03-11-05 Yacub's Last Child

It was 11:00 on a Friday. I sat at my desk in my office, considering the adventure that I was about to take. Less than 2 miles from my office was a Muslim mosque. Their "Friday Prayer" service began at 12:00 noon.

I opened my web browser and did a search for "how to do Muslim prayers". A web site popped us, with the title "How to Perform Salat, the Muslim Ritual Prayers" I read it briefly. Obviously, I wasn't going to be reciting any thing in Arabic, as I don't know or speak a single word. But, I got the gist of the different stances. I printed the document, and rushed to the common printer to retrieve it before anyone saw it. I didn't want to have to explain what I was reading.

I left my office at 11:30 in the morning. Our firm closes at noon on Fridays, so I wouldn't have to return. I walked out a back door of the office, carrying my surfboard, which had been stowed in a storage room. I knew that Muslims had a specific ritual washing of the hands, feet and face that they have to do before prayers. I stopped in the bathroom, washed my hands, and splashed my face. The rest of me I would have to consider "clean". I wondered if the ocean counts as a cleaning.

In the parking lot, I packed my surfboard and wetsuit into the back of my truck. I looked one time at the address and the directions, put on sunglasses, and drove off.

As important as it is for the people in the US to understand Muslims (which will never happen), it may be equally important for Muslims to understand that we are genuinely afraid of them (which will also never happen).

Granted, we fear Muslims for all the wrong reasons. We are taught by "truth by repetition" that Muslims are terrorists, that Arab men regularly beat their wives mercilessly. Women have no rights and they are second-class citizens in the Arab world and the Muslim faith. As children, our history teachers tell us in school that the Middle East region is a historical bloodbath of savages. In our movies and TV shows, Arab and Muslim people carry bombs, sweat profusely, operate convienance stores with Slurpie machines, and yell a lot. Our president mutters under his breath that jihadist terrorists have "hijacked a good people's religion", and then loudly announces that Islamic extremists "hate freedom".

In my lifetime, I have never heard a piece of positive news about Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, or Syria. The only positive coverage I have ever seen of a news story in an Arab nation was war propaganda about Iraq. One that showed the great white US soldiers opening schools in Iraq and holding

Until very recently, I was under the impression that only Arabs were Muslim. I don't think it is widely known in the US that a great number of Muslims live outside of the Middle East. To us, Arabs and Muslims are synonymous. They are the corpses in the wake of our quest for oil. As a people in the US, we are desensitized to the killing of Arab people, Muslim people. I can look at CNN and know exactly how many US soldiers have died in Iraq, but I have no way of knowing how many Iraqi people are dead as a result of this warfare. Even if I wanted to know, I could not. The information is simply unavailable to me. Not even the anti-war movement knows.

I was nervous as I pulled into the office park where the Islamic Education of Orange County is located. The park is immediate adjacent to the Santa Ana airport. The planes on the runway are visible from the parking lot. From the outside appearance of the building, one could never guess that there is a mosque here. There are no golden domes, or anything to betray its location, other than a large tin coffee pot on a folding table outside the front door.

I circled the parking lot, looking for a place to park my truck where the surfboard in the back would not attract the immediate attention of anxious thieves. While the possibility of someone stealing my surfing equipment from the parking lot of a business complex is fairly slim, it is a consideration. Having found a suitable spot, I parked the truck, breathed deeply, and walked towards the mosque.

At the entrance, there were several people walking through the doors. I entered into a small lightly decorated foyer. A man looked at me and smiled, greeting me in Arabic, to which I had no response other than "hey"

"Can I help you with something?"
"You guys are having services now. Can I attend?"
"We are..." he stammered.

Another man had taken notice, and quickly approached. He was shorter than the first man who had greeted me, and wider of shoulder. His face was round and cheerful. He wore a light colored coat and pants with a collarless black shirt. I would later find out he was of some importance to the community, as he would be the leader of the "call to prayer".

"You needed something?" he asked me.
"I just wanted to go to the prayer service. This is where it is, right?"
"Friday prayers?"
"Yes. Can I go?"
"Yes. Yes." he said rapidly. "Have you never been here?"
"No."
"Have you ever been to Muslim Friday prayers before?"
"No. Never. What do I do? Do I take off my shoes?"
"Yes. Remove your shoes."

I took off my shoes. I also placed my watch, wallet and keys into the shoes. In some religious traditions, these accessories may be inappropriate to bring into a ceremony or mediation. I decided not to ask, but to err on the side of caution. I would later see plenty of men wearing watches, and carrying wallets and keys.

At that moment, a slightly balding man in a black shirt and jeans approached our location, carrying a book with a golden colored binding. The leader grabbed him by one upper arm.

"You go with ____, here." the leader said. I immediately missed the name. "He's a good guy. You go with him. Sit next to him. He show you what to do."

