My observations in the Mosque on the breaching experiment

I decided to test what is the appropriate way to dress to enter the mosque. On Friday I went to the mosque wearing tight clothes, which is breaking the norms and rules of the mosque. When people saw me on my tight pants and a small top they were looking at me with strange faces. When men saw me they were saying, “Haram” which means forbidden. On that Friday, I saw all kinds of faces looking at me. I felt like the whole world was staring at me at that moment. But I didn’t care because I was there to test something, which I will explain later after my observations of intentionally breaking norms that are highly respected.

First of all, when a person enters the Mosque, he/she needs to greet first by saying, “Assalamouallakoum” at the same time remove the shoes and place them on the shelves. Once, this is done then everyone has to do the clean-up which is called “Hoodoo”. This involved watching the hands, the mouth, the nose, the face, the ears, the head and the end the feet, As soon as they finished taking the “Hoodoo” then they may either pray or touch the Qur’an to read it. This process goes for both males and females in the Mosque. Mosque is divided into two sections: Males section and the females section. In the males’ section they’re separated into status, roles, and classes. For instance, the Imam is the person who leads the prayers as a status. However, to acquire this status the person has to be very educated in term of the Qur’an in which people are convinced to make him their leader. In other words, the Imam is considered an achieved status, because it was his own efforts that made him in that position. His actions concern the social institution as well. Therefore, people expect him to behave normal as a role. This man is given the most power to lead people through prayers and to advice the followers.

            In the males’ section, people site by class. The rich men site in the front lines after the Imam, who always sites in the front line in the Mosque, because They to donate large amount of money to help the poor and sick individuals in the community. People are very quiet in the mosque. They do engage into conversations but in between little groups or when they are reading the Qur’an. I noticed that females do not go into males ’section, especially if they’re inappropriately dressed up. Women should only wear lose clothes and a hijab which covers their heads.

            In the other hand, women are very social in their section. Although, they site in group when reading the Qur’an or eating a meal especially, during Ramadan. But that’s part of being socially bound.  Now, the breaching experiment was entering the males section with my tight pants and top, and most of all, without my hijab. The Imam and the other fellow Muslim’s men were surprised at my behavior. They were wondering why I went the mosque dressed in that manner. I knew the questions on their minds when we were looking at each other on that scene. However, one of them asked me, what I was doing on the men’s hall without my hijab and wearing tight clothes. But then, I explained to him that it was an experiment, And that I was just testing their behaviors about breaking the norms and the rules of the Mosque.