Threading My Prayer Rug

by Sabeeha Rehman

  I missed Aba Jee. He had passed away several years earlier. He would have rejoiced.

  Bismillah

  The phone rang.

  “I am calling to invite you to my daughter’s Bismillah ceremony.” It was a mother from the Sunday school.

  What is a Bismillah ceremony?

  I know Bismillah means “In the name of God,” and we say it before we begin something—like before we eat—to seek God’s blessings. But what was a ceremony? Too embarrassed to ask, I listened.

  “She is so excited to be starting the recitation of the Qur’an,” the mother said.

  Ah, so it’s the ceremony to mark the beginning of her recitation; an initiation of sorts, I suppose.

  “How old is your daughter?” I asked.

  “Masha’Allah, she is four,” she invoked God’s blessing.

  “Mubarak.”

  In Pakistan I had never heard of a Bismillah ceremony. I am sure it was held, but not in our social circle. I was beginning to appreciate how secular our military lifestyle had been. Not knowing what to expect, what would be an appropriate gift, I called one of my Pakistani friends whose husband was rather religious. She would know.

  “Don’t ask me. Never been to one, never seen one. You are better off checking with one of the Indian ladies.” She was clueless.

  “Why Indian?”

  “It’s their culture.”

  Their culture? Aren’t we all Muslims? So what if some are from Pakistan and others from India, or Indonesia for that matter? What is this culture stuff?

  I asked Khalid, who rationalized that these ceremonies are not a religious requirement. Studying and understanding the Qur’an is what God asks of us; ceremonies associated with it are man-made add-ons for celebrating milestones. It brings people together. You break bread and, in this case, give encouragement to a child and motivate other children and their parents.

  Then how come we didn’t have these ceremonies in Pakistan? Wouldn’t the same principle apply?

  A friend explained his take: Muslims are a minority in India. As a religious minority, you tend to establish a culture of communal events. Your religious community becomes your source of strength. It’s about survival. Look at what we are doing here in New York: establishing a Muslim community for the same reasons. In Pakistan—a Muslim-majority country—there was no need for us to define our Muslim identity and lifestyle. And yes, Bismillah ceremonies are held in Pakistan but are not as prevalent.

  That would mean that Indian Muslims in the US have a head start on how to survive as a religious minority, and Pakistanis can piggyback on their model. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend the sensibilities of my Muslim readers by using a porky analogy. Camelback would be more like it. Until now, I had not paid attention to who was Indian and who was Pakistani. Come to think of it, the Sunday school teachers—Indian; the doctor who had given his house to the Sunday school—Indian.

  Praising the Prophet: In English!

  We were celebrating Milad un Nabi, Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

  Mummy would invite all the ladies to a Milad in her home. The sunroom floor was covered with sheets, pillows placed against the wall, and incense burners placed on a small, low table in the center. Women would sit reclining against the wall, dupattas draped over their heads. An elder religious auntie, with a gift for oratory, would open the ceremony by chanting blessings on the Prophet. Everyone would join the chant. Auntie would relate the story of the Prophet’s birth and his attributes. I would sing a naat, a poem in praise of Prophet Muhammad, women swaying to the tune, their eyes closed in reverence. The cycle of chanting, reading, singing would continue for an hour. At the end, everyone would stand to pay their respects to the Prophet, and I would sing the “salaam,” blessings of peace on the Prophet. We would sit again; and then as everyone raised their hands, auntie would lead the prayer, asking for God’s blessings. All in Urdu. At night, the city was dressed up in lights, and Daddy would take us out just to savor the sights.

  I was to learn later that since women on the subcontinent did not go to the mosques, the ceremony of Milad was established to provide them with a space for spiritual fulfillment.

  To my delight, this event was resurrected once the Sunday school took off. But here, it had a new flavor. We ladies held the Milad upstairs in the Albanian mosque, and the men had their Milad downstairs. Men doing the Milad? Another first for me. In Pakistan, this was a ladies’ thing. Well, turns out, in India, it’s a man’s thing as well. OK, so why not take it a step further and include the children? After all, it’s their Prophet too. So we invented the children’s Milad.

