I was staying in Royal Padjadjaran Hotel on February 26, 2019. I woke early in the morning. After taking a bath, i was preparing to go to the mosque near the hotel. At lobby of the hotel, I open Google Maps and type “mosque”. The maps was showing mosques around this hotel. I wanted to go the Darussalam mosque. I followed the route that was given by the map.
When I was near to the destination, I was confused because there is no way to the mosque in the map. In the other hand, I heard “reminder of prayer” from the mosque that I did not know where it’s location. When I followed that reminder, It made me more distance from the original destination. I followed the reminder through small alley that did not appear on Google Maps. Several times I was ended up at deadlock alley. Finally I got to the mosque.
This mosque was different from the original destination. It’s name was Al Musyawwaroh Mosque.
I made dawn prayer and waited until sunrise in this mosque. After sunrise prayer, I took photos and added this mosque in the Google Maps. When I was back to the hotel, I lost again in the alley and came on different way. Because this experience was impressed me, I wrote an article in my blog about this with title: Nyasar ke Mushola Al Musyawwaroh (Stray to the Al Musyawwaroh Mosque)
I want to share this story to show that we need to improve our Google Maps. We need to put more effort to put more mosques (or other religious places) on the Google Maps in order to help people to perform their religious obligations like prayer for the Muslim. I also want to make Google Maps become “Muslim Friendly”
In order to support my dream to make Google Maps more religious, I tried to add religious places on Google Maps. When I visited a mosque, I tried to give review about that place regarding the availability of the place for ablution, the toilet, the smell of the carpet, the cleanliness of that place, etc.
I talked to Google Moderator about how to make something like Santa Tracker for the Muslim during Ramadan and Eid festival. She suggested me to put this idea on Local Guides Connect and continue to make contribution to the Google Maps.