A Sinner in Mecca

by Parvez Sharma

  “It’s done,” he said, like a Hollywood-style assassin calling in to home base to confirm a hit. I held my nose and showered in the abominable toilet-showers of Mina.

  We returned the following day to stone the devil again at Jamrat. The end was nigh. We still had a few days left in Mecca, which gave me time to perform an Umrah (lesser pilgrimage) in honor of my mother. I took a cab outside the boundaries of Mecca and changed into a new irham with hard-earned expertise, Burmese style. And with confidence, I wore a belt with a fanny pack.

  The Umrah only involved the circling of the Kaaba and running between the hills of Safa and Marwah: my two favorite rituals in Mecca. I was happy to repeat them. Being removed from the group, and performing the rituals on behalf of my mother, who never got to perform the Hajj, was spiritually satisfying. I felt as though I was performing an obligation. A sense of release came to me at the Kaaba, which helped to assuage the pain of missing out on the slaughter. Even though I was now able to lay my head in the comparative comfort of my hotel once again, I had trouble sleeping. So I turned to the Kaaba and prayed, night after night. I sat on the second level of the complex and reflected for hours. I watched pilgrims of all kinds—young, old, tall, short, colored, white, black, poor, disabled—all performing the tawaf. It was humbling to see the diversity of the Ummah on full display. Most humbling was the realization that many of these pilgrims had sold all their earthly possessions to get here in order to commune with Allah. Much more than New York, this was the city that never sleeps. I prayed for family, for friends, for forgiveness, and especially for Keith, my husband, who I loved more than life itself.

  For the first time, the sense that I had killed my mother, having come out to her as she was dying of cancer, was lifted. I felt Allah’s forgiveness. I was no longer a murderer.

  Tawaf around the Kaaba

  Swirl of activity around the Prophet’s Mosque

  Parvez in front of Kaaba and construction

  Kingdom Tower looms over the Kaaba

  Afghan pilgrim raises his index finger

  Iranian pilgrim raises her hands

  Pilgrims during the wuqoof in Arafat

  A man in deep prayer in Medina

  A man and his wife ride a motorcycle taxi in Mecca

  African women pilgrims in Medina

  A mutawa gazes at the Kaaba during tawaf

  A young Hajj volunteer poses with the Saudi flag

  Dangerous chaos in one of the many tunnels

  A father and son stand at the second Jamrat

  A young Indian boy performs self-flagellation

  Communal Friday prayer in Parvez’s hometown

  CHAPTER 10

  MECCA’S MANY MUHAMMADS

  It’s made in China,” said Muhammad. “The best things are always made there.” The man working in a shop tried to sell me religious tchotchkes. In his hand was a little plastic keychain. Inside it stood a massive Kaaba and a tiny Kingdom Tower—a reversal of reality. The cube was filled with liquid like a snow globe, and little multicolored balls and glitter danced around when you shook the thing. A heart was etched into the cube, as if to say that the owner had left his heart in Mecca. The thing was hideous, but I loved it.

  “Thirty riyals, but for you I’ll do ten,” he said with a grin.

  “I’ll take five,” I told him. “I can give them out to my friends back home.”

  “Amreeka?”

  I nodded. He rushed across the shop and pulled down a T-shirt for me.

  “I heart Mecca!” he and the T-shirt said. It was designed like the ubiquitous “I heart New York” objects abundant in my city’s many tourist traps.

  Muhammad was dressed like a Bollywood star. Handsome and clean-cut, he was well-groomed in a way that seemed incongruous to his setting.

  “Can you get me an Amreekan passport?” he said, half-jokingly.

  I continued the joke. “It’s a useless passport to have these days.”