  The teacher gave the children an assignment to make short speeches on the life of Prophet Muhammad and taught them to sing some naats. Now, here is the problem. Naats were in Urdu; some children spoke Urdu, others did not. Bless these children, they just went along and sang in Urdu with an American accent.

  I failed to teach my children the Urdu language. What a mistake! Now they don’t know what they are singing. We need to come up with an alternative.

  The alternative became controversial. Over the next few years, as more children from the Arab and African American community joined the Sunday school, it became apparent to me that naats in Urdu could not be sustained. I broached the idea of English naats. I had heard some children at another Sunday school sing an English naat to the tune of “I’d like to give the world a home.” I got a hold of the lyrics and presented it to the team.

  A naat in English!

  I tried to rationalize my proposal: we have children from various ethnic backgrounds and not all of them understand Urdu. We need to institutionalize English as our medium … be inclusive.

  Silence.

  I could tell from their looks that they didn’t know what to do with me. They tried to reason with me.

  What’s there to reason about?

  I huffed and I puffed and stormed out. Now I preach tolerance. Where was my tolerance when my short fuse would light up each time I heard the voice of dissent?

  Years later, when I took a course in change management, I appreciated my folly. This approach does not work: “I want you to change the way you are doing things and do it the way I suggest, because my way makes better sense.” If it means change, then it doesn’t matter if my way makes more sense. There is an art, a whole industry around managing change. And I thought that waving an English naat in front of them would be a moment of enlightenment. I was asking them to give up what defined their identity—language—and had steered the plane into an air pocket.

  A Negotiation with God

  The Sunday school announced a celebration of Isra Meeraj. In Pakistan, we had never held this function, but I was glad about it—my children will learn something. Saqib was given an assignment: a five-minute speech. He had no reference material. There were no books on this subject, and in the 1980s, there was no Internet. We didn’t even have a computer. But I did remember a story that Aba Jee had told me.

  “Saqib, do you know why Muslims pray five times a day? Why not six, or four, or just once a day?” I asked.

  Of course he didn’t know. So I told him the story as I had heard it.

  One night, when the Prophet Muhammad is in a deep sleep, the angel Gabriel awakens him. He takes him to a winged horse and they fly into the night, arriving in Jerusalem at Al-Aqsa. Standing there are the prophets Abraham, Jesus, Moses, and others. They pray together. The angel then takes him on a flight to the seven heavens. He sees the angels praying, he meets the prophets again, he sees paradise and hell, and finally, Gabriel takes him to the highest heaven. “I can go no further or my wings will burn,” Gabriel says. “You go on ahead.” Muhammad proceeds and finds himself in the presence of God Almighty. God does not reveal himself to him, but they have a conversation. This night journey and meeting with God is referred to as Isra Meeraj. God tells Muhammad that he and his followers should pray fifty times a day. After the conversation is over and Muhammad returns, he meets Moses on the way down. �
�How did it go?” Moses asks. Muhammad tells him about the fifty prayers.

  “They will never be able to pray fifty times a day. Go back and request God to reduce the number,” Moses says.

  The Prophet Muhammad goes back. God reduces the number to forty. On his way back, he runs into Moses again.

  “What did God say?” he asked.

  “Forty prayers a day.”

  “Go back. Your people won’t be able to comply. Mine couldn’t; yours won’t.”

  Muhammad went back. God reduced the number to thirty. Moses sent him back again. This went on from thirty to twenty to ten, until God said that five prayers was his final number.

  “What did God say?” Prophet Moses asked.

  “Five prayers a day.”

  “Go back. Even five will be too much.”

  “I cannot go back. God said that this was his final number. I am also too embarrassed to go back again.”

  So five it was. And five it has remained.

