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A Battle for Harmony
“And
I could wish my days to be
Bound
each to each by natural piety.”
W.
Wordsworth
Walking
my favorite route near the university buildings, I allow the modest windmill,
the rolling boats, and a poem in some Germanic language written on the wall to
grasp my heart once more and entrust me with their stories. This time, a soft
rustle draws my attention to the ground: a small maple leaf, a rust-colored
leaf. “No, I’m not rusty.” What? To show me my mistake, the leaf whirls
around and treats my eyes to innumerable shades of green, yellow, brown, red,
and more. Absorbed in her own dance, the leaf whirls around with ecstatic,
submissive movements, now and then standing still, as if in meditation. I listen
carefully. The leaf, the windmill, and the boats seem to move with a rhythm that
I cannot hear.
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Feeling
out of tune, I continue my walk down the empty street, welcomed by its houses.
All the houses are of different sizes and have different façades, but breathe,
with their red roof tiles, the same sympathetic atmosphere. I push open a dark
brown wooden door and enter a room with about a hundred women sitting on the
ground. It is a very simple room with wooden walls, and a bookcase in the corner
filled with writing utensils and Qur’ans. I search the room and see that the
only place left is in the front row near the corner. My eyes meet the
threatening gaze of the older women behind the front row. It is the same old
story: They don’t want to sit in the corner because then there won’t be
enough space for all their friends to sit next to them—and so they won’t be
able to chat with each other. But they won’t allow anyone else to sit there
either, and certainly not a student. Putting on my sweetest face, I walk to the
front row, uncomfortably aware of their deadly gaze pricking my back. The imam
should…
The
thought of the imam evokes mixed feelings in me. He had made us so angry. I
remember going back to the university after Friday Prayers. My five friends and
I sat at our usual table in tense silence. After a while, one of us started
talking.
“Well,
we shouldn’t make a drama out of this. We all know that something like this is
to be expected.”
“What
do you mean? It is exactly the thing that we should not expect from an
imam.”
“Oh
come on, brother, you know very well that most imams here in Holland don’t know
how to communicate with their community.”
“Yes,
I think the Dutch government is right in this respect. Some ‘imported’ imams
bring ideas with them from their homelands that are completely alien to us.”
“But…”
“You
know what? We don’t need the imam at all! So why the fuss? We can find all the
information we need in the library and on the Internet.”
“But…”
“Yeah,
that’s exactly what the government hopes for. Why do you think they’re
complaining about the imams all the time?”
“Please
don’t start again with your conspiracy theories!”
“Okay,
tell me what solutions they offer to solve this problem. It’s easily solved
with a training program for imams raised in Holland, but how much money do you
think the government offers to encourage such an initiative? Yeah, exactly
zero.”
“Well,
I’m staying out of the mosque.”
“Yes,
that’s very nice, but in the in the meantime, we are saddled with imams we
can’t communicate with.”
“So,
what do we do?”
We
knew very well that talking to the imam wouldn’t help much, as imams are known
for their rigidity. But we were going to try anyway. So, a few days later, a
friend of mine and I found our way to the mosque, armed to the teeth with
arguments, all the academic debate skills we had acquired, and, of course, our
most self-confident looks. We were ready for battle.
We
knocked on the imam’s door. A few seconds later we were standing in front of a
man with a shy expression on his face. Hmmm.... So this was our imam.
“How
do you do, ladies? I’m very glad to see that students are interested in the
mosque. Please, sit down.”
Such
a soft voice, such a humble appearance: He was even too shy to look at us.
“Would
you like to drink some tea?”
“Well…”
Our
armor and our swords fell to the ground and disappeared.
More
than an hour later, after discussing our problems, and several other things, we
stood up, reluctant to leave his gentle and understanding company.
“I’m
very pleased that you came to discuss these problems with me. Please come back
any time you want, and tell your friends that they are very welcome as well.”
That
time came sooner than I had expected:
I
was sitting in the university library. Biting on my pen, I stared at my poems.
Do I have to consult another dictionary or grammar book again? I looked up and
saw a familiar shape in a white traditional djellaba reading a book. I
looked back and forth between my texts and the imam. Dare I? No, it was love poetry.
Whoever has read Arabic love poetry knows that it is not innocent.
A
second later, I found myself standing in front of his table. How do you address
an imam?
“Err...
Mister Imam?”
The
imam helped me solve my poetic problem without showing any surprise.
“Thank
you, Mister Imam, and I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
I
picked up my things and moved towards the door. The imam gestured me to come
nearer and said, “You’re welcome to come and ask my help whenever you need
it.”
“In
the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful…” The fatherly voice of the
imam on the microphone interrupts my thoughts and brings me back to the mosque.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and one of the don’t-dare-to-sit-on-the-front-row
ladies offers me a date. Sitting in rows, pressed tightly against one another,
we form one solid construction full of colours: green, yellow, brown, red and
more. We listen carefully, hoping to come out of this mosque and this generous
month being able to hear the rhythm and to be moved…in harmony.
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Assia
Moutahhir holds a degree in Arabic language from the University
of Leiden, the Netherlands, and is currently studying English
language and literature. She wrote her thesis about the image of
women in Andalusian poetry. You can reach her at A.Moutahhir@umail.leidenuniv.nl.
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