Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses the prohibition—under certain circumstances—of entering a city that has an idolatrous temple. If entering such a city is forbidden, certainly entering the actual temple is prohibited.

Although today the Ma’aras HaMachpeilah has separate Islamic and Jewish sections, when it originally became accessible, Jews and Muslims shared the same room. This presented a halachic question: Is it permitted to daven in the same place that Islamic prayer occurs?

On the surface, since Islam is monotheistic, and whether they use “Allah” or any other name, it refers to the same God, one might presume there’s no issue. Yet, for some poskim it’s not so simple. The Shefa Chaim (Divrei Yatziv YD 90 and OC 40) rules that Islam is still treated as avodah zarah because it contains theological statements that repudiate the Torah. He holds that a mosque is forbidden to enter, just like a pagan temple—perhaps even more so—because it specifically denies the Torah’s authority.

The Tzitz Eliezer (10:1) also held it was forbidden, not necessarily because Islam is idolatrous, but due to the impropriety of praying in a place dedicated to another religion, filled with its symbols and artifacts.

However, Rav Ovadiah Yosef (Yabia Omer YD 7:12) does not consider Islam idolatrous and sees nothing inherently problematic with davening in a room that Muslims also use for prayer—provided it is not a consecrated mosque structure or filled with religious imagery.

As an interesting footnote, one of the hidden gems of LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B (JetBlue) is a small area off to the side labeled “Meditation Room.” It’s an excellent place to daven quietly, away from the chaos of the terminal. The curious part? No one actually goes there to meditate. It is, for all intents and purposes, a functioning mosque. There are rugs, Korans, and often groups of Muslims praying in there.

So how did this “meditation room” come to be? My theory: Post-9/11, Muslims praying publicly at airport gates started to make some people nervous, perhaps suspecting ominous intentions. Wanting to maintain peace without officially endorsing any religion (which the city legally cannot do), someone brilliantly came up with the idea of a non-denominational “meditation space.” Voilà—problem solved.

In any case, I, along with several fellow Jewish travelers, have benefited from that room more than once. I’ll grant that, once in a while, it gets a bit uncomfortable if my Muslim brothers start “looking for a tzenter” for their “minyan.” (I always found the people to be respectful. One time, a fellow who did not speak English at all, kept making hand movements as if he was asking a question and was saying “Ka’ba”. I finally realize that he wanted to which direction was Mecca or as we would say, mizrach tzeid. Nu, I showed him. Until studying this sugya, I didn’t even realize that praying there could be a shailah. I suppose that since it’s owned by the city and officially non-denominational, it is less of an issue. Certainly Rav Ovadiah Yosef would be have no issue with it, but perhaps the Tzitz Eliezer would still consider it inappropriate to daven in the presence of Islamic paraphernalia.

Looks like we’ll have to ask our local Orthodox rabbi.