The Prayer Space at SFC | Yo Nonaka, Assistant to the Dean of the Graduate School of Media and Governance
2022.08.23
As is well known, SFC is a place where students, faculty, and staff from various backgrounds come together. In terms of the number of international students alone, as of June 2022, there are over 400 across the Faculty of Policy Management, the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, the Faculty of Nursing and Medical Care, the Graduate School of Media and Governance, and the Graduate School of Health Management. People with truly diverse nationalities, languages, faiths, cultures, and customs gather here. To create a campus where everyone feels comfortable, physical facilities are also gradually being improved. Among these initiatives, I would like to introduce the prayer space for Muslims—a space that was established about 10 years ago and is used daily, yet seems to be little known even within the university.
Muslims pray five times a day: at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and night. While the dawn and night prayers can of course be performed at home, many Muslims are on campus during the noon, afternoon, and, depending on their class schedules, sunset prayer times. The space where these Muslims can perform their prayers is located on the second floor of the Iota Building's laboratory wing (the five-story wing). This prayer space is a very simple corner sectioned off by an accordion curtain, located on the landing just before the connecting corridor to the lecture hall wing (the two-story wing). The prayer areas for men and women are separated by a partition, and each has its own entrance. Part of the floor is covered with a simple mat, but there are also small, folded prayer rugs available. When praying, they can lay these rugs on the floor to sit or kneel on.
Of course, it would be best to perform the prayers exactly at the prescribed times, but in daily life, it is often not possible to be so precise. Therefore, it is actually permissible to pray during a free moment before the next prayer time arrives, or even to combine two prayers at once. For this reason, in the prayer space on the second floor of the Iota Building, you can see Muslim students coming individually during their breaks between classes to perform their prayers. A single prayer takes only five to ten minutes, so students can complete their prayers between classes and then return to their respective classrooms. However, the Friday noon prayer is strongly encouraged to be performed in a group. At this time, a fairly large number of Muslim faculty and students gather to pray together. It seems that even students from completely different research fields or different academic years often get to know each other by passing by in this prayer space daily and performing the Friday prayer together.
Before prayer, one must perform ablution, washing the hands, feet, and face. At SFC, the sinks in the men's restroom on the second floor of the Iota Building and the women's restroom on the second floor of the Epsilon Building, both near the prayer space, have been modified for this ablution. While sinks for handwashing are generally waist-high, the sinks in these two restrooms are installed at ground level, making it easier to wash one's feet. Of course, since these are restrooms used by all students and faculty, those who enter without knowing this might be a little surprised by the difference from other restrooms.
In Islam, prayer spaces for men and women are to be separated, and in particular, men are not supposed to see women while they are praying. The space on the second floor of the Iota Building is also divided by a partition, and while voices can be heard, it is designed so that men and women cannot see each other praying. However, I was told by a student from my lab that when male and female students taking the same class decide to pray together after class, the female student may pray behind the male student. It seems that this prayer space on the second floor of the Iota Building helps connect people who might not otherwise interact, fostering various kinds of exchange.
Of course, being Muslim is just one of the many forms of diversity at SFC. This does not mean they are the only ones who should receive special consideration. With limited budgets and space, it is difficult to meet every request. Nevertheless, we want to aim for a campus where everyone feels comfortable, while protecting what each individual holds dear as much as possible. I believe that by acknowledging and respecting our differences, we can learn from this diversity, let our differences resonate, and generate the ideas and power to create new things together. Various constraints can surely be overcome by supporting and covering for each other, pooling our wisdom to find solutions. Taking this prayer space—which has been quietly yet continuously used for 10 years, functioning as a place for Muslims' religious practice and community—as a precedent, we hope to continue various initiatives to create a campus where everyone can gather comfortably.