small and somewhat inconsequential to the make-up of the larger community. Through interview, survey and literature reading, we found that the surrounding community supports Muslims' right to practice their religion, but they are not so favorable in terms of the Dr Susan Lim lack of communication and integration of the mosque-goers amongst the vicinity.
Background
History of Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands:
Turkish immigrants began coming to the Netherlands in the 1960s to satisfy a labor demand following an extended economic boom. Between the years 1961 and 1974, approximately 25,000 Turkish immigrants came as “temporary workers,” all men with the exception of about 200 women [1]. But while the official work immigration program was terminated in 1973, Turks continued to immigrate through laws permitting family reunification, marriage migration, and asylum seeking. These government policies have shifted over the years and annual immigration numbers have consequently fluctuated, but at January 1, 2010, there were over 350,000 Turkish people in the Netherlands and nearly 40,000 Turkish people in Amsterdam [2].
The original Turkish immigrants were housed by their employers, and the Dutch government believed that they would return to their home country when the need for workers slackened. As such, the immigrants were encouraged to “maintain and develop their cultural identity," and governmental policies at the time were actually made with the goal of avoiding immigrant integration and facilitating the "re-integration" of the temporary workers into their countries of origin. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that the government identified Muslims as permanent residents and began taking actions with that understanding in mind [3]. This is consistent with the testimony of Imam Osman of the Aya Sofya mosque. According to Osman, "We [original Turkish-Dutch émigrés] actually came here with the idea to build a financial plot to take back to Turkey. But we stayed here; things were so good." Osman went on to further explain the history of Turkish immigration, saying, "As we look to the past 30 years, in the beginning we thought that we saw ourselves as working for the most poor, the worst jobs. Actually, this grows to success. We are very highly educated. We own big companies and we make a lot of trade now -- a good position." Osman, Turgut, Cengiz and Omar each concluded that the early Turkish immigrants thought that they would serve strictly as temporary workers. After learning the Dutch language and (possibly) raising kids, however, it became more difficult to return to Turkey after so much time in the Netherlands.
In the beginning of the 1980s, the government began to focus on integrating minority communities while simultaneously providing for the maintenance of cultural identity -- a multiculturalist attitude. There was an effort to “accommodate and institutionalize” Islam as a means of providing the religion with equal treatment, the most important principle in the Dutch model of 'Church and State' relations, which is rooted in the history of the Netherlands. From antiquity until the 1950s, Dutch society was primarily organized in a form of ‘pillarisation.’ Essentially, social groupings were formed on the basis of religion or life philosophy, and these groupings were cloistered and self-sufficient. Every community had its own institutions, from schools and unions to political parties and newspapers, and most of the interaction between communities was at the political level, where accommodation between the different groups was arranged. In fact, in matters of the state, the pillarised organizations were directly and closely involved in government policy. This situation began changing in the 1960s with the growth of secularism. In 1983, the Constitution was revised to separate Church and State, but the values inherent to this system live on in contemporary Dutch culture[3].
In the years since 1983, the Dutch multiculturalist model has lost ground, and there has been an increasing emphasis on Muslim assimilation, aggravating tensions between the native Dutch majority and the Muslim minority. A 2008 report issued by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) found that there had been a substantial increase in Islamophobia since their report eight years prior, evident from an increase in racial profiling, job discrimination, and inequity in financial services. There have been many contributing factors to this change, but it has been closely related to international and national actions taken by Islamic extremists. In particular, the September 11th attacks on the United States, the Madrid train bombing, the London metro attacks, and the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (Click this link for a superb article detailing Theo van Gogh's murder, from The New Yorker). Another significant contributing factor has been an increasingly negative tone in Dutch political and intellectual discourse, which has increasingly stated that Western values and Islamic values are in opposition and that multiculturalism has failed. The ECRI reports that Dutch politicians have resorted to stereotypes, stigmatization, and racism, and that this has propagated the idea that Muslims are an invading force and a significant threat to the country’s security and identity. [4] The effects of this burgeoning Islamophobia and xenophobia is evinced by the recent political success of Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom or Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV).
