Thursday 24 September 2026 · Heritage Day · usually 14:00–16:00. Thank you for opening your doors. This is everything you need, and it is short on purpose.

The same material is available as a presentation, if you would rather run your committee or your guides through it on a screen: download the briefing as a PDF, or as a PowerPoint file you can edit for your own mosque.

What You Are Committing To

Two hours. Your imam, your committee, your programme, your rules. SAMNET lists your mosque nationally, sends the media advisory and handles the public enquiries. Nothing else is asked of you, and there is no fee.

The Nine Conditions

These are not administrative. They are the terms on which mosque committees and ulama have supported this campaign since 2017, and they are what keep it within the Shari’ah. If your mosque cannot meet them, it should not host — and nobody will think the worse of it.

1. The committee decides and the imam is satisfied. No mosque is pressed to take part.
2. The purpose is ta’reef and da’wah — making Islam known — not entertainment.
3. Visitors are received in modest dress. Keep scarves at the door for women who need them.
4. Visitors are guided and supervised throughout. Nobody wanders unaccompanied.
5. Men and women are received according to the arrangements your mosque ordinarily makes.
6. The programme is timed around the congregational salaah, never through it.
7. No act of non-Islamic worship takes place inside the mosque, and no visitor is invited to join the salaah.
8. Photography is at your discretion and by your rules. Say so at the door.
9. The sanctity of the mosque is explained warmly at the door, not policed afterwards.

Two Weeks Before

• Committee resolution taken; imam briefed.
• Two or three guides identified and briefed.
• Poster printed and displayed; announcement made at jumu’ah.
• Invite by name: the immediate neighbours, the nearest school, the ward councillor, the nearest church, temple and synagogue, the local police station, the ratepayers’ association.
• Details registered with SAMNET: info@samnet.co.za or +27 31 207 4223.
• Local newspaper and community radio sent the advisory — at least fourteen days out. In 2020 the campaign missed every community-paper deadline because marketing started three days before. Do not repeat that.
• Street pole ads, door-to-door pamphlets and a community newspaper article, about three weeks out. That combination is what the best-attended mosque of 2019 credited for its turnout.
• Decide your photography rule, and who speaks to media.

The Day Before

• Shoe racks out, shelves cleared.
• Spare scarves at the entrance, clean and folded.
• Refreshments arranged.
• Literature laid out — plain, in English, and not too much of it.
• Wudhu area clean and accessible for the demonstration.
• Signage: entrance, shoes, wudhu area, refreshments.
• A visitors’ book and a pen, and someone whose job is to ask for two or three short quotes.
• Attendance register and feedback forms printed. They are in the print pack.

The Two Hours

That last line matters more than it looks. The measured evidence on mosque visits is that they shift attitudes in the short term and that the effect fades over months. One afternoon a year is a door, not a destination — so end by opening the rest of the year.

Briefing Your Guides

What a guide is for: to be an ordinary Muslim a stranger can ask anything. Not a scholar. Not a debater.

1. “I don’t know, let me find out” is a good answer. Guessing is not. Have the imam’s number.
2. Answer the question that was asked. Not the one you wish had been asked, and not at five times the length.
3. Nobody is converted on a tour. The visit succeeds if a person leaves having been treated well and having had a straight answer. That is the whole of it.

What to Cover on the Walk

The mihrab and why it faces where it faces; the minbar; why there are no images or statues; why the floor is open and there are no seats; the separate arrangements for women; where the wudhu is done and why; the minaret and the athaan; and anything particular to your building’s history — which is usually what visitors remember.

The Questions You Will Be Asked

Prepare your guides for these rather than for theology.

• Why do women pray separately?
• Why do Muslim women cover their hair? Do they have a choice?
• What does the athaan say?
• Why five times a day? What happens if you miss one?
• What is Ramadaan actually like?
• Is Allah the same God as ours?
• What do Muslims believe about Jesus?
• What does the Qur’an say about violence? What about extremism?
• Can non-Muslims come in any time, or only today?
• How do you feel about people who leave Islam?
• Who pays for all this?

Blunt questions are a good sign. They mean the person trusts you enough to ask.

If Someone Raises the Objection

Some visitors — and occasionally some Muslims — will have read that opening a mosque to non-Muslims is not permitted. Do not argue on the doorstep. Say, briefly and without heat:

There is a difference of opinion among the scholars, and our committee follows the position that permits it. There is a full answer with the sources on the SAMNET site — I’d rather you read that than take my word for it.

Then point them to Welcoming Visitors to the Masjid — Questions and Answers, and move on. That post exists precisely so that nobody has to have this conversation at the door.

Afterwards

Send SAMNET, within a week:

• How many people came — a real count, even a rough one.
• Two or three short visitor quotes, with first names and permission.
• Three or four photographs you are happy to have published.
• What you would do differently.
• The completed attendance register and feedback forms. The return sheet is here.

One more thing worth knowing. In 2019, one mosque opened, advertised properly, and had no visitors at all. It happens. It is not a verdict on your mosque or on the campaign, and that mosque hosted again the following year.

Nobody has ever collected this properly. It is what makes the case for next year.

info@samnet.co.za · +27 31 207 4223