  He laughed. “My name is Khan, and I’m not a terrorist!” He was referring to a recent movie quote by Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan. In the 2010 film My Name is Khan, his character is accosted by TSA officials doing a body-cavity search in a glammed-up, heavily stylized version of the bland, dated JFK airport. However, Khan’s character has Asperger’s syndrome, which prevents him from communicating easily. He comes to America to give a letter personally to President Obama in order to change the perception of Islam in the US. During his many adventures in a Bollywood-ized America, Khan nearly drowns during an unintentionally hilarious, extended, gospel-fueled Hurricane Katrina sequence. To his caricatured (though uncomfortably real) TSA detainers he says, “My name is Khan, and I’m not a terrorist.” This phrase caught like wildfire and became part of the Indian and Pakistani zeitgeist. It was the equivalent of Forest Gump’s saying, “Life is like a box of chocolates.”

  Muhammad proceeded to bust out a few lyrics from the soundtrack. I laughed heartily, for the first time in a while. With his Indian movie references, his Chinese tchotchkes, his I-heart shirts, and his probably illegal status in Saudi Arabia, he effortlessly reflected a kind of sophisticated global awareness, despite being nothing but an unskilled laborer. I bought a bunch of Muhammad’s kitsch.

  “Come again tomorrow,” he said. “I will try to find the T-shirts in your size.”

  Hajj was over, but no one was in a hurry to leave Mecca.

  I did return to Muhammad. Several times. We even shared a cigarette and a cup of tea once when I told him of the ubiquity of his name. I was drawn to him, and he was returning every subtle vibe I sent him. The needle on my gaydar hit “10.” I bought more spiritual crap than I otherwise would have.

  Several evenings later, Muhammad asked me to meet after Zuhr prayers, when his shift ended. I knew exactly what he was proposing, and despite my fear, I agreed to meet him. He led me up the ancient alleys and steep staircases of his slum. When he opened his door, I lost my confidence and felt a profound sense of spiritual unease.

  I didn’t want to shame him. “There is a place and a time,” I said in Urdu. I later regretted my word choice. For me, there would be many other places and times, but for him stuck here in Saudi Arabia, there would probably not.

  “Khuda Hafiz,” he said, shutting the door. May God be your protector. I ran like I hadn’t in a long time. Yes, I feared the mutaween and what might happen to me if we were caught doing what might have just happened, but my decision was driven more by piety. I wanted to be clean in this holy place.

  I felt immense shame merely for having considered a carnal encounter in Mecca. Forgotten shames came alive. Right on cue, the call to Maghrib prayers began. I felt unclean, to the point where I irrationally thought the people in my group might be able to see the shame I felt for my carnal lust. I needed to go the extra mile in cleansing myself after this episode with Muhammad the shopkeeper. So although it otherwise wouldn’t have been mandatory, I again performed the ghusl cleansing ritual instead of the simpler wudu.

  I made the niyat (my intention) of a state of tahara (purity). I washed my hands three times while saying, “Bismillah,” and washed my privates. Then I entered wudu mode. I cupped water in my left hand and spread it across my right arm, all the way up to my armpit. The same with my other arm. Then I cleaned behind my ears and poured water over my head and into the roots of my hair. I cupped water with my right hand and gargled three times. Then I washed my right foot, thoroughly scrubbing between my toes, and my left. Back to the ghusl. I washed my head again three times, then the rest of my body, right side and left, making sure to touch every inch of my skin with water. No one school of Islam agrees unanimously on the proper way to perform these rituals. In this moment of trauma, I tried to perform them as I’d been taught. But I am sure there were missteps.

  I headed toward the Kaaba for the sunset prayer, followed by my version of a third mini-Umrah. I had already performed the Hajj, then an Umrah for my mother, and now a third pilgrimage for myself—just to be sure. After the near-sex
ual encounter with the shopkeeper, I thought this might earn me a few extra brownie points from Allah. Why not?