The new guy looked at me and nodded. I must have looked like an inquisitive child, with a face begging for direction. The leader had left.

"Ok." I said. "So, what do I...."
"Have you ever been here before?"
"No."
"Have you ever been to Muslim prayer before?"
"No."
He nodded, smiled weakly, and led me out into the main room of the mosque.

---
While telling the story to my wife, later in the day, she interrupted at this point.

"Didn't they ask what you were doing there?"
"No."
"Not once?"
"No."

She was flabbergasted. She simply couldn't imagine a chalky white boy walking into a Muslim mosque for the first time in his life, clearly completely ignorant of everything that was going on, without being asked: "what the heck are you DOING here?!?!?"

But no one asked me that. Later, I considered my wife's question. "Think about it." I told her. "If a stranger walked into your Christian church, and didn't know their way around, would you ask them what they were doing there? Or, would you just be glad that they were there and show them the ropes?"

"It's different." She said.
-----

The main room was square, with no ceiling and exposed ductwork. (I always notice the air conditioning. it's my business). One wall was clearly the "front" of the room. On that wall there was a podium, an arch structure, bookcases containing a good number of the golden books that my mentor was carrying, and cloth banners of many colors. The banners were in bright colors or red, green, blue, yellow, and purple. Most of the banners were cloth and featured stylized Arabic language text. Around the room, the walls were decorated with similar posters and paintings. In one corner was a raised chair, looking very much like some kind of throne. At the back of the room were several rows of chairs, were several women were seated, their clothes modest and their heads covered in the traditional headscarf. The floor of the entire room was covered in Persian rugs.

"Sit down here." my mentor told me.

I sat cross-legged, and looked around. The floor of the room was sparsely populated with men. Some were reading the golden books. Some chatted with one another. Some performed the standing, kneeling and prostrating of the Muslim prayers, chanting in Arabic.
"Did you come here to pray today?" my mentor asked.

"Yea." I replied. "Sure."

He pointed to a brown block on the rug in front of him. "Did anyone give you one of these?"

"No. What is that?"

He stood and walked to the front of the room, retrieving an object from a small tin bucket. He placed it on the ground in front of me. It was a brown block with an elaborate decoration in relief.
"When we pray, we are supposed to touch the ground." he explained. "This is a piece of ground. It comes from a very holy place, and has been brought back here so that you can use it to pray."

I nodded, touching the block softly.

"Do you know about the Muslim prayers?"
"No."

He began to explain. "When we say our prayers, there are three positions that we use. First, is the standing position. Then, is the bending position, where you bend at the waist with your hands on your knees. And then, we go all the way down."

"When you go down to the ground, you should have seven points touching the ground." He pointed to each. "Your two hands, the knees, the toes, and the forehead. Your toes should be pointed forward, like this."

He demonstrated kneeling with the toes pointing forward, perching on his toes and knees.

He started to explain the numbers of prayers every day, and how many repititions of the same patterns each of the prayers consisted of. I had read this before. Muslim prayers are structured in a sort of "unit". A set of motions and utterances equals one "unit" of prayer. The various prayers during the day consist of different numbers of "units". Some prayers are four-unit prayers. Others are two unit prayers. What we would do as a congregation would count for two of the required daily prayers for a total of six "units" of prayer.

"When you go to Friday prayers," my mentor explained, "you don't have to even say the prayers. You can, if you want, and some of us do. We will say it along with him. But, some people don't, and you don't have to."

I nodded. I, of course, would not be saying anything along with anyone. I knew neither the language nor the phrases that would be required to do so.

"Actually, most of us don't even know some of the prayers that he'll say today." he chuckled. "But, when you go to Friday prayers, as long as you are behind him, it counts. So, you don't need to say it along with him. It still counts."

------
While telling the story to my wife that afternoon, she again interrupted.

"What does it count for?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"So, what does that mean, 'it counts'?"
"I'm not sure. But, whatever it is, I now have two points, and you have none."
"Oh great."
"That's right. The score now reads: Travis: 2, Jennifer: 0"
"I think that if you talk like that, you'll lose your points."

-------
The leader in the light colored coat and pants, whom I had met at the entrance now stood in the front of the room. He walked over to check up on me, checking to see that my mentor had been providing good guidance.

"He's a good guy. You stick by him. You'll be good."

The room was nearly full when the Imam entered. He was dressed in black robes with a black headpiece. Several men stood up to shake his hand as he approached the front of the room.
The leader with the light coat took a stance at a microphone, and began to chant melodically in Arabic.

"This is the call to prayer," my mentor explained to me. "This is how we call people outside to know that it is time to come in. it is time to pray."

The remainder of the congregation filled the room. Men in front of me shook hands and greeted their friends. The imam approached the microphone, and began the proceedings. There were a few opening remarks, a call and response exchange between leader and congregation.

