The silence room in Atlas -1.635, which is designed for prayer and meditation, accommodates about eight students at a time. But the room simply isn’t large enough for all the people who want to make use of the room at the same time, according to student association SA Salaam. Chairman Faries Azmani: “We currently have between twenty and thirty people on average per prayer. Each week, some 200 Muslims use the silence room. But other worshippers make use of the room as well, as do people who come here to meditate or to seek peace and quietness.” Muslims have to pray at set times, which is why there are certain peak moments during the day.

SA Salaam has been talking to TU/e (to Annemarie Urselmann, Stan Rooijmans and FISO) about a solution to this problem. Azmani: “The room is simply not large enough, which is why we pray in shifts now.” Bashar Khorso, event manager at SA Salaam, adds: “The breaks between lectures last fifteen minutes, which should be long enough for a prayer, but it’s not doable due to the shifts. And it’s important to Muslims to pray on time. We also need to pray facing the corner of the room (in the direction of Mecca, ed.), because of its location. That results in a less optimal use of the room’s square meters.”

Khorso: “Let me be clear that we are very happy with this room, but it’s not always easy to find peace and quietness. Not just because it’s crowded, but also because we are located right next door to study association Lucid. You go to a silence room to focus on prayer, but you can hear the study association’s loud music really well.”

“We met with SA Salaam because the association requested a different room due to noise nuisance caused by Lucid and the unfortunate location of that study association just around the corner of the silence room,” Annemarie Urselmann says. “Lucid was cooperative and wanted to come up with a solution. During our meeting, Salaam casually mentioned that the current room is too small, and that a larger room would be preferable. But the room isn’t intended for large groups and a person who leads the prayer. Nor is it intended for meditation or yoga group sessions, as some people have requested. A larger room was definitely taken into account during the move to Atlas, but there’s a shortage of space on campus. During the search for a new silence room, we looked at the original list of requirements. Group usage isn’t on that list. The list does however say that the room needs to be located in the heart of campus, and that it needs to have sanitary facilities nearby. There aren’t that many rooms larger than the current one that meet those requirements.”

Different kind of floor wanted

SA Salaam’s representatives want to make clear how grateful they are for the prayer room. “We simply want to find a solution, so that the quality of the room improves and everyone at the university has the opportunity to pray. There’s no ventilation in the room, and the concrete floors are too cold to pray or meditate on. A carpet would really help, but we were told that this isn’t possible because of allergy and cleaning reasons. Cleaning activities should be organized centrally, TU/e says, but we wouldn’t mind doing that ourselves if that would solve the problem.”

“There was no mention in the requirement list for the silence room in Atlas of floor covering, that wish was added later by the users,” Urselmann says. “The entire floor of Atlas, including the current silence room, has a casting floor. You can’t just cover it with a carpet. And people who do yoga or who meditate have different wishes when it comes to the type of floor they want. You can’t comply with everyone’s wishes. We will however look into other options in the new silence room. I asked my colleagues at Real Estate and Facility Management what options there are, for example when it comes to floor covering, such as the one on the benches in MetaForum. The solution will in any case be found in consultation with umbrella organization FISO.”

Dirty showers

Muslims wash their bodies before praying. That is why showers were installed when the silence room was constructed. “But they have been locked for some time now, unfortunately. According to TU/e, this is because the showers weren’t clean,” Azmani says. “I didn’t notice that. It’s difficult to call on people not to leave the shower uncleaned when we don’t even know whether the shower is dirty or not. We use the disabled toilets now. But washing your feet in a high sink isn’t easy.”

Urselmann: “People often forget to clean the showers, which is why we decided to lock them. It doesn’t matter whether a user of the silence room is responsible, or someone who uses the shower after a bicycle ride. We are trying to come up with a solution, but the risk of ending up with a dirty shower won’t disappear once we find an alternative room. And we can’t just install a new shower somewhere in an existing building. We are currently trying to find out whether we can install a washing facility in the silence room. We will continue our talks with the users, and we will consider the options we have in the building.”

No larger room available

Azmani: “Expanding the room is not an option we were told, since there’s not enough space on campus. The only option is to relocate to a similar-sized room at a different location, but that won’t solve the capacity problem, even though that new room is of a better quality.” The students were offered a similar room just around the corner. “We asked if we could use both rooms, but that wasn’t possible because one room had to be used as a storage space, which is the current function of that other space.” Azmani finds it “hard to believe that there’s no room anywhere on campus larger than the current 27 square meter room that we can use.” He does however see the positive sides of the storage room: “It has windows so the light can come in, and we don’t hear Lucid that well.”

In the meantime, the students are trying to come up with some temporary solutions of their own. “We use lecture hall 0.820 in Atlas for prayer when it’s not in use. It has a large floor. We also use the rented lecture hall to pray after an event. But that solution isn’t viable, and I don’t think booking five lecture halls every day is such a good idea either.”

Khorso: “Sometimes I’m a bit jealous of Tilburg University. They even have a separate building with a washing facility, a prayer room and a silence room. Such partition between spaces is really nice: that way, people can pray without distracting people who want to meditate. Obviously, we don’t ask for a new building, just some extra space.”