On November 15th 2024, Obs attended the round table to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Islamic oratory in Barcelona, organised by the Office of Religious Affairs (OAR) and the Espai Avinyó-Llengua i Cultura at El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria of Barcelona. This event concludes the series of activities entitled ‘Barxiluna برشلونة: (Dis)memory of the Islamic past and present‘.
Hajar Menssouri, moderator of the event and head of the Social Area of the Bayt al-Thaqafa Foundation, mentioned that it was a day of remembrance of the struggles (of the Muslim immigrant community) and of appreciation for the people behind them.
There are currently 617,000 Muslims living in Catalonia, and Anwar Aldirra, a member of the board of the Islamic Centre of Barcelona, was one of those responsible for laying the foundations on which today more than half a million people rely. In 1974, an organisation of young Syrian students came together to pray far from home because the turmoil in the Middle East left them no choice but to emigrate. Over time, the organisation has developed into an association for cultural activities, which over the years has been joined by people from other countries. Aldirra’s speech ended with a passage from the Quran: ‘Men! We have created you from a male and a female and we have made you into villages and tribes, so that you may know one another’, with which he wanted to remind us of the need to live together in peace despite religious differences, as they should not be an obstacle to feeling respect for one another.
Bombo Ndir, human rights activist and co-founder and member of the Coordinating Committee of Senegalese Associations of Catalonia (CASC), spoke of the oratories as centres of community work in which a collective duty is created, in addition to the space for worship, which is an individual duty. One of the CASC’s ideas is that ‘wherever we go, we group together’, so having a place to do so, in this case mosques, is vital to be able to carry out both duties. In addition, she emphasised the indispensable role of women as teachers and in helping those most in need in the mosques.
Finally, Hasnat Mustafa, representative and board member of Minhaj-ul-Quran, explained that the association was born in 1996, a few years after the first wave of Pakistani immigration arrived in Barcelona. The expatriates, once they were reunited with their families, wanted their children to learn the language and obtain Quranic studies, both of which were carried out in the mosque, which, according to Mustafa, should serve as a civic centre. In conclusion, he emphasised the difference between integration and absorption, as not forgetting one’s roots in the country of origin is of utmost importance, even if aspects of the country of residence are incorporated.
After the contributions of the first round table, in which it was stressed the importance of having a place to go to practise one’s faith and at the same time strengthen the community, we were able to listen to the young voices of Hatim Azahri, founder of the association Joves Units del Poble-Sec, and Hafsah Shabbir, member of the organisation Minhaj-ul-Quran, in the second round table.
Shabbir focused on how difficult it is to live with a dual identity, that of being born in Catalonia and following the Muslim religion. An obstacle that the previous generation did not face. Combining day-to-day life with their religious convictions is not an easy task, given that the lack of places of worship and the ‘challenge of the veil’, according to Shabbir, pose a challenge. She criticised the lack of knowledge that the media wrongly promotes about Islam and how it negatively affects the Muslim community in the form of prejudice and racism. She spoke of the changes and advances made by young people, the driving force of society, and the need to fight for these, as well as the importance of them being supported by public institutions, since without legislation to help, they cannot change anything. She did not forget to thank the previous generation for having laid the foundations on which young people continue to build today.
Azahri also criticised the media’s portrayal of Islam. He commented that the principles of his religion, such as sensitivity to what is going on around them and the fact that they are attentive people, have helped him to create a social movement in the Poble-Sec neighbourhood. He believes that working for the neighbourhood is necessary, as he sees it as a duty to return the favour that the environment has given him to be able to be here. He ended by defending the right to the free practice of religion and highlighted the great work of the first generation in laying the foundations of the legacy.
The event ended with the reminder that we are all brothers and sisters and that we have something in common, and therefore, it is our duty to strengthen it in order to live together.