Threading My Prayer Rug

by Sabeeha Rehman

  Here is my chance to convince the skeptics that there is value in interfaith dialogue. I will tell them, “See what they are doing for us.”

  A Church Beckons. The Late 1980s

  A minister walked into my office one afternoon as I sat shuffling papers, wishing I had a computer. It was the late 1980s, and I was the director of planning at Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn. Interfaith. It follows me and finds me. Reverend Peter Nelson was the VP for marketing, and over lunch, we would chat about Islam and Christianity. He and his wife had visited us in our home when I held BBQ parties on our back porch, overlooking the valley.

  “My church would like to invite you and Khalid to talk to our congregation about Islam,” Peter said.

  I looked back at the reverend with surprised reverence.

  “I have never done that.”

  “Yes, you have. You do it every day over lunch.”

  “But that is different.”

  “More people need to hear what I am hearing.”

  “But we have never made a speech on Islam. I am not qualified.”

  “You and Khalid will do just fine.”

  “Khalid, wait till you hear what Peter said.” I told him the story as I walked up the stairs to the kitchen. “Can you believe it—a church inviting Muslims to tell them about Islam?! Only in America.”

  “We have to be well prepared,” Khalid said.

  One would have thought we were preparing for the bar exam. This was before PowerPoint was invented. We were to just stand there and talk, and then take questions. What should we focus on? What questions will they ask? What if we don’t know the answer? What if they ask us, “Do you believe that Jesus was the son of God?” How do we answer that without offending our hosts?

  The meeting was in the basement of the church, and the minister introduced us to a gathering of ethnically mixed families, who gathered around us on folding chairs. I looked at the audience: eager faces, smiling, as if waiting for candy to be distributed or a fairy tale to be told. They are smiling. They like us. I think we will do OK. I began: “Islam means ‘submission’ to the will of God. A Muslim is one who submits.”

  “Give me more,” their looks said.

  “There are five pillars in Islam: belief in the one God, prayer five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, charity, and hajj….”

  Hands shot up. Why five prayers? Do you go to a mosque five times a day? Can you drink water when you fast? Have you made the hajj? Can you give charity to non-Muslims … ?

  I am loving this. See how eager they are to learn. Aren’t they respectful? Keep those questions coming. Look at Khalid—all animated.

  The slotted hour ran overtime. The audience gathered around us after the formal talk with more questions and so many parting words of thanks. “It’s the other way around,” I told them. “Thank you for opening your sacred space to us.”

  “Bia,” Khalid said to me as I sat in the car, closing the door, “they are open-minded, welcoming, and enthusiastic. I wish we were like that. Think of it: all these people that we talked to today now know enough about Islam to discount what they watch on TV.”

  “In fact, they can become our ambassadors. Now if anyone discredits Islam, they know enough to say, ‘That is not true. I know a Muslim family.’”

  We both rode home on a high with the intoxication of mutual respect. That night, we had been initiated into interfaith dialogue at the initiative of a church. Khalid and I were now ready to take our show on the road.

  A Hospital in Brooklyn Goes Interfaith. The Late 1980s

  When Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn merged in the early 1980s, my boss quipped, “They are saying the name of the merged hospital will be St. John’s Jewish.” He was close. They named it Interfaith Medical Center, and in 1986, I went to work for them in their Planning Office. My boss, Ted Jamison, the CEO, an African American (and a Republican, I may say), took a keen interest in my Pakistani background and my Muslim faith. He set the tone for a culture that was inclusive, tolerant, and pluralistic and saw recognition of Muslim staff as the ultimate validation in making the hospital truly interfaith. He assigned the chaplain and Reverend Peter Nelson to work with me on accommodating the spiritual needs of the Muslim staff and patients. The chaplain dedicated a room for jumma, the Friday prayers. One of the medical residents—they were mostly Pakistani-Indian—would do the sermon, and a reception was held twice a year on Eid and attended by the CEO and senior management. When Dr. Jamil Khan presented Mr. Jamison with a framed script of the prophet’s last sermon, Mr. Jamison, in accepting the gift, announced that if he placed this in his office, only those who visited his office would see it, but if he placed it in the lobby, everyone would see it. And there it was mounted, with an inscription. The program for Muslim patients took a lot more doing. Reverend Nelson and I went to all the neighborhood mosques in and around the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, met the imams, and asked them to advise their congregation that, at our hospital, we would provide Muslim chaplaincy services, halal food, prayer space, and female obstetrician services. Our admission intake and IT system was reconfigured to identify Muslim patients, and the dietary department equipped itself accordingly. When we rolled out the program, our first patient was the imam. “I could have gone to any hospital, but I came here because I want to support this program,” he told me. I thought of Aba Jee that day. How pleased he would have been. It didn’t happen because of me. I was just the instrument. It happened because this is America.