Ethnic Segregation in Amsterdam
Although not necessarily a result of intentional discrimination, there is evidence of segregation within the Netherlands. A study in 2004 found that there were more than 450 neighborhoods with an immigrant population greater than 25 percent, and 90 neighborhoods with an immigrant population greater than 50 percent. This sort of segregation is accompanied by limited social interaction between immigrants and the native Dutch, with communication especially diminished in cases where the majority of a neighborhood’s residents are immigrants. A 2005 study found that 70 percent of Turks primarily associate with members of their religious group, and two thirds of the native population report having little or no contact with immigrants[3].
Why is the topic relevant?
This topic carries weight because of the deleterious effects of friction between ethnic and religious groups in Europe. At the onset of this project, we were told by Veli that the population of Turkish-Dutch youth were having difficulty dealing with their identity in Amsterdam society. The juxtaposition and amalgam of Dutch and Turkish cultures can present a very complex dichotomy to negotiate; according to Veli, the effects of this dichotomy were manifesting in a breakdown of both Turkish heritage and Dutch customs.
We strongly believe that this topic is important for study because the publicized friction between the Aya Sofya community and the surrounding Amsterdam community(s) is mutually destructive for the parties involved. After concerted literature review and primary-source observation or interview, we began to find that both the Turkish-Dutch population of the Aya Sofya mosque and the surrounding Dutch communities would benefit from increased communication, collaborative activities, and deliberate integration. Our analysis indicates that these measures would reduce tension amongst interested individuals and groups, ameliorate the effects of cultural stress on Amsterdam's ethnic Turkish youths, and encourage amity between native Dutch and immigrants.
Research methods
Methodology
Online methods:
1. Researching relevant information through academic journal articles, websites, and internet searches
- In response to the large gravity and breadth of our research topic(s), we undertook extensive efforts to accrue and understand relevant academic literature. For this end, we accessed approximately a dozen academic reports; topics include: immigrant research methodology, history and national context of Muslim communities in Amsterdam, and background information on Islamic beliefs and Turkish culture.
2. Using e-mail to contact and connect with members of the Aya Sofya mosque community
- We quickly found that most of the English-speaking members of the Aya Sofya mosque visited the mosque more sporadically than the non-English-speaking individuals. To address this, we began prearranging meetings with contacts. While this method was not always as efficacious as we had hoped -- our e-mails to the contacts were often missed at first glance or not returned at all -- we noticed that the resulting interviews were much more insightful and well thought out.
Offline methods:
1. Mapping the community
2. Geo-tagging pertinent businesses, residences, gathering places, etc.
3. Interviewing members of the Aya Sofya mosque community
-"Imam Osman", Veli, Yusuf, Cengiz, Turgut, Omar, Murat, Mert, Mohammed
4. Interviewing local business people and residents
5. Engaging in varying levels of participatory observation while spending time at the mosque
-e.g. attending prayer services, eating in the cafeteria, watching television, etc.
6. Collecting quantitative data on religious activity at the mosque
-e.g. prayer attendance; member presence; head-counts at various times of day on successive days for these distinct activities: prayer, conversation, smoking, watching television, eating/drinking, misc.; how much time various persons spend at the mosque per week (through interview)
7. Documenting physical traces
-e.g. fliers, bulletin boards, signs, announcements, graffiti, etc., at Aya Sofya and the surrounding neighborhood
Affordances and limitations
Our online research did not directly enable us to answer our research question, and in fact, much of it ceased to be directly applicable when our research question was finalized. However, our initial research helped us orient ourselves to our topic and choose our other research methods. Furthermore, it provided those other research methods with a sense of purpose and direction. Over the course of the project, continued online research provided us with an academic foundation for our developing ideas and helped us in analyzing the data that we were collecting.
Our method of mapping the area surrounding the Aya Sofya mosque enabled us to answer the “boundaries” portion of our research question by providing us with the necessary information to define the extent of the Aya Sofya mosque community. Our geotagging of Turkish businesses, restaurants, etc. was particularly useful in that it gave us a concrete image of the distribution of the Turkish community served by the Aya Sofya mosque. This method was limited in that the boundaries are inherently nebulous, and our time constraints, in combination with the large spread of the Aya Sofya community members, meant that some inferences needed to be made, albeit guided by information from interviews.