  I performed the tawaf and set course for the saee. As I ran between the two hills, I noticed again a beggar woman holding a baby. I was immediately reminded of Hajjar and her child Ismael. I reached for my money belt and realized that I’d been pickpocketed, presumably during my tawaf. Thankfully my passport was in Saudi hands, having been confiscated at the beginning of my journey. I thanked God for the first time for the Saudis’ authoritarian character. I was missing an expensive set of jade prayer beads and a little over $100 in riyal. I wondered how someone mere feet from the Kaaba could bring himself to steal. Only a most desperate poverty could drive someone to such depths of sacrilege and irreverence, not to mention risk—the wretched soul would easily lose a hand if caught. If he was a repeat offender, he could face execution by beheading.

  The next day I indulged in a cab ride, asking the cabbie to “show me” Mecca. As was my habit in New York, I struck up a conversation with my Pakistani driver. His name was Muhammad Kasim. He lived in Aziziyah, in an area called “Little Pakistan.” To make ends meet, Kasim also held down a second job in the mall, selling watches that told the wearer the direction of Mecca, wherever he was in the world. Kasim could tell I was interested in learning more about local life—he spotted me taking notes—so he offered to give me a driving tour of his neighborhood. There was no way to drive up to the entrance to his home, so we parked on the street—a steep slope. The garbage and sewage lining the narrow alleys reminded me of the worst slum in Bombay, Dharavi. We entered an apartment building and scaled the dank stairway. Kasim’s apartment was exactly as had been described to me by Rahman, the floor sweeper I’d met in Medina—crowded, dark, smelly, dilapidated, no running water or flush toilet. Suitcases were piled up in a corner—a poignant reminder of their impossible hope to leave the country.

  The Saudis utilized a system called kafala (“sponsorship”) to monitor the activity of millions of unskilled migrant laborers. As part of the system, Kasim’s passport was held by the owner of his taxi company. Kafala is, in reality, modern-day slavery, and as such has come under increased worldwide criticism.

  “These Saudis think we’re worse than dogs,” said Kasim. “And they tell us as much. They say things like ‘Animals are better than you,’ and ‘You belong under Saudi feet.’”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Twelve years. I can’t even tell you all the things I’ve seen here.”

  Kasim used a word that had been used to torture me in grade school. “Gaandbazi.” It refers to someone who receives anal sex. The way Kasim used the word, he meant rape. He was telling me that his roommate had been sodomized by his employer.

  I met others like Kasim and Rahman, unskilled laborers from South Asia. These indentured servants could be likened to Mexican migrant laborers picking strawberries in the California sun; however, these poor souls are treated with a much greater degree of spite. The “they took our jobs” refrain heard commonly in parts of the United States is a sentiment that is newly arriving in the Saudi kingdom. Oil revenues have steadily decreased over the last decade, and unemployment amongst young Saudis is high. It has gotten to the point where Saudi women have begun working at Victoria’s Secret shops in malls, for example. Such service labor would have previously been considered far beneath them. Naturally their resultant animosity turns toward the outsider: growing in direct proportion to a slowing economy.

  “How can you tolerate such conditions?” I asked him.

  “Alhamdulillah,” said Kasim. All praise be to God. “I am earning extra sawab (reward) for working near the Prophet’s Mosque. That gives me strength to carry on.”

  I texted a Saudi friend in New York because I knew Adham wouldn’t believe me. “There is forced gay anal sex going on in Mecca.”

  “Why are you surprised?” he replied. “The Saudis treat foreign workers like shit and Mecca for some is just another Saudi city.”

  “But it’s Islam’s holiest city?”

  “Go around and look in the number of slums the city has. You saw City of Joy about your own country? No one knows how a large section of this country lives under the poverty line. Nobody!” I needed more proof than that, so I Googled that night. One website claimed a quarter of this country lived under the poverty line. How could this be in the world’s most oil-rich nation? And how could the horrors of the poor in Calcutta relive here?

  Back at my hotel I noticed a fifty-something man who’d been standing outside with a sign every day since I’d been in Mecca. His sign read, “Road to Makkah (Mecca).” Per habit, I wanted to talk to him.

  “What’s your name, brother? I’ve noticed you every day.”

