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Jason Chuang

The new center of interfaith space, the CIRCLE, is located on the third floor of Old Union. The sanctuary provides a place of worship for a variety of believers, including Muslim, Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist students.

On the third floor of Old Union, a new space for religious diversity gives students a new venue for interfaith prayer. The Center for Inter-Religious Community, Learning and Experiences (CIRCLE) houses offices for a variety of religious leaders, a seminar room, a religious library and a large sacred room called the sanctuary.

Linda Miller, the coordinator of CIRCLE, said the design for the interfaith center came after many months of planning and dialogue with Stanford’s religious community.

“We engaged in many, many meetings for over a year’s time with all the SAR [Stanford Associated Religions] groups,” she said. “We wanted to get as much input as possible.”

Miller added that the planning group also used questionnaires and maintained discourse with both the SAR and the Deans of Religious Life.

“Our purpose was to create a space in which Muslim, Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist students, along with agnostics, would feel comfortable,” she said.

Zaid Adhami ‘10, vice president of the Muslim Students Awareness Network (MSAN), said that the Muslim students have benefited substantially from the CIRCLE, particularly during Ramadan.

“The Muslim community on campus is pretty pleased with the new space for religious life on the third floor,” Adhami said. “Although our own prayer room is rather small, it’s still a really nice accommodation, and having the sanctuary room makes it perfectly fine.”

He added that the Muslim community has been using the CIRCLE space frequently during the past three weeks for nightly Ramadan prayers.

“We feel at home there, free to do what we need to do,” he said. “It definitely beats running around from building to building every Friday or praying in a tent during Ramadan.”

The wood-paneled sanctuary has windows facing east and benches with red cushions along the walls. Decorated with silk, the space was designed to be flexible in order to accommodate the needs of various religious groups.

Instead of pews, the sanctuary has chairs that can be arranged for large sermons, intimate gatherings or removed entirely. Just outside the sanctuary are separate men’s and women’s foot-washing rooms. Large black sinks are positioned close to the ground for wudu so Muslim worshippers can wash before prayer.

Since the CIRCLE’s opening, religious groups have been gracious about sharing the sanctuary space.

“Students have been cooperative so far,” Miller said. “When Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan overlapped, the Jewish group Chabad and the Muslim group worked out a way to share the space with one coming in the morning and one in the evening. When they both needed sunset services, the Muslim students offered to use another space.”

An added benefit of the inter-religious center is increased dialogue between members of different faiths, which has created an environment of learning and mutual respect.

“The space is truly valuable because it offers a location for followers of different faiths to come together and carry out their own practices and prayers,” said Lan Le ‘10, a member of the Buddhist Community at Stanford (BCAS). “A common area as well as rooms for the different religious groups show that religions can coexist peacefully and harmoniously under one roof.”

CIRCLE is still a work in progress, and small additions like labels for rooms and screens for presentations are still being made. Still, the space has already become a popular spot for worship and religious appreciation.

“A couple of evenings ago, I was reciting texts in our room when I heard the Muslim call to prayer coming from the sanctuary,” said Trent Walker ‘10, president of BCAS. “What other spaces at Stanford — indeed, in the world — allow for this kind of atmosphere, where we can sing in our own tradition and listen to the voices of other traditions too?”