Interviewing local, non-Muslim community members enabled us to answer the ‘community interactions’ portion of our research question by providing us with a qualitative representation of the Dutch side of the story. Our survey complemented our interviews by providing us with systematic data that we could use to answer our question in a quantifiable way.
Interviewing members of the Aya Sofya mosque congregation was our primary means by which to answer our research question because it provided us with qualitative information straight from the source. While this method was limited in that there were a limited number of mosque members who spoke enough English, Turkish culture has been shown to hold collectivist values, and there was indeed a common thread of similarity between the interview responses we received.
Our quantitative pieces of information played the important role of supplementing our qualitative interviews with information that isn’t subjective to external influence. While our interview findings may have been able to give us an answer to our research question in and of itself, our quantitative data provided a solid foundation upon which our interview findings could reliably build upon.
Our methods of participatory observation enabled us to answer the main portion of our research question by supplementing our information gleaned from interviews.
Human subjects
This research project depended heavily on the cooperation and input of key members of the Aya Sofya community. In the early stages of the project's development, two contacts were made somewhat unintentionally: Veli, a young man who worked in the compound in which we lived, was an extremely well-spoken and committed source of information; Imam Osman spoke to our group on July 22, 2010, and thus we established a connection to the mosque community's standard-bearer.
Many more conversations and activities ensued with and amongst the Aya Sofya community. We focused our data collection methods on interacting with the Aya Sofya community -- both through participatory observation and interviews. We spoke with many Turkish men whose ages and backgrounds varied greatly: there was a successful Turkish-born man who lived in London before coming to Amsterdam; there were two brothers who grew up in Amsterdam but associated themselves with Turkish culture; contrarily, there was a Dutch-born young man who was ostensibly more Dutch than Turkish in terms of appearance and anecdotal testimony.
Methods for recruiting interviewees
The most important facet for recruiting interviewees and engaging in activities at the mosque was respect. In order to earn the community's trust and to begin to integrate ourselves within some of their customs and activities, we started simply by offering hellos and handshakes. In the interest of social science and common decency, it would be disastrous to imply that our only interest in the interviewees was for their stories. Following the advice of Professor Tatum, Professor Corser, Mirjam Schieveld, and Charles Ragin, we sought to combine systemic observation with amiable participation. We spent many hours at the mosque in order to cultivate relationships and make new connections, primarily with -- but not limited to -- English-speaking individuals. On a few occasions, we entertained ourselves at the mosque without ever communicating with an English-speaking person. For example, John received a haircut at the mosque on August 5, 2010, making known the style he wanted by saying, "Make me look like Barack Obama!" Similarly, Derek ate a meal of curried lamb and rice with two elderly Turkish men, sharing bread, water, and a handful of smiles.
The methods employed for obtaining contacts was quite successful. In little over two weeks of contact with the Aya Sofya community, we were able to amass approximately fourteen discrete interviews with nine Turkish-Dutch men (in alphabetical order): Cengiz, Mert, Mohammed, Murat, Omar, Osman, Turgut, Veli, and Yusuf. The task of obtaining credible and usable interviews was made difficult by three main factors: the language barrier between Turkish/Dutch and English; the relatively small group of routine mosque visitors who spoke English; and, finally, the relatively short periods of time with which to meet these individuals. For clarification of this last point, we found that the men who stayed at the mosque were older, emigrated-Turkish men and therefore very few spoke English. There was thus a small overlap of English-speakers and those we were trying to build a rapport with, and these men usually went to the mosque for the (approx.) 5:30 and 9:30 prayers. To overcome these obstacles and obtain interview opportunities, we would stay at the mosque before, between and after these prayer sessions in order to ensure meeting one of our contacts. There were times, however, when the men were too busy to talk or, more often, preoccupied with prayer before leaving for home. We found that coordinating a time and a topic for interviewing persons at the Aya Sofya mosque greatly enhanced the discussion's depth and ergo made each interview more efficacious.
