By Nicoline Bonø Reindel, Nadia Charlotte Dahlgren Petersen and Josephine Amanda Jørgensen

We are rushing down Købmagergade with our coffee to go, looking for the Mariam Mosque on our way to Friday prayer. Growing up in Denmark with Christian and atheist parents, we are excited to experience this Islamic ritual for the first time. The mosque is nowhere to be found at first sight. No minaret or glorious entrance as we imagined it. The mosque is located in an apartment of a quite anonymous building, so you have to know what to look for, if you wish to find it.

The Mariam Mosque was founded in 2016 by the organisation FEMIMAM. It is Scandinavia’s first mosque with female imamahs. They are trying to challenge the patriarchal structures within religious leadership, which is dominant in the traditional Muslim world. The Friday prayer is solely for women and children of all colours, backgrounds and religions and is held once a month.

As we enter the apartment, we are asked to remove our shoes. It feels odd to remove our shoes in a public space, and we feel a bit naked and vulnerable. However, the floor is covered by carpets in different shapes and colours which gives it a homely and comforting feeling.

From the hallway we enter the actual mosque, which consists of just a white room that seems bare compared to other mosques we each have visited. Nevertheless, the white walls and big windows fill the room with a crisp white light that gives it a peaceful and welcoming atmosphere. There is a strange contrast between the artefacts found in the room and the sounds coming through the open window from the busy street outside. Books about Islam and religion fill one wall while a big sign in Arabic decorates another. Outside we can hear people rushing by in a stressful paste on their way to and from shopping while a street musician is playing a bad violin.

The imamah closes the window and shuts out the disturbing noises. Now the room is quiet as the women begin to gather on the floor facing the imamah. We follow their lead and sit down. The imamah turns her back towards us, picks up a microphone and begins the call to prayer – the adhan. Her melodic voice fills the room with beautiful Arabic words that none of the three of us understand.

After the Islamic sermon called the khutbar, where the imamah has given us her interpretations of different verses, the suras, from the Quran, she asks us to stand up and join her in the front. We stand shoulder to shoulder in rows as the joined prayer begins.

Nervously we follow the movements of the other women as the imamah leads us. She cites the same line in Arabic over and over and we all follow her voice with our movements. We have no idea what the prayer is about or what we are supposed to do, but it doesn’t matter. Standing so close to strangers, we are definitely out of our comfort zones. However, a certain kind of peace and sisterhood makes the strangeness unimportant.

After the prayer, there is total silence in the room. As we find ourselves kneeling on the floor, it feels like the body and mind awaken like after a meditation. Again, we follow the other women as they kiss the cheeks of the women next to them and slowly stand up.

As we leave the mosque we feel calm and clear-headed, and even though we are not Muslims and sometimes felt insecure and out of place it has definitely been an enlightening and rich experience.