  Call of the Rabbi. The 1990s

  It was inevitable. Word had gotten out that there is this Muslim doctor and his wife who go around talking about Islam. I bet they prefaced it with “handsome” Muslim doctor. My colleagues always—always—remarked when they would first meet Khalid, “You didn’t tell us how handsome he is.”

  So one day, the rabbi called and caught us off-guard.

  “My Hebrew school students have never been inside a mosque,” he told Khalid.

  Uh-oh!

  Khalid knew that he would have to get permission from the board. The board was divided between “Great idea, most welcome” and “Why are they interested in seeing a mosque?” Why can’t we get past this distrust? Khalid pulled out his canned speech on harmony and awareness, and prevailed. That Sunday, we welcomed the synagogue students, mostly high school level, and introduced them to the rituals of prayer. Moved by their presence, a board member approached the rabbi and invited him to come and give a lecture to the Sunday school students. The rabbi accepted. The Jerusalem wall had come down. That spring, the rabbi invited the mosque families to join them for Seder services at the synagogue. “Do you have any dietary restrictions?” he inquired of Khalid. “We don’t drink alcohol and don’t eat pork.”

  “Not even wine?”

  “Not even wine.”

  Wasn’t that gracious of him to ask!

  I had never been to a Seder and as our group of families walked in, I was excited. The rabbi greeted us and introduced us around. After services, as we left the sanctuary, a waiter walked up serving drinks in mini cups. We gestured “No, thanks,” assuming it was wine.

  “There is no wine being served,” the rabbi said, “I had wine removed from all the trays.”

  That is so nice of him. He didn’t have to do that just for us.

  Khalid and I lifted the cup and took a sip. The whiff of alcohol hit my nostrils. I looked up at Khalid. We discreetly looked for a place to put away the cup and said nothing. Mistakes happen, and there was no need to embarrass our host. Too late. In a minute, the rabbi was beside us.

  “I apologize. I don’t know how this happened. I am so sorry. I first had special trays prepared for your group, without the alcohol. Then, not wanting to take a chance, I had it removed from all the trays. I had specific instructions. I am so sorry.”

  “It’s OK. Please don’t feel bad.” I was feeling so bad for the poor rabbi. He looked mortified.

  One of our men walke
d over, “I finally got a taste of wine,” he said with a chuckle. Thank God he has a sense of humor. We had mobilized and brought the group to the synagogue and wanted them to leave feeling good about the experience. Too soon. Another turned to me and whispered, “They did it on purpose.”

  Ohhh! Why feel like that? How I wished we could get past the distrust. The hard rocks in the Jerusalem wall were unyielding. I understand where this is coming from. But here in this sacred space, please, let’s open our hearts.

  I was troubled on the ride home and late into the night. How can we change perception when suspicion is so deeply entrenched? All it takes is one kitchen chef’s error in placing wine cups on a tray to reaffirm, “They are out to hurt us.” If the wine episode had not happened, would the skeptics in our group have undergone a conversion—just a mild conversion? Is interfaith dialogue only for the “Let’s be friends-ers”?

  Always the voice of reason, Khalid counseled me: “We will continue to do what we have started. Those who are committed to interfaith dialogue will join us, and those who don’t see the value in it … we are not going to worry about them. Now go to sleep.”