Measures taken to guarantee confidentiality and anonymity
We found that the men with whom we had established good connections still refused to take pictures. They recognized that we are students and were conducting a research project, and they were willing to give their opinions and perspectives, but hesistant to give consent for photography. In their usual good-humored style, we heard excuses that ranged from, "No, I do not like my smile!" to "I do not want you to sell this picture in Hollywood!"
Since our project involved some provocative and vulnerable threads, we learned and adapted to make our connections' comfort a priority. Any picture used in our academic presentations were taken with consent or have unrecognizable subjects. Though our project's aim and methods were never intended to cause harm to the Aya Sofya community (intentionally or otherwise), we acknowledge that personal privacy and security must come before academic or personal gain. Thus, we will not publish pictures nor full names online.
Analysis
After compiling data from interviews, trace observations, annotated notes from participatory observation, and background research, we were able to form concrete answers to the question, "What is the Aya Sofya mosque community? / What are its boundaries and how does it interact with the surrounding area?"
The Aya Sofya Community
The People
The Aya Sofya mosque community is a tight-knit group of (mostly) men, women and children who gather at the mosque periodically for prayer and other activities. We found that the mosque was both a hub for social congregation and also a bastion for preserving Turkish culture, religious practices, and identity in Amsterdam. These findings were mostly drawn from our interviews with members of the congregation. When asked about the role of the mosque as it pertained to the community, Imam Osman noted that, "... when these people come to the mosque, we do not want to put them in an aquarium. Our target is to give them good things in life. When they have failures or need help, we want them to practice Islam and find a good life." In the same interview, Imam Osman stated that he believed "religion is a guiding director," and thus regards the mosque as a vehicle through which to associate one's self with those guiding principles. This sentiment was reiterated by almost every person we spoke with at the Aya Sofya mosque. Murat poetically told us that, "for Muslims, a mosque is a place to be free, to practice Islam ... and to receive gifts of our religion and of our history." Mert, a high school student who came to the mosque for the first time in several months on the first day of Ramadan, agreed with the previous statements. He declared that the mosque "is good for children" and that "children need a mosque so that they can learn about their religion and their culture." Down a similar vein, Mert said that "Turkish people need a place to pray and to be together. We do not want to lose our culture because we are very proud. I grew up here and I am a good Netherlands person, but I know that I am Turkish and a Muslim more than I am Netherlands." In coming full circle, this closely mirrors something Veli said in our second interview with the young man: “If we didn’t have the mosque, we would have a big problem … as a community, as Muslims, it’s the place where we get out of the ‘normal’ lifestyle of Amsterdam."
It was made very clear to us that the mosque was important to the Aya Sofya community. Although a somewhat obvious answer to a simple question, it was important to observe and define the connection between a Turkish Muslim and the mosque in which he prayed. Using this fundamental notion as a basis from which to investigate other threads, we were able to draw conclusions on social identity, religiosity, community involvement, and a litany of other topics.
Though Veli, Imam Osman and Mert all agreed that the Aya Sofya mosque serves about 1,000 Muslims in its vicinity (predominantly but not exclusively Turkish), the observed occupancy ranged from 20-60 men and boys during a normal day, and 20-80 during Ramadan. We can begin to extrapolate from this figure that the Aya Sofya mosque community is not as large as other mosques. There are fourteen Turkish mosques within Amsterdam's limits, serving the city's 40,000 ethnic Turks. Taking Imam Osman's estimate that 10% of Turkish men practice Islam correctly (i.e. go to mosque and fulfill the Five Pillars of Islam), we can estimate that approximately 2,000 Turkish men attend mosques routinely. Since we observed an average of approximately 30-35 men at the mosque in our thirteen visits, and considering there are fourteen mosques in Amsterdam proper -- 2,000/14 = 142.86 -- we can infer that the mosque community is relatively smaller than the average Turkish mosque in Amsterdam.