  “Muhammad Jaffar,” he said. He explained that he came from a Pakistani family of mutawif, a fast-disappearing profession of traditional Hajj guides who had lived in Mecca for generations. They were highly respected because their duty was seen as divinely appointed. Due to the modernization of the Hajj experience, these traditional gatekeepers had been largely displaced by elaborate tours.

  “It’s my last day here,” I told him.

  “Is there anything left you haven’t seen?” said Jaffar. “Do you want me to take you?”

  I thought for a moment. Only one place remained. It was not part of the traditional Hajj. However, it had been alive in my memory since childhood.

  “The cave of Hira,” I said. The place where the Prophet Muhammad received the first revelation of the Quran from the angel Jibreel.

  “It will be very crowded,” he said, “But I can take you there.”

  We hailed a taxi and headed to the mountain of Jabal al-Nour. We talked all the way.

  “So much has been destroyed,” I said, looking at the new, ever-expanding skyline.

  “I used to work with Sheikh Angawi in the nineties. He fought so hard to preserve all the important places of our history. But he was no match for the power of the bin Ladens’ bulldozers.”

  “Why do these Salafi Wahhabis destroy everything?”

  “Don’t say Wahhabi. They don’t like that. Just call them Salafi,” scolded Jaffar. “It’s part of their religion. There can be no place of shirk so they constantly destroy.” He said “their religion” with some contempt, separating his Islam from theirs.

  We arrived at the mountain, crowded beyond belief.

  “There’s no way we’ll make it to the top,” he said.

  Once again Saudi disregard for the safety of pilgrims was on full display. The crowd at Hira was similarly charged with passion, which increased the closer they got to the holy site. They were precariously perched across the mountainside, seemingly one faulty grip away from instant death.

  I was disappointed not to be able to ascend the mountain to see the cave of Hira. The angel Jibreel’s command to Muhammad to recite had always struck me as significant—Islam is nothing if not a call to the intellect.

  Jaffar suggested that we share a cup of tea. We found a nearby tea stall serving piping-hot tea in tiny plastic cups.

  “How has your Hajj been?” he asked.

  “Alhamdullillah,” I said. “I felt the greatest blessings at the Kaaba.”

  “I am so fortunate,” he said, echoing my earlier cab driver. “I get to pray at it every day.”

  Jaffar told me how difficult it had become to support his family because of the commercialization of Hajj spiritual tourism. “Mutawifs like me used to be sought after. No more.”

  “If I had known, I would have approached you earlier.” I handed him all the money in my new wallet, which he reluctantly accepted. “I have never seen so many kinds of Muslims from all over the planet in one place,” I said. “I’ve never felt as safe as I have in Medina and even in Mecca.”

  “There couldn’t be a better place for Muslims to meet. Jihadis like al-Qaeda can meet here easily. Hizbullah from Lebanon can meet Basij from Iran.”

  I was taken aback. “Have you ever
been to a meeting like this?”

  “If you’ve lived in Mecca as long as I have, you pretty much get a chance to see everything that goes on here. I was born here and then never left.”

  He pointed at graffiti on the surrounding rocks. One was a stencil of a woman’s face covered in the PLO’s revolutionary keffiyeh. It said, “I am a Saudi Citizen. Free and independent.” Another simply read, “Who said I don’t confess? I confessed everything to my God.” Another, which seemed directly anti-Saud: “The government does not know love.”

  I pointed to another in ornate Arabic calligraphy.

  Jaffar laughed. “What’s the use of a virgin body when the mind is a whore?”

  “How can they allow this to exist in such a holy city?” I asked rhetorically.

  “The signs are all here,” said Jaffar. “Where have we seen graffiti like this?”

  “Egypt,” I replied without missing a beat. I’d seen it with my own eyes.

  He nodded. “Things like this were never said on the walls of Mecca until recently. You’ve seen Cairo, you’ve seen Tunis. You’ve seen Libya just a few days ago.” Muammar Gaddafi had just been killed. “Wait till you see what’s going to happen in Syria and Iraq.”