Tokyo Mosque

It’s official name is actually Tokyo Camii & Turkish Culture Center. In Turkish, Camii means Mosque. The shape of the building and its interior design have reminded us of all the mosques we saw in Istanbul.

Tokyo_Mosque

There are quite a few mosques in Tokyo and this one is the largest, even in Japan. Located in Oyama-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Mosque is easy to be reached by Tokyo Metro. The nearest train station is Yoyogi-Uehara of Chiyoda Line and Odakyu Odawara Line.

Found an exit that take you to this narrow street with some fancy shops and cafes (left picture above). Turn right and then left, there you reach the main road. You will see a police box across the street on your right side. On that crossing, you may already meet women in hijab heading to the station or the mosque. You just need to cross the street, walk under the train railway (right picture above), and you will see the building on your left side.

Tokyo_Mosque_front

Tokyo Mosque’s main gate. On the right, there are stairs to take you to the second floor

Ladies’ prayer room is located on the second floor. Women can enter through the main gate, or take the stairs from the outside. However, we need to take wudhu on the basement.

Tokyo_Mosque_ladies

Left: small stairs inside the mosque to the ladies paryer room. Middle: yes, there is children playground on the basement. Right: space for wudhu

When we were there, there was a kind of student visit from one Japanese high school. Looking at the gesture, we assumed the teacher was explaining the function of this mosque and probably history of Muslim in Tokyo to his student.

Although Tokyo Mosque was built and being maintained by Turkish community, the visitors are from all over the world. For Indonesian like us, the chance to meet many other Indonesians are high. Another feels like home story 🙂

What: Tokyo Camii & Turkish Culture Center
Where: 1-19 Oyama-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0065 [map]
How to go: Chiyoda Line or Odakyu Odawara Line to Yoyogi-Uehara Station (C01)
How much: free, just pay for the train fare

 

 

Kita pernah tengok Masjid di Osaka, sekarang kita tengok salah satu masjid di Tokyo. Yup, ibu kota Negeri Sakura ini memiliki lebih dari satu mesjid loh.. Yang kami kunjungi adalah Tokyo Mosque di Shibuya dan merupakan yang terbesar di Jepang. Nama resminya adalah Tokyo Camii & Turkish Culture Center. Camii itu bahasa Turki untuk masjid. Bentuk bangunan dan desain interiornya mengingatkan kami pada Blue Mosque dan umumnya masjid di Istanbul.

 

interior_kubah_Masjid_Tokyo

Patokan menuju masjid ini tidak begitu sulit. Dari stasiun Yoyogi-Uehara, keluar menuju jalanan kecil yang dipenuhi rentetan toko dan kafe menarik. Ambil kanan lalu belok kiri menuju perempatan jalan utama (Oyama-cho). Di persimpangan ini kemungkinan besar kalian akan bertemu dengan wanita-wanita berjilbab, tandanya kalian sudah berada di persimpangan yang benar, hehehe. Tinggal nyebrang ke arah kanan, jalan terus melewati kolong rel, dan Masjid Tokyo sudah bisa terlihat di kiri jalan. Kalau bingung, bisa cek aksesnya di official website mereka.

Tempat sholat wanita terletak di lantai dua. Dari pintu utama, ada koridor ke kanan dan tangga turun menuju basement untuk wanita mengambil wudhu. Layaknya sebuah masjid besar, mukena dan al-quran disediakan. Karpetnya tebal dan bersih, nyaman dan khusyuk buat sholat. Lantai dua ini terdapat semacam balkon yang tersambung dengan tangga menuju trotoar jalan. Hhhm.. sepertinya wanita memang lebih nyaman masuk lewat tangga itu dari pada lewat pintu utama. Tapi keduanya bisa kok. Ikuti saja petunjuk yang tertera.

Kalau mampir ke sini, jangan heran kalau ketemu banyak orang Indonesia. Meski dibangun dan dikelola oleh komunitas Turki, mesjid ini terbuka untuk umum. Bahkan waktu kami ke sana, sedang ada kunjungan dari murid sekolah Jepang. Dalam bahasa Jepang, gurunya mungkin menjelaskan fungsi masjid serta sejarah muslim di negeri mereka. Menarik kan?

One thought on “Tokyo Mosque

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s