It is very important to note, though, that the Aya Sofya community does not draw its congregation exclusively from residences in the close vicinity. According to Murat, Mert, Yusuf and Veli, a fairly large number (an estimate was never given despite repeated inquiry) of Turkish Muslims come from other parts of the city. Yusuf used to live within 2.0 kilometers of the mosque, but he has since moved to the eastern fringe of the city. He still attends prayer services at the Aya Sofya mosque -- approximately five miles, as the crow flies -- even though there are several Turkish mosques closer to his home and his work. Murat, too, comes from outside to attend services at the mosque. He says that he drives to the mosque in order to reconnect with one of his friends from his native Izmir, a city in western Turkey. Veli explained to us that men come to a certain mosque for convenience or because of personal preference. This is to say that the Turkish Muslim community in Amsterdam does not have distinct district demarcators to disperse mosque-goers according to location. Instead, the Aya Sofya mosque serves as a homogenous place for Muslims from any part of the city. Thus, the community as defined by the group as a whole does not extend far beyond the sidewalks of the mosque property. As Mert tactfully stated, "Many come from close, they live here. But many come from far away. Aya Sofya mosque does not say, 'you cannot come” or “you must come.' If you are a Muslim and you want to come to a mosque, you can come here." Mert went on to say this, an apt summary of this point: “It is just the mosque. We do not come here to go to any other place. There are no borders. We just stay here because we like to come to the mosque.”
The Building
Aya Sofya's physical plant was just as important to our final research project. Since 2004, the Aya Sofya mosque community has not actually been situated at the Aya Sofya mosque. The community left its old confines in order to build what would be known as the Aya Sofya Westermoskee, but for reasons which we touched on but never fully investigated, the construction of the new mosque was never completed. This being the case, the Aya Sofya community superficially renovated an old building owned by the city and managed by the Sint Augustinus Catholic church, which maintains property directly to the north and south of the Aya Sofya building. What we call the 'Aya Sofya mosque' is admittedly inaccurate -- the proper name would be 'Aya Sofya Westermoskee,' but for the sake of simplicity we shorten it to the form used.
The background research we conducted greatly assisted our search and documentation of physical traces. After being pointed towards John Zeisel's Inquiry by Design we began acquiring very useful information via trace analysis. We followed Zeisel's now-canonized recommendations for passive data collection, from observing physical traces to observing environmental behavior to conducting focused interviews -- or, chapters 7-9 of Zeisel's book. We invested a lot of time to observe and note the visible traces of how the mosque was used. In respect for the Aya Sofya community, we did not photograph most of the traces we found around the mosque facility. Much of the mosque appears to suffer from decay, and consequently we did not want to engage in discourteous behavior by point-and-shooting such traces on their property. These were our findings:
- The building shows signs of dilapidation, either due to apathy or a lack of funding for improvements and upkeep. Of the eighteen windows with embedded fans or air conditioning units, sixteen were cracked severely. On two occasions, August 6 and August 10, both downstairs bathrooms were partially flooded and rendered unavailable due to leaking pipes. All of the eight internal doors on the ground floor, exits excluded, had broken or improvised locks. Three doors had holes in the bottom or top for increased ventilation. (The local cat, Karam, made use of these holes to haunt the kitchen and the café.) The carpets in the prayer room and the café were very worn in some parts, though it appeared as if they were vacuumed daily. Outside, the ground is littered with cigarette filters and small pieces of garbage. The west wall of the facility is covered in graffiti and there is a sizable (4'x1') hole at the base of the concrete foundation which was often used by two cats during rain showers. Finally, the mosque is furnished with second-hand or non-matching sets. The chairs are almost constantly used by conversing men, but they carry stains, tears, uneven feet, and, in some cases, missing supports. The two TVs -- one in the café, the other in one of the two offices -- did not have working remotes. Similarly, only one of the two computers in the café was operational. Fortunately (for our appetites), the kitchen/cafeteria was fully functional.
- Community members use a bulletin board by the back door and any empty wall space in the hallways to advertise or publicize things. We saw printed sheets which read community musings such as, "Every day 0.50 Euro, campaign help," and "Our prophet has commanded us: 'Community of God's kingdom meets any one who reads the Koran, and among them, then surely they would negotiate on them peace of heart, in case the soul falls. God's grace covers them, angels, and they used their own [non-translatable] in childhood.'"