  I loved this story when I first heard it, and I loved telling it to Saqib. Of course, he was fascinated. Aren’t you? He called his teacher, ran the facts by him, and got his speech ready. When Saqib stood at the lectern and spoke, I thought of Aba Jee. The story he told me, I told my son, and now Saqib was telling it to the world of Muslims on Staten Island.

  Twenty years later, when I narrated this story to a group of Jewish students at the Abraham Herschel School in Manhattan, one of the students raised his hand.

  “Does that mean that God made a mistake?”

  Stumped.

  Back home, I pulled out my reference material.

  God doesn’t make mistakes. He is the All-Knowing, All-Wise. So what was His wisdom in setting the bar high and then lowering it?

  I can come up with a number of explanations, but I don’t dare put it out there, for I cannot speak for God. All I can say is: only God knows.

  Look Back in Pride

  It wasn’t enough that our children were learning the theology and rituals; they needed to feel confident as Muslims, and that meant pride in their heritage. Someone came up with the idea of a Muslim History Fair. Again, we had never done a fair like that in Pakistan. Children put on a play, “The Golden Glory,” highlighting the achievements of prominent Muslim leaders, scientists, and inventors, choreographed with spotlights and music. Posters and models illustrated the works of Avicenna in medicine, advances in algebra made by Omar Khayyam, architectural marvels, and contributions in astronomy, science, and chemistry. I was responsible for putting together a panel of judges for the contest. As I took the judges to each display, I was humbled by the collective knowledge of these children.

  I didn’t know all this. What went through their minds when they created the poster depicting the role of Muslim scholars in translating ancient Greek texts and bringing the ideas of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato to Europe? Were they tickled when they learned that it was Muslims who introduced the concept of “zero” in mathematics? And how did they feel when they learned that it was Ibn Firnas, an engineer of Andalusía, who in the ninth century constructed a flying machine, becoming the world’s first aviator?

  My Feelings Were Mixed with Pride, Sadness, and Hope.

  It’s not enough to look back in pride. What good is the golden age of Islam if we are back in the Bronze Age? What took us back? And please, let’s not blame colonialism. Only the weak were colonized. But we can use our glorious history as a springboard for the future. I hope that is what our children take away from the experience.

  Mother’s Day: American or Islamic?

  History Fair coincided with Mother’s Day. A week before the event, Imam gave a lecture on this topic, making the point that this American holiday reflects the spirit of Islam. I believe he was addressing the skeptics in the congregation who considered American culture to be at odds with Islamic practices. Many immigrants fear that by embracing the culture of their adopted country, they are scraping away the defining contours of their heritage. He related a well-known story of the Prophet Muhammad, one that Aba Jee had told me.

  A man came to the Prophet and said, “O Messenger of God! Who among the people is the most worthy of my good companionship?” The Prophet said, “Your mother.” The man said, “Then who?” The Prophet said, “Then your mother.” The man further asked, “Then who?” The Prophet said, “Then your mother.” The man asked again, “Then who?” The Prophet said, “Then your father.”

  In another story, someone asked the Prophet, “Where do you find Paradise?” The Prophet said, “Paradise is at the feet of your mother.”

  Imam recited a verse from the Qur’an that urges respect for parents, stressing that the mother carries the child with hardship, and gives birth with hardship, and nurtures the child during the nursing period.

  Can we somehow combine Mother’s Day with the History Fair? Sort of Americanize the event. Our children would love it.

  Khalid came up with an idea: let’s raffle a prize for the mothers.

  Raffle? Is that halal? Gambling is forbidden in Islam.

  I called Imam. By now, I had a direct line to him. He gave the go-ahead, explaining that as long as no money changed hands, it was OK. So we pulled a name out of a box and made Mrs. Siddique a happy mom. Mother’s Day had been Islamicized.

