The burnt orange dome of the mosque and spires of the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC) sit comfortably against the grey Dublin skyline. The car park is almost full as I pull up and I hear the happy squeals of children from somewhere behind the palatial complex of square buildings in front of me.

I’m ushered down corridors buzzing with activity and shown into an office stacked with books and papers to meet Dr Ali Selim who shakes my hand and offers me refreshments.

As it’s a Friday, I explain that I can’t break my Lenten fast and he smiles and says Friday is also an important day for the Muslim faith.

“It is the day that God created the earth and it is the day when the earth will end,” he explains.

The ICC was opened in 1996 by President Mary Robinson. It originally catered for a few thousand Muslims, but now up to 85,000 Muslims reside in Ireland from countries all around the world.

Helping your parents is Jihad, but also so is defending your country – and that is where the word has been taken and misused

While I might be shy to mention terrorism, Ali is not. Soft but firm-spoken, he insists that terrorism has no faith or race and there is no place for it in Islam.

He’s also happy to talk about “Jihad” and explains that it does not mean “Holy War”, but translates as a way to exert yourself to do good.

“Helping your parents is Jihad,” he says, “but also so is defending your country – and that is where the word has been taken and misused.”

“You also have to put it into context. Did the Irish not try to defend their country from the British?”

I’m not sure how the relabeling of Michael Collins as a Jihadist would go down with the people of Cork, but I see Ali’s point.

It’s an important time for Muslims and oddly farmers

Like Lent, Muslims also have a monthly fasting and charitable giving period called Ramadan, where they cannot eat from sunrise to sunset every day, with exemptions for the elderly, young and pregnant.

It’s an important time for Muslims and oddly farmers. Straight after Ramadan, comes the festival of Eid-al-Fatr, when the sale of lamb meat spikes as Muslims break their fast.

I’ve been invited to join one of the five daily prayer services and I’m handed over to a smiling veiled elderly Dublin woman, with an accent that wouldn’t be out of place on the set of Mrs Brown’s Boys.

She directs me to take off my shoes as we enter the female-only balcony above the floor of the mosque where around 100 men are already lined up.

The door to the balcony opens and a stream of schoolgirls pad lightly across the floor

All the 30 or so women are veiled but the veils are as diverse as their nationalities, from bright gold with streaks of glitter to sombre browns and greys.

The door to the balcony opens and a stream of schoolgirls pad lightly across the floor. In the corner are neatly stacked clothes. Any unveiled or trouser-wearing girl picks up a scarf or a voluminous elasticated skirt and wraps it around her and then takes her place along the line at the front. They look a bit like they’re wearing curtains from a dress-up box and an older woman catches my eye and raises a wry eyebrow as one small girl struggles with a particularly large skirt.

As it’s a Friday, the Imam says a sermon in Arabic before prayers. Earphones have been provided with an audio translation but the one word I can really catch is “Mohammad”, the prophet.

In long lines with military precision, people bend, bow and kneel, touching their foreheads to the floor with each call

He was a late starter, only really getting going when he was in his 40s and dying when he was in his 60s. Yet within those 20-odd years he created a religion that has dominated a large part of the globe for the last 1,400 years with some 1.9bn followers today.

The sermon ends and a new voice takes over. In long lines with military precision, people bend, bow and kneel, touching their foreheads to the floor with each call.

It’s all over after five minutes. The woman in the gold headscarf embraces her friend in grey who is back from holiday and the schoolgirls fold their skirts.

I head back to the car park where two six-year old girls in white headscarves sprint by me laughing and a teacher calls for everyone to get back to class in the adjoining school.

I start the car and pull into the traffic jam trying to exit the ICC. This is like trying to get out of Christmas mass I think, but for Muslims at the ICC, it’s just another Friday.

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