- The prayer room has a capacity of about 350, but we never observed more than 82 people at the mosque (9:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 14, 2010, the third day of Ramadan). At almost every single prayer session during the days before Ramadan, several men would skip the prayer in order to socialize or watch a television at the mosque. Though the average occupancy of the mosque was 30-35 men, the average attendance for a prayer was 25-30 men.
Preservation of Turkish Culture
As mentioned previously, a mosque serves as a cultural bastion as well as a religious center. We were fortunate to be able to engage in participatory observation within the Aya Sofya community, and thus we were given the opportunity to note activities and goings-on at the mosque. As every interviewee agreed, the mosque is highly esteemed in the community because it serves as a "place for Muslims to be free. If you are in the mosque, Muslims want you to be happy and to practice Islam," as Murat put it.
The most obvious method for preserving Turkish culture that we observed was conversing in the Turkish language. The importance of this activity is two-fold. For one, socializing is an extremely important tenet of the Turkish lifestyle; to talk and gossip is to be part of the group. Communication from man to man crosses generations and topics fluidly, as evinced by some of the oldest and some of the youngest members of the congregation frequently sharing a table, some tea, and a conversation. Furthermore, it appears as if the bonds created by simply catching up and discussing whatever comes to mind serves as the mortar for the community. Ali Baba, one of the men who runs the kitchen, joked that a real Turkish man can and should carry eight conversations at once -- as long as he can talk loudly enough.
Secondly, the use of Turkish language ensures that younger generations will not lose touch with their mother tongue as they learn Dutch (and usually a third or fourth language) in school. Common language serves as the vehicle to which almost every other interpersonal activity takes place. The television is always in Turkish, as are the bulletins and announcements. Every conversation employed Turkish, with infrequent interjections of English if we were present. Per Islamic rule, Qur'anic prayers are conducted in Arabic, though Turkish is ubiquitously used in resulting sermons, discussions and interpretations. Though it prohibited many interview opportunities and led to frustrating road blocks in our research, the use of Turkish amongst the Aya Sofya community provided an extremely interesting cultural wrinkle to examine.
Communal Focus on Children
In the same vein as the old saying, "It takes a village to raise a child," the Aya Sofya community works very hard to enmesh the community's youth in Turkish customs. Every interview question pertaining to the community's intentions towards youths was met with strong conviction for raising children correctly. Mert, a teenager himself, said that "children need a mosque so that they learn about their culture and their religion." Veli, who was born and raised in Amsterdam, forlornly worried that Turkish youth in the Netherlands were succumbing to societal pressures that are against Islamic teachings at a damning rate. Murat, Omar and Osman, three extremely devout and well-respected men in the Aya Sofya community, all stated that their primary goal was to ensure a good life for the younger generations through business, culture and faith.
The argument that a community should protect and support its children is unremarkably trite, but the Turks in Amsterdam feel it is of paramount importance. A closer look at Amsterdam's demographics shows that 17,159 of Amsterdam's 39,654 Turks were younger than 25 years old on January 1, 2010, while only 2,455 were older than 60. Knowing the history of Turkish immigration in the 1960s and 1970s, this elucidates the fact that the Turkish-Dutch population is very young and predominantly comprises second- or third-generation immigrants. Our interviewees repeatedly noted the community's anxiety over a dwindling religiosity amongst Turkish-Dutch youths.
We found that the measures to preserve Turkish identity and bring kids into the religious fold have been only partly successful, evinced by the observed composition of routine mosque visitors: about 90% of the men who came to the mosque to pray for the ~5:30 and ~9:30 prayers appeared to be older than 25, and about 66% appeared to be older than 40. Though this was an incomplete dissection of mosque attendance, it was obvious that the older generations, which account for a relatively small portion of the Turkish-Dutch population, attended prayers and socialized at the mosque much more than their youthful counterparts. Additionally, we observed that the youths who did come to the mosque for religious services stayed at the mosque for much less time per visit. Whereas an average of 20 men stayed at the mosque for at least the time span between the ~5:30 and ~9:30 prayers, on only two occasions did we observe a young man who appeared to be under the age of 25 stay at Aya Sofya for that same period -- and that person was Veli.