  Thank you, God, for Khalid. With him by my side, I can always count on a good night’s sleep.

  A Catholic Hospital Hands over the Mic. 1990s

  Every morning, Sister would say a prayer at St. Vincent Medical Center, where Khalid was on staff. The prayer was heard all over the hospital through the public announcement system. One day Khalid came up with one of his many bright ideas.

  “I will ask Sister if I can do a Muslim prayer on the PA system. We have a large Muslim staff, so why not have a prayer by a Muslim as well?”

  Is he bold, audacious, or what?

  I stopped stirring the cumin seeds I had put in hot oil, lay the spatula on the spoon rest, turned around, and gave him a hug. “I love you.” The crackle of cumin and whiff of the aroma twirled me back to the frying pan.

  The following week, at the precise hour in the morning, a voice boomed over the PA system in the hospital, “This is Dr. Khalid Rehman. In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful …”

  I wasn’t there to hear it, but one of the Muslim doctors on staff told me that he had tears in his eyes. It was a brief fifteen-second prayer, a prayer for patients, the caregivers, the staff, nothing different from what Sister would pray for; but this was a Catholic hospital, and a Muslim was offering the prayer. I too had tears.

  “What did you say to Sister?” I asked.

  “I just asked for a meeting, told her that I would also like to say a prayer, as we have many Muslims on staff, and she said that would be fine. She took me to the telephone operator’s room and told them that I would be saying the prayer.”

  The next day, as I returned home from work and was walking up the stairs to the kitchen, Khalid was waiting for me at the landing.

  “Guess what! Sister wants me to say a prayer every week.”

  And thus, until Khalid left the hospital many years later, once a week he was the prayer man, and everyone in the hospital would hear the Muslim prayer.

  Only in America.

  Am I a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or All in One?

  Have you ever engaged in interfaith dialogue? Watch it! You may get converted. Khalid and I were going through a metamorphosis. My friend Jenny invited us to attend Sabbath services at the B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side. In 2007, we had moved to Manhattan. The first time we walked in, we were greeted with, “Shabat Shalom, Shalom Aleichem.”

  “What did he just say?” I asked Khalid. “Did I hear him say what sounded like Salaam Alaikum?” Wow! Do people know that? Even our greetings are similar. Wait till I tell my family in Pakistan.

  Sitting in the pew, reading from the prayer book, Khalid pointed out the text. “See this. Our religions are so similar.” And sounding like a broken record: “If I hadn’t seen the cover, I’d think I was reading the Qur’an. Honest!” All charged up too, I decided to observe the Sabbath at home the next weekend. God, it was hard! I kept reaching for my phone; and in the end, I just put it away in the other room. Not to sit at my computer for a whole day! Will I survive? By midmorning, I had settled into my chair with a book, and I was not moving. I’d look out the window and see the sailboats drift along in the glistening waters of the East River, wave to the tourists on the Circle Line, and just read. In between, I’d daydream. What luxury! What a smart idea, to have one day when you just rest—rest you mind, your body, and just chill. What discipline, to be able to just rest.

  An interfaith music feast was planned, and Reverend K. Karpin offered his space at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, also on the Upper West Side. He opened his office for us to meet, assigned his staff, opened his kitchen and cooked beside us, set up the tables, carried the linen, affixed cables and microphones, and then stood at the dais and offered the opening prayer. All in the spirit of bringing communities together. So Christian! Isn’t that what the Qur’an teaches us—building harmony, fostering respect? Maybe I am a Christian at heart. When the music began, I joined the rabbi and the reverend on the dais, and we took turns singing Allah hu, Allah hu, Allah hu, the rabbi and reverend sang Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, and the audience of Jews, Christians, and Muslims joined in, swaying in “perfect harmony.” We have kept the tradition going. Each year we have a theme for the interfaith feast: green feast, peace feast, fall feast. We read from the scriptures—and guess what, they all say the same thing, and why not, isn’t it the same God? We have now taken it to a different level: comedy feast. Enough about educating us. Let’s have some laughter; let’s laugh at ourselves. I took a family member—an airline pilot—who was visiting from Pakistan, to the comedy feast. He was floored. Seeing Muslims making fun of themselves in the presence of Christians, Jews, and Hindus, and vice versa, was like nothing he had ever seen or expected. He had some stories to tell when he went back home.