The Imam then recited a verse of the Koran, and began his sermon upon it. The sermon was on the topic of infallibility. He discussed the infallibility of the Prophet (pbuh) and the leaders of the religion. He said that the infallibility, or lack of sin, in these people, or any aspiring to infallibility, was not due to Allah rendering them incorruptible or immune to temptation. Rather, in fallibility was a result of the needed power, granted in grace by Allah, by which the infallible could chose to avoid temptation. Also with the grace and power to resist temptation given to the learned and favored, he told us, came a responsibility. Allah may forgive an ignorant man a hundred greater sins before he will forgive a learned Muslim one minor indisression.

That was comforting.

The second sermon began after a second round of call and response formalities. The Iman again recited a passage of the Koran, and told a parable about the Prophet (pbuh) meeting a group of men who were having a rock-lifting contest to determine who was the strongest. The Prophet (pbuh) told them that he could inform them who was strongest without the need of lifting rocks. The strongest would have the following three characteristics. (1) The person, when happy or satisfies, would not allow such happiness or satisfaction to cause deviations from his integrity, or result in evil. (2) The person, when angry or upset or saddened, would not allow such anger, upset, or sadness to cause deviations in the integrity of his behavior, or result in doing evils. (3) The person, when placed in a position of power over other people or a community, would not allow that power to corrupt the integrity of his behavior, or result in the mistreatment of those who trusted him with power.

----
After the two sermons, there were a few more call and response exchanges, and then the congregation stood. My mentor nodded to me to stand, and I did.

For the opening stanzas of the prayer, I stood facing forward with my arms hung and my palms facing back, looking downward to the rug. The Iman recited a stanza that I could not recognize, but knew to be the first stanza of the Koran. I struggled to remember the translation that I had read.

The congregation then bent over, each of us with our hands on our knees. All around me, the men uttered a prayer under their breath. The Iman spoke the phrases into the microphone in the front.

From bent over, we returned to standing, then to kneeling, and then to prostration. From the kneeling position, we repeated the prostration before standing again.

At each change in position, the phrase "Allah Akbar" was uttered. (Translated, this means simply "God is Great").

When the first round of prayer was over, the congregation returned to sitting. The Iman said some words and the people began shaking hands with each other. The men to my right, left, and in front of me offered me their hands and gave me a greeting in Arabic. I knew no response, so I smiled and returned their handshake.

A second round of prayers began, followed by more hand shaking.

At the end of the second round of prayers, the group sat back down. The leader began a chanting. Some men were seated. Others stood. My mentor stood, but placed his hand on my shoulder, indicating that I should stay seated.

I sat and slipped into quiet meditation, focusing on my own breath and gazing thoughtlessly at one of the many tapestries on the wall. In my peripheral vision, some men were standing and leaving. I stayed seated. My mentor was going through the motions of another set of prayers. When he was finished, he turned and walked from the room.

I stayed seated a while longer as the room cleared.

Finally, I stood, picked up the piece of stone and returned it to the metal bucket in the front of the room. On my way out, I stopped to retrieve my shoes from the cubbyhole I had left them in.
In front of the center, there was a coffee pot and some snacks set up on a small table. A few people lingered, nibbling and conversing. Most of the crowd was leaving expediently. It was, after all, lunch hour in the middle of a workday for most people.

I walked from the center to my truck. The surfboard was still in the back. Not that I really feared someone stealing it, but I was still grateful to know that it was still there. I propped it up on the tailgate, strapped two elastic cords over it, clipped the coat hanger with my wetsuit to an eyebolt in the truck bed, and drove home.


Notes:
1. The article I read on "How to perform Salat" can be found here
2. The mosque that I visited was the Islamic Education Center of Orange County. The leader is, I believe, Shia, in case you were wondering.
3. The Muslim greeting, referenced several times within is "As-Salaam-Alaikum" (May peace be upon you). The appropriate response is "Wa-Alaikum-Salaam"
4. The title of this article is a reference to Mr. Yacub, the mad scientist who created the devil white man on the island of Patmos, according to the teachings of the Nation of Islam.
5. The (pbuh), where it occurs in the text, is my attempt to be polite and conform to the Muslim ettiquite. Whenever the name of the Prophet (pbuh) is mentioned, it is followed by a blessing. In writing, this is often abreviated by (pbuh) , which stands for "peace be upon him". If I have inaprapriatly used this, Please let me know in the comments. I can assure that it is from ignorance and not malice of any kind.
6. The surfboard in question was my 7' 6" funboard shape. It doesn't fit into the back of my truck without letting down the tailgate. If I go surfing on a Friday, and go back to the mosque, I'll simply have to remember to bring my shortboard (6'8") which can fit in the cab of the truck when I have to leave it parked. Gosh, I got a rough life, don't I? I have to figure out the best way to cart my surfboard around. It's hard, I tell ya.