Turkish Perception of the Amsterdam Community
A large reason for the Turks' intent focus on the community's youth is a result of their perception of Amsterdam. The men we interviewed unanimously stated that Amsterdam's leniency for cannabis and alcohol use, as well as the legality of prostitution and the overall attitude towards "naked women," as Cengiz colorfully put it, cannot be a part of Turkish culture. First and foremost, both intoxication and premarital or extramarital trysts are strictly forbidden in Islamic law. Osman explained that Dutch and Turkish cultures have a lot that they can share, but there are certain activities proscribed by Islam which the Turks refuse to accept. Veli also hinted at this, describing two societies which Turkish-Dutch people must negotiate: the "Amsterdam universe" and the "mosque universe." Turkish-Dutch children especially have difficulty negotiating right from wrong because they are often raised surrounded by two sets of norms. As stated previously, the members of the Aya Sofya mosque hope that the guiding principles of Islam and the support of the mosque community are enough to keep younger generations away from Amsterdam's temptations.
The Surrounding Community
The Area
The area surrounding the Aya Sofya mosque is densely populated by immigrant communities. Immediately to the west is Rembrandtpark, but to the north, northeast and the southeast are large residential blocks; to the direct east is a large road fraught with Turkish businesses; and on the west side of Rembrandtpark is a mixed business and residential area (see map detail). We concluded from observation and interviews that Turkish influence pervades the area to the north up to Erasmuspark and directly to the east up to the intersection of Kinkerstraat and the Bilderdijk (in black). Beyond those areas, to the east and to the west, the districts are dominated by Moroccans (in red). To the south, the community is mostly native Dutch (in blue).
If you follow this link to our Google Map, you can navigate where we geo-tagged Turkish businesses as well as read brief interviews with members of the surrounding community.
Amsterdam Perception of the Turkish Community
We immediately noticed that the native Dutch are not very reticent with their views towards the Turkish-Dutch population in De Baarsjes. If they were familiar with the mosque, comments from locals almost always included a sharp opinion either in opposition or in support of the Aya Sofya community. We found that many native Dutch were not pleased with the mosque community's recent issues with the (non)building of the new Aya Sofya mosque, but they were still in favor of the community's right to congregate and believed the mosque was beneficial to the surrounding community.
Interviews
A college student named Henrik, who grew up north of the mosque, had this to say about the Aya Sofya community's real estate issues: "It's all about communication amongst groups ... That is why Amsterdam is successful. The Muslims, the Turks especially, do not communicate well. That mosque is not allowed because the people did not understand the language of our laws and our politicians, or they did not listen. That is why they are illegal."
We began to find that the disapproval of the Aya Sofya mosque was rooted in their administrative and communicative pitfalls, not in their religious preferences or their ethnicity. In fact, almost every local responded that the community would not suffer if (or when) the mosque property was repossessed by the municipality. Heidel, an employee at Janssen Tweewielers bicycle shop, said that he "did not know there was a mosque. [The area] has many people from different parts of the world. When the mosque is gone, people will still live [there]. It is the mosque's problem, not a community problem."
A gentleman named Hans, who has worked across the street at an assisted living facility for over 15 years, said that he had never made contact with the mosque community. "A few times a year," Hans said, "they have an open home so people can see and learn. I have never been there, and I don't think many people from the community have been there. We see people from Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, but we do not have connections to them."
Along the same train of thought, a longtime neighbor of Postjesweg 124 named Miri claimed that she had lived in the building across the street for 20 years, and that the mosque was not a large part of the community.
As we talked to more locals, testimonials decrying the disconnection between the Aya Sofya mosque and the surrounding area continued to pile up. A woman named Riitta, lived in the housing bloc just south of the mosque for one year and "did not know anything about this mosque." Omar Khalib, a Moroccan man who worked at a KFC Open Run street basketball tournament beside the sports complex north of the mosque, said that the only thing he knew about the Aya Sofya mosque is that they like to keep to themselves. A young Dutch student, who did not give a name, said that the mosque was a non-factor for the community as a whole. "I don't really think about that [mosque] very often," she said. She then indicated that she lives northwest of the mosque, on Hoofdweg, but she "never sees a Muslim and think differently because of that mosque." She went on to call the Aya Sofya community "very isolated."
