GOD

Once for Arabic class we had to go to a Mosque or other place of worship that had Arabic services (there was a Christian place too). My classmate was Muslim so he invited me to Friday prayers at his mosque.

As I was walking up to the Mosque I noticed a figure wearing an abaya sitting in a beat up old car outside the mosque, the lady waiting for her man to finish.

Men were running into the Mosque because the call to prayer was already starting and men were lining up inside. After leaving my flip-flops outside with the rest of the shoes I joined them because I couldn't find my friend and praying was set to commence. All the men lined up on these lines next to each other, close, our shoulders were all touching.

I didn't know how to pray but it was fairly easy to follow along because everyone did the same movements at the same time. There were a lot of Somalians there and maybe some other Africans but I was unsure of which kind. They were mostly dressed in slacks and business type shirts. There were a few people in dishdashas, but most were wearing Western clothing.

To tell the truth I distrust religious groups because they are run, as I see it, for political purposes and usually are quite oppressive, regardless of their purported faith. But it felt kind of good to pray actually, though I was more nervous than anything.

The prayers only lasted a short time, maybe this wasn't friday, maybe another day. Everyone broke up and began talking to each other. Some young dudes near me, like in their teens, were talking but one looked at me and told his friend "let's talk outside, too many snitches here."

I laughed out loud at them to show them that they shouldn't judge another creature of Allah but they left anyway.

I found my friend and he told me to meet the Imam of the Mosque to talk about religion.

The Imam was a bearded dark skinned Indian man wearing the traditional loose fitting shirt and pants of Indians, though it was more like Pakistani clothes. I met some really friendly young guys from Saudi Arabia, they had these long beards and wore white dishdashas, they were very nice.

The Imam looked at me as I was introduced. My friend said something like: he's taking Arabic because he grew up in the Middle East.

Imam (to me): Oh, what countries?

Me: Kuwait and the UAE

Imam: What did your father do?

Me: Engineer

Imam: Oh, well it looks like he worked hard so you could eat a lot of lamb!

Me: Oh, Are you saying I'm fat?

I sat on the floor with the men.

Imam: Ask me anything you like.

Me: Well I don't know much about Islam, I'm sort of Catholic, but haven't really practiced any religion. I grew up in the Middle East so I'm sort of interested in Islam, etc.

Imam: All things operate on God's time, the sun comes up and goes down, the plants eat water and live and die. Man, though, has a choice. Man can choose to go with God or against him. If he chooses to go against God his life will be bad, if he goes with God then he can go to heaven.

Me: What about women, can't women come and pray here?

Another guy: Women can come and visit, many do, and stand in the back and watch.

Imam: Some mosques have separate areas for women.

Another guy: Well you don't really want a woman there praying do you? She'll distract you from praying to God.

Me: What about Sufis, who are the Sufis?

Imam: Sufis are Muslims who wear cloth, like cotton, this means "Sufi" in Arabic, they go in the forest and pray to God all the time. That's all.

Me: What about other religions?

Imam: Well we believe in Christianity and Judaism too, but with one difference: Jesus was a prophet not a God, how can man be God? Impossible. In India there are Zoroastrians, they love fire, how can God be fire? If they see a man lighting cigarette they go and pray in front of him. Hindus love cows, they see a cow in the street and they pray to it, how can they do this? They see a cow make pee pee and they go to drink the pee pee (he actually said this), is this God?

Me: Ok then.

The Imam started opening some bills that another guy had brought to him. Some white American Muslim guy with a beard was unrolling a bedding near us. The Imam asked him how long he wanted to stay there.

Anyway, when I left my flipflops were gone too. After a brief scurry of investigation one guy said he saw the kid who took them and he knows them. I tried leaving without shoes but one of the nice guys gave me his sandals. The Imam gave me a soda from their concession stand.

I got my flipflops back later.

I'm not sure how you learn about religion if not through other people?

WTF