in memoriam: khala hala

We were at a qiyam ul-layl, a night spent at the mosque in the remembrance of Allah. We were in the men’s prayer hall, and there were no men. One of the girls was lying very still on the carpeted floor, face up. Khala Hala demonstrated how a person should be washed, in the Islamic manner, in anticipation of burial.

If you’d have beheld us then, you’d have seen a dozen or more girls with dry throats and sober expressions.

Unlike most reminders, this one was not concerned with the drama or metaphysics of death itself. It dealt strictly with post-mortem mechanics. And though death was hardly mentioned, it was implied at every step.

In my community, few women know how to wash bodies. Even fewer actually do it. Khala Hala was one of them.

But Khala Hala wasn’t known to me for her strength at the thirteenth hour. I knew her in life, among the living. It is hard to think of the mosque without her, in fact.

She was there often. Every Saturday practically, sitting Indian-style in the first row on the women’s side.

She had a large, expressive pair of eyes that, when fixed upon you disapprovingly, made you melt into a puddle. Conversely, those beautiful eyes when smiling radiated warmth, thawing the ice between friends.

Khala Hala was the kind of woman who called out the bluff of even the toughest ‘ammus (uncles). They were like Rapunzel before her, caught in the act. A stern look from her could make them stop mid-sentence and withdraw their tumbling words. And, like a Madonna, a simple nod from her was redemption.

Khala had a voice like a yardstick that put naughty Sunday School children back in their seats. A voice that shepherded the wandering gaze from the open mosque doorway to the greener pastures of a chalkboard where Arabic letters grew like stalks of wheat. I taught at Sunday School beside her. My students left with the scent of baby powder still on them. After making it through the next class — Khala Hala’s — my rose-cheeked kindergarteners emerged with a different glow. She turned them into resilient little creatures that did not hide in their tortoise shells when assaulted. Like Red Bull, Khala Hala gave them wings.

Khala Hala wore the kinds of large home-sown scarves that fluttered in the wind and gave her an eye-catching grace, even as she swooped down to catch a running child in her arms.

She was one of the first khalas (aunties) to transform her Motorola phone into a hands-free device, tucked into her hijab. Khala Hala improvised and Bluetooth plagiarized.

I feel like it’s been years since I’ve been to my mosque — the playground of my childhood and the Saturday-night club of my adolescence. Since college, my mosque visits have become more scarce, with months in between. That’s why every time I go, I register all the small alterations that combine to give the mosque an altogether new look: a fresh forest-green carpet in the women’s prayer hall; a bulletin board design that’s new to me but sun-bleached with age; a new line of young impressionable evergreens; a don’t-run-over-the-kids sign.

When I return — if I return iA — I don’t know if I’ll recognize the place.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) praised a person whose heart is mu’allaq (attached; hanging) to the mosque. And, when I enter the main prayer hall where Khala Hala used to hold her Sunday School classes and attend