A Gentle Man, A Muslim

“May I ask you a question?” I ask as my heart is stammering in my chest. As a woman and as a non-Muslim I am afraid I may be overstepping my boundaries, but I am hoping that either my foreign card will be a security pass or it is inoffensive to this man.

“There are the Sunni and Shia Muslims, right?” Yes. “The blue mosque over there,” I point in a direction over the man’s shoulder, “is it Sunni or Shiite?” (Now I can’t even remember – I think Sunni). “And the mosque on the corner is…?” Shiite. “OK.”

“So…what is the difference?”

Ah, he says, here is the real question you are meaning to ask.

Well, yes, I think to myself, but I couldn’t start with that one.

We are sitting eating dinner together as we, Pete, Shah Aruf and I, have done almost every night that we have been here. The three of us are the regulars and other guests that come to stay are the transient participants or observers to our conversations. We are all bundled up; Pete in his down jacket, Shah Aruf with his touque and wool blanket thrown around his shoulders in true Afghan style that makes it appear as if he was born wearing it and myself with my sheepskin boots and multiple layers on.

The two guests tonight are young men that seem fairly conservative and stick to themselves. The sense I get is that they haven’t quite figured me out yet or what they are to do with themselves while they consume their meals in my presence. I can feel pretty quickly when it is pushing men right out of their comfort zone to have me around and these two have my neck hairs standing on end; which is why I have kept my head covered as I try to squelch any further discomforts for all of us. Within moments of my question, they get up and leave the table, leaving the three of us to continue.

Shah Aruf takes a breath, as though diving in, reaches for a hunk of flatbread and starts to explain.

From my perspective fundamentally they are the same, Sunni and Shia. We believe in the same God. We believe in Prophet Mohammed. Mohammed came to earth to teach the people that men and women are equal as they both come from Allah. He taught us that all living things must be treated equally, that we must care for each other. We must treat all life with care, and help each other.

As he was talking, he would slowly take pieces of the flat bread with his delicately elegant fingers, methodically put them in his mouth and chew slowly. There was no rush.

We believe that we return to this earth. “You mean resurrection?” I ask. Yes, resurrection. “All things or just humans?” All things living return to earth after death.

It was after the death of Mohammed when the separation started based on the followers of Mohammed at the time of his death. But fundamentally, spiritually we are the same.

(After looking it up myself, I found that the division was political. The Sunni Muslims believed that after Mohammed’s death, the leader should be elected to rule the Muslim nation. The Shia Muslims believed that the leadership should remain in the house of Mohammed – like a royal monarchy.)

Then he asks me, are you asking yourself - why Muslim?

I kind of laughed uncomfortably, looked down, thought about it and then replied, “Actually not at all. I have never questioned why someone else chooses the religion they dedicate their souls to. I am just hoping to gain more understanding about the Muslim religion. And my question was more founded in why there is the clash between the two when they are both Islam. Kind of like the clash between the Protestants and Catholics.”

As the call to prayer started, I asked, “What about your prayers, what you pray about?” What we pray about is the same. Maybe some of the ways in which they are said are different, but what we pray for is the same. “What about the call to prayer? What is playing now?” This is the Sunni mosque call to prayer. It is the same, the Shia add a few extra lines into their call. “How often do you pray?” As Sunni, we pray 5 times, in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon, evening and night.

[Here is where I got a bit lost – whether it was lost in translation, his attempt at diplomacy or a combination of the two.]

What becomes difficult is the understanding of why we do certain things. In the beginning we would cover our bodies completely because it was cold. What we need to understand is people’s objective for wearing such things. Like, maybe I am wearing very dark clothes and you, he points to Pete, are wearing lighter clothes, and you, he points to me, are wearing a red scarf – but what is the reason behind wearing such things?

If we push that we all must be the same without trying to understand each other, then we have difficulty with each other. The problem is that the majority of Muslims, say 80%, do not understand or question why they are Muslim. Their father was Muslim, so they are Muslim. They do not believe because of faith, they believe because of the culture of their house. They do not question why they pray, or why they must go to the mosque. Pete and I both interjected that that is the case with most people in most, if not all, religions.

[It was this last bit that made me sit forward and want to dig deeper.]

We believe in heaven and hell.

“What determines if you reach heaven or hell?” You will make it to heaven if you believe in Allah, in all the prophets (not just one), in the holy Quran and the other literature that supports the Quran, as well as do good things, treat each other with love and respect, if you help one another. You must believe and do these things if you are to reach heaven. And hell, well if you do not believe or do such things that please Allah you will go to hell.

Sounds familiar.

At this point the call to prayer has stopped and I can see his minor muscles are starting to twitch as his faith calls him. But then I put two and two together and am confused.

Click.

“So, wait. You believe in heaven and hell, but you also believe in resurrection.” Here Christianity meets Buddhism; I never even thought to put these two tenements together for a single soul to aspire to. “So, do you have to reach heaven to be able to be resurrected?”

The question penetrates, he methodically nods and says, ah interesting question.

Yes, whether you go to heaven or hell you will return to this Earth. “Even if you do all the bad things, and go to hell you get to come back,” I ask. He smiled slightly, and replied, well yes. But God will have a conversation with you about what you did that was good or bad. It is a meeting with him to evaluate your life. “Judgment Day,” I say.

Yes, exactly. Judgment Day.

Regardless of which leadership they support, every Muslim I have knowingly met has met me with grace and kindness. While cycling through northwestern Malaysia in 2002, watching Osama Bin Laden photos taped to the back windows watch me as buses drove past, I have to admit the timing was unnerving to cross the border from Thailand. Quickly, I realized that I had nothing to worry about, in fact I felt safer and more relaxed without the drunks, prostitutes and drug dealers I left behind in Thailand.

Like all faithfuls, within the Muslims I have now met, there are varying degrees of piousness and liberalism. Now I am not sure, but I think I have met one of the most pious, ever, in my workshop this week. I can’t say for sure because I don’t have the guts to ask, but there is a man that has a dark grey and chapped callus on his forehead; right where it would meet the mat through his spiritual ministrations.

Although I watched him in prayer, I couldn’t see a difference in how he was praying compared to the other men, but that is only one time of prayer in five. They were all side-by-side on the green prayer mat that was provided by the hotel. Interestingly for me, it isn’t like praying all together, the same prayer at the same time in the church I grew up in or before a meal. They arrived at various times after ablutions, removed their shoes, stepped on to the mat and prayed at their own pace. At one given time some may be standing with their hands clasped together in front of them and head bowed lips murmuring prayers or at different intervals in the three times they do the motions of kneeling and touching their foreheads to the mat.

Sadly, what I have heard the most is about the violence committed in the name of Allah painting the Muslim religion in black; the news-making stories, the stories that paint Muslims and particularly this country with a wide swath of barbarism.

That is not to say that the stories of the violent action of some in the name of Allah are not real, and not so incorrigibly sickening and senseless making me feel like I’m being gutted alive. Has there not been violent action also taken by people in the name of most religions as some point in history?

Is it not blatant ignorance and prejudice to not accept that the fundamental belief of any religion, even Islam, is to serve its followers in helping us bring peace to our souls, to guide us to be better people?

So, maybe instead of asking what is different about the two factions of Islam, the gaping question that begs asking is this:

Why is it that, as people, we have to work so hard and need this much help from God (whichever one you are praying to) to treat each other with understanding, respect and kindness?