Islamic Center of Tucson

We were on vacation in Tucson and needed a place to pray without going back to the hotel so stopped here. There is no internal entrance to the women's section - you were forced to go back outside and around the back to even access it, which may fly in the rather desert environment since you don't have to worry about getting rained on very often. The women's section seemed bigger than most I'm accustomed to, but I was still not very comfortable, and the women were not very friendly.

This masjid used to be heavily influenced by Gulf understandings of Islam. Over the years I think it has been slowly transformed due to the diverse Muslims who have begun to take action within it. There is still a lot to be done as far as doing outreach, holding classes (and actually advertising classes so that people know about it) and of course there is the fact that sisters are in a separate room, which in masaajid usually results in few opportunities to see or have access to masjid leadership and the womens room used as a sort of babysitting room for people to dump their children in. UPDATE: The community is moving in the wrong direction. They hired a foreign imam and the khutbas are now only in Arabic and therefore inaccessible to most of the congregants. What is the point? Use that money to send one of your own to learn and come back and serve as imam. He can better understand the community and the culture.