Skip to main content

That masjid

A week ago, on our way to a dental appointment, my husband and I stopped at a nearby masjid to pray maghrib.

I hadn't set foot in that masjid for eleven years and two days—the day I got married. And as I stepped inside amid the hustle and bustle of that day's errands, time seemed to slow down.

My eyes searched everything, measuring it against my memory. The entrance was different; it seemed to have been expanded. The stairwell leading up to the women's section, though, was exactly the same. I ran my hands over the banister where I'd rested the papers so I could sign my name. My uncle had brought the marriage contract to me, and my sister had rushed to follow me and snap a picture from above.

I climbed the steps slowly. I noticed the carpet was a deep red; I couldn't remember what colour it was before. I plodded slowly through the women's prayer area and up a few steps to where it extended around the corner. I looked at the spot where I'd sat on a plastic chair while little girls in white dresses—my cousins—had surrounded me and smiled into the camera. My eyes followed the long railing where I'd stood watching the proceedings below. It was closed now, a wall of frosted windows.

The ladies waiting for the adhan looked my way—with raised eyebrows, I imagined. They couldn't know the importance of the place to me, didn't know why I stood at the window looking out as the call to prayer reverberated through the building.

I stood in the middle of the prayer area under a slowly rotating fan. When the iqama was called, the ladies assembled beside me in a row.

A beautiful voice filled the place with words that seemed meant for me:

It is Allah who created the heavens and the earth, and sent down rain from the sky, and produced thereby fruits as provision for you.

And He subjected for you the ships to sail through the sea by His command, and He subjected for you the rivers.

And He subjected for you the sun and the moon, continuous [in orbit], and He subjected for you the night and the day.

And He gave you from all you asked of Him.

And if you were to count the favours of Allah, you could not enumerate them. Indeed, mankind is most unjust and ungrateful.


(August 2018)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shoe hostages

You used to hide our shoes. It was your tried-and-true way of getting your nieces and nephews to sleep over. “Okay, kids, let’s go home now,” one of your siblings would say at the end of a visit. “But their shoes are nowhere to be found,” you’d say. “I guess they’ll just have to sleep over!” Your siblings would chuckle at this hostage-taking and relent. But not my dad. He’d demand the shoes be procured immediately. And what choice did you have but to listen to your older brother? You had no children of your own, and you spoiled us rotten. Love flowed freely from your heart, knowing no bounds. We saw it in the hours you spent telling us stories, in your home that was always open, in the milk you put out for strays, and in your endless batches of fried potatoes. They were legendary, those potatoes. I still don’t know why yours always tasted the best. My brother would eat a plateful all by himself, and you’d just laugh and go make more. You don’t make them anymore. The last time I saw you
Post a Comment
Read more

The writer in me

The writer in me, nurtured at an early age but silenced in its prime by country-hopping, teaching, and babies —an occasional gasp for air its only reprieve from slow suffocation— longs to speak again. I've so much to say, it tells me, but you haven't been listening. Don't hold me back, it says by shopping, cooking, and lame excuses. Let me go, it says; let me speak. Ya Allah, strengthen my voice. (July 2018)
Post a Comment
Read more

To school on a winter morning

I love the walks to school on winter mornings. The crisp weather, the leisurely stride, the friendly banter between my daughters and their cousin. Sometimes they link arms with her—not with each other, to be sure—and sometimes they take quick steps, trying to outpace each other. The puffy black jacket I bought a decade ago on another continent serves me well. Today, grey clouds loom above, but so far there is no rain. (It doesn’t take long for the streets to fill with water when it does rain, and then the walk turns into a delicate crisscrossing dance.) We’re approaching the school gate now. “Anyone want to hug and kiss me in public?” I quip. The girls politely decline, but they do say salam and “I love you.” I stand until they pass through the doors; both of them look at me and wave. I turn back, and soon I’m crossing a one-way road; I live in Egypt, so I look both ways. My way back is contemplative. I study all the greenery on my path—trees and bushes of various shapes and sizes. Som
Post a Comment
Read more