Almost six years ago, a class assignment took me to the Islamic Center one night during Ramadan, a visit that helped changed my way of seeing Islam. This piece from Bound in a River of Light is even more pertinent, today. Remember to pray for our Muslim cousins as they observe the month of Ramadan!
Mid-Ramadan Visit to the Islamic Center
November 1, 2004
On Monday nights this fall, I’ve been taking a course in Islam at the Divinity School. Besides fulfilling a “Multicultural Society” requirement, I took the course because I didn’t want to… because I felt a resistance to learning about Islam… and that made me realize that I had some prejudices to overcome. On the first Monday in November, instead of our regular class we met at the Islamic Center on Westfall Road, to join the community there for supper and worship, plus a little time for class.
I pulled into the parking lot at the Islamic Center, feeling distracted… worried about one of my kids, feeling guilty for leaving my co-workers with a mess to deal with in the lab… wondering what the evening would be like, determined that I would not put on a head scarf, but having shined my shoes as a sign of respect… a little anxious about finding my class among all the people going in.
First thing we do on entering is remove our shoes. Everybody – I think, “that’s nice” – every time I go to Mass, my heart tells me to take my shoes off – it’s an oddity in my own community – here I will fit in. I put my newly polished shoes in a cubbyhole, and head into the washroom with other women from my class, where we will be instructed in the proper performance of ablutions by a teenager and a little girl, both beautifully swathed in headscarves.
I’m annoyed. Careful adherence to ritual is not my forte, but I pay close attention as the girls demonstrate what we are to do. My annoyance mounts with each new step: three times wash the hands to the wrists, right first, then left. Three times rinse the mouth, three times the nose, three times the face, three times the head, three times inside the ears, three times the face again, three times the arms to the elbows, right first, then left. Three times between the fingers, three times the feet. I watch in exasperation, then sit down to do it.
Well, doing it isn’t so bad. The little girl stands by me, reminding me if I forget a step. It’s not an annoyance for her, it’s just what you do, and she’s learning it and now teaching it, as a member of the ummah, the community. Rising, I feel different… like I’ve left the parking lot behind, and am now in a new place, along with everyone else who has prepared in the same way. My heart melts a little.
Going up the stairs to the room where we will have supper, we pass dozens of pairs of small shoes, left there by the children before they went to pray and learn. Supper is fun – Indian food, because it’s the turn of the Pakistani women to cook – on a different night the meal would have been more Middle Eastern, someone explains, and less spicy. The men are on the other side of the room, separated by a screen. Leslie and I sit with two women, one from Egypt, the other I think from Lebanon. Everyone is hospitable, and the meal is good. I like Indian food. All the women are in scarves, many very beautiful. Even the littlest girls are wearing them. I wonder what the men are experiencing on the other side of the screen… probably conversations similar to ours… “Where are you from?” “What is this I’m eating?” We rise from the table, full of a good meal, feeling more comfortable.
Our class gathers for a short class meeting. First we go into the large prayer room. This is where the men pray… the women pray upstairs, in the balcony, and once again I’m annoyed. But I notice the beautiful calligraphy on the walls, wondering what it says. I notice the white strings stretched across the floor, so people will know where to stand. Someone is praying or studying, sitting against the wall. Dr. Shafiq shows us how to pray: how to put your face to the floor, so that both your forehead and your nose touch the ground, how you kneel and stand and prostrate yourself in a rhythm, over and over throughout the prayers, alongside everyone else, standing shoulder to shoulder. I think how easy it must be to get lost in the prayer, to get lost in the rhythm and familiarity of it, like one does in the prayers of the Mass… it takes you to a deeper place, you don’t have to think about it, you move automatically into being closer to God, from the familiarity of the ritual. Although the form is different, I know this experience, somewhat… my heart melts a little more.
Returning to the classroom where we are to meet, I look around. Childish renditions of Arabic script hang on the walls, along with a chart of the alphabet. I begin to be able to pick out the word, Allah. It’s what we would call a Sunday-school classroom, the place where children are taught their religion. Suddenly I realize how familiar it is… strange and familiar at the same time, like visiting your cousin’s house. Different customs, but the same grandparents, some of the same pictures on the wall… different, but still family. My classmates are arguing… this has been going on all semester. “You mean to say you don’t believe a person has to believe in Jesus Christ as their personal savior to be a Christian?!” one person asks another across the table, her voice sharp with disbelief. The tension between the evangelicals and the liberal Protestants that has been building all semester starts coming to the fore, here in the Islamic Center. Hmm—- you know, sometimes it’s easier to be tolerant of your cousin, than of your sister— because you expect your cousin to be a little different, don’t get so mad about the differences.
We’re going to head back up for prayers. I find that now I want to wear a head scarf… among the women, it’s not a symbol of subservience, but, for me anyway, of solidarity. I don a scarf with help from a classmate, and head up the stairs. No one comments, but the faces of the Muslim women say that they appreciate it. Now I’m really trying to be together with them, and I think they appreciate the effort. Someone shows me a more comfortable place to sit, to watch the prayers.
Women are lined up across the balcony, two or three rows of women, standing shoulder to shoulder. Someone walks along, straightening the line. It is this physical proximity, someone explains, that makes it more comfortable to have the women and men worship separately. That makes sense. My heart melts a little more.
Little girls are lined up with the women, really little – six or seven years old, swathed in scarves – the littlest ones play at the back. Watching the prayers, I am moved by the lines of people, praying with their bodies – the little kids, who don’t have to do it, but want to be part of things, standing so still and patient, praying with the grown-ups. I enter a place of prayer, myself, asking God for understanding between us, Muslims and Christians.
We have so much to learn from each other. I leave the Islamic Center with a strong sense of the intimacy of the place, the comfort and at-home-ness of the people who come there to worship. I am no longer offended by the head scarves. I am touched by the desire of the children to be a part of the community. I am touched by the sense of intimacy with God. There is more than one way to worship, and this is a life-giving way, too.
We wrote three papers for this class, and learned some Arabic vocabulary for an exam. It was useful and good, but what I am really carrying away from this class is the memory of our evening at the Islamic Center on Westfall Road, of the warmth and intimacy and community, the comfortable closeness with God, that I saw there.
Assalamu Alaikum… peace to all.
From Chava Redonnet, Bound in a River of Light: More Essays for the Spiritus Community, copyright 2007, iUniverse