  Deaths and Burials

  My friend’s husband died of a heart attack. The community came together, handling the arrangements like clockwork. The grieving widow and her children, who had no family around, found comfort in the arms of the community. If something happened to my husband, at least I will be among people who care. Then a doctor’s wife died, and we had to face up to the fact that we needed a long-term plan to handle burials. The issue was the practice of burying the body facing Mecca. If the alignment of rows in a cemetery faced a different direction, there was a problem. The widower doctor made an arrangement with the Rosehill cemetery in Linden, New Jersey, where the management agreed to parcel out a section for Muslim burial. As long as all the graves in that section faced in one direction, it wouldn’t look out of sync. Khalid and I purchased a plot for us. Bathing and preparing the body was the other issue. In Pakistan, the body was prepared in the house. Only women can bathe and prepare a woman’s body, and likewise for men. Viewing was at home, and from there, straight to the graveyard. We had to adjust in accordance with the laws of the land. Khalid spoke to a friendly director of a funeral home, who agreed to allow us to use his facilities for bathing and preparing the body ourselves. Then my friend died. In Pakistan, professional women bathers prepared the body. Here I found myself handling the preparations. As she lay dying, I drove to the shopping mall and purchased white fabric for the shroud. The next morning I called the local mosque from my office in Brooklyn to ask for written instructions on preparing the body. They sent a woman, who met me in the hospital lobby and handed me a booklet with instructions and illustrations. The day she died, in the basement of the funeral home, we bathed and prepared my friend for burial. She had to be buried the same day. No embalming.

  Our Media

  In June 1985, we launched our first newsletter. In Pakistan, mosques did not issue newsletters. We called it Al-Majlis (the place of gatherings). A newsletter meant that we had a mailing list—a community; and it meant we had something newsworthy to report. It was Khalid’s idea (you are not surprised). He procured desktop publishing software for our first computer, an Apple 2e, asked Saqib to design the format and layout, and assigned me to provide Saqib with the content. My thirteen-year-old son spent six hours creating the first newsletter. He created a banner with palm trees and a crescent on the left, and a dome with two minarets on the right. He put in clip-art graphics and inserted photocopies of black-and-white photos of the history fair. He made a Children’s Corner and an Islamic crossword puzzle. For one year, he developed these bimonthly newsletters while I helped with editing. It grew in size and scope, and eventually I took over the task of layout as it was taking too much of his time. I loved creating it, and w
hen people called to say, “I just got the newsletter; it is so good,” I tried to downplay my elation. Parents loved to see their children’s photos, their son mentioned in the Good News column, and children smiled seeing their article published. Al-Majlis was connecting people with the mosque and with one another. Every time someone said, “I didn’t know … until I read it in the newsletter,” I beamed with a sense of accomplishment.

  Community building had lit a spark in our lives, and Khalid and I got swept away by the zeal. We were consumed, and our time after working hours was devoted to the project. Khalid was looking beyond the mosque. He also wanted a community center for other-than-religious activities, a cultural center where our teens could hang out, where we would hold weddings and funerals, even sports. Great idea, people said, but let’s first develop the mosque. We did build the mosque, but we never built the community center, not in Staten Island, and not at Park51.

  19.

  Moon Sighting

  As a hybrid of Islamic practices evolved, I continued to have my clashes with tradition.

  New York. Circa 1980s

  I had my first run-in with moon sighting. I mentioned earlier that the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar cycle. The beginning of a new month is subject to moon sighting. Since Eid falls on the first day of the month after Ramadan, you won’t know when Eid is until just the day before, when the moon is sighted. In a Muslim country, no problem. As soon as the moon is sighted, the national holiday is announced for the next day and the country goes into a holiday mood. Try doing that in the US. The next day children may have an exam; the doctor may have patients booked…. So what did we do? We’d pray that Eid fell on a weekend. When I first came to the US and there was only one Islamic Center—on Riverside Drive—I would call the center weeks before to confirm the date for Eid, and Khalid would take the day off accordingly. I was pleased that this center was forward-looking and had fixed the date for Eid well ahead of time. But that did not last. No sooner did we get the Sunday school and mosque activity going than the leadership of the mosque announced that Eid day would be subject to moon sighting. I pleaded my case with one of the leaders.