  One evening, after I had finished delivering a lecture on Islam 101 to an interfaith gathering, had done the Q&A, and was now just hanging out, a lady sitting on the side beckoned me. She was in a wheelchair and must have been in her late eighties or thereabouts. I walked over to her. “Can I ask you a question?” she said. A sensitive question perhaps; one that she didn’t want to raise in public. I pulled over a chair, sat next to her, leaned close, and braced myself. She asked, “Can you tell me where you got your blouse from?”

  I didn’t convert, but all this exposure to interfaith communities gave me pause. I was seeing how much joy a more open approach could bring, how much peace there was in embracing all. I recall a sermon given by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “God is your audience,” he said. If I could just hang on to that. “Before you start your prayer, prepare your heart to welcome God, just as you would prepare your house to welcome a guest.” God consciousness. Conscious that you are alone with God. One day I would work for his organization, The Cordoba Initiative. It opened a door to the beauty in Sufism, the mystical version of Islam, one that was all-inclusive and pluralistic. I believe now that Daddy was a Sufi at heart: open to all, embracing all, with his love for God and for all His creatures. He would have been sitting in the armchair in the sunroom of his house in Pakistan, his freshly pressed striped shirt and necktie looking good on him, his curly hair carefully groomed, sipping coffee, the china clinking each time he placed the cup in the saucer, me across on the divan, light from the windows brightening the walls adorned with framed photos, Mummy’s voice somewhere in the background giving instructions to the help, and I would be telling Daddy … But Daddy died before I could say to him, “Look what I found!”

  A Gift from the Media

  It was the media that opened their presses to us. Yes, the media. Khalid is a letter writer. Whenever he sees a problem, be it a missing road sign, a pothole, a biased opinion article in the paper, he picks up the pen—now the keyboard—and sends off a letter. And the Staten Island Advance, the local newspaper, would publish his letters—every one of them.

>   It was May 1988, and Khalid came up with yet another bright idea.

  “Bia, I have an idea.” Khalid walked into the kitchen one evening as I was heating dinner. “Ramadan is coming, and I think the Staten Island Advance should do a story on it.” His face was animated as he set the plates on the table.

  “Good idea.” I put the naan in the oven. “How are you going to go about it?” I sprinkled chopped cilantro over the steaming curry.

  “Yeah, Dad. How are you going to go about it?” Saqib had just walked in.

  “I will call their Religion Desk and ask them to do a story.”

  Just like that. Given his success rate, or charm, I bet they will say yes.

  On Saturday, May 7, 1988, Staten Islanders opened their newspapers to a half-page spread titled “Island Muslims Fast in Month of Ramadan.” It was the photographs, three of them, that caused me to shriek with glee. “Saqib, Asim, come quick. Look. See this.”

  “Oh, wow!”

  We huddled over the paper, reading out, “It’s 3:00 a.m. and Dr. Khalid Rehman is having breakfast with his wife and two sons in their Egbertville home. They must eat before the sun comes up, and they won’t eat again until the sun goes down around 7:46 p.m….”

  The Staten Island Advance staff had listened to Khalid’s call, sent a reporter and photographer to the mosque, interviewed attendees, sat through the adult and children’s classes, and done a heartwarming write-up, covering all aspects of Ramadan, prayer, and Sunday school. Just like that!

  Next morning, Sunday school was buzzing. “My dad’s picture was in the paper…. Did you see my picture was in the paper?” Monday morning, as Khalid walked through the hallways of the hospital, the staff kept stopping him. “We read the Ramadan article…. So you can’t eat or drink all day? What would be an appropriate greeting? Should we say, ‘Happy Ramadan’? Good luck with your mosque building.”

  I think we are making a dent in the image that “Muslims are terrorists.” Thank you, Staten Island Advance, for advancing that cause. Thank you, America.