A young Moroccan man named Mohammed offered perhaps the most eloquent description of Aya Sofya's seclusion from the surrounding community. He works as a security-on-wheels officer in Rembrandtpark for Coachstraat, and therefore spends a lot of time around the Aya Sofya mosque. He argued that, "The mosque should do more to give to the community. Nobody knows that mosque because it is good and because people are good. They know that mosque because of political problems. They know that mosque because they speak Turkish." This concisely described the pith of the matter -- the Aya Sofya mosque community does not engage the community as one entity.
Survey
We conducted a short survey over the course of two days, consisting of five questions posed to 22 native Dutch and two Moroccans. The results of this survey are consistent with our observations and interview evidence. Of the 24 people who completed the survey, 17 replied that they lived in the community. This serves as a good baseline number to gauge how closely our survey respondents are associated to the mosque. Only 11 of 24 respondents answered that they were familiar with the mosque, but 20 of 24 agreed that the mosque was good for the neighborhood -- more striking, only two of 24 said that they knew a member of the congregation. This shows that there is a separation between the surrounding community and the Aya Sofya community, but there is still a supermajority opinion that the mosque is beneficial to the neighborhood. The juxtaposition illustrates how the Dutch support religious congregation but have not engaged the Aya Sofya's members. Furthermore, only four people responded that they could foresee any contact with the mosque community. From our perspective, this statistic is troubling: it implies that people outside the mosque do not expect dealings to become more common in the future. As proposed in the "Why this topic is important" section, we strongly believe that improved relations and communication between communities would benefit all parties involved. The results of our survey, as well as several of the interviews with locals, point towards a persistent disassociation between the Aya Sofya mosque and the neighborhood in which it is situated.
Discussion and Conclusions
After assessing and digesting all of our findings, we can conclude four things from our study: 1) the Aya Sofya community is deliberately insulated and separated from its surroundings; 2) as a result of this persistent separation from the surrounding community, the public is unfamiliar with the Aya Sofya community and therein lies a source of some of the friction between groups; 3) the Aya Sofya mosque serves as more than just a building in which to pray and socialize -- its metaphysical properties are more important than its physical properties; and, finally, 4) because a large portion of the Aya Sofya's congregation travel from outside De Baarsjes to pray and gather at the Aya Sofya mosque, the mosque is a beacon for Turkish Muslims from all over the city, however the Aya Sofya mosque community is ultimately contained to its campus on the edge of Rembrandtpark.
Although this presentation serves as the conclusion of our project, the journey to this point was the most exciting and fulfilling part of our time in Amsterdam. We absolutely enjoyed our experiences at the Aya Sofya mosque, and we could never invoke enough eloquence in this Wiki to show our gratitude to the members of the Aya Sofya mosque -- Osman, Veli, Yusuf, Omar, Mohammed, Mert, Murat, Turgut and Cengiz especially -- for their help and their hospitality over the past few weeks. As for highlights, John received a haircut while yelling "Make me look like Barack Obama!" and Derek learned to stomach a little extra spice on his lamb stew.
We will always cherish the experience to study and learn from the Aya Sofya mosque congregation. Furthermore, we invite anyone to offer their findings in order to help augment and improve our conclusions where necessary.
References
- ↑ Ogan, Christine. "Methodological approaches to studying immigrant communities: Why flexibility is important.."Communications 32.2 (2007): 255–72. Web. 1 Aug 2010
- ↑ Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek, http://www.os.amsterdam.nl/english/1208/
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Muslims in the EU: cities report. Preliminary research report and literature survey. The Netherlands, http://www.imes.uva.nl/publications/documents/netherlands-report.pdf
- ↑ Staff Writer. "Islam in Netherlands ." Euro-Islam: News and Analysis on Islam in Europe and the United States. GSRL Paris/CNRS France and Harvard University, 2010. Web. 15 Aug 2010. http://www.euro-islam.info/country-profiles/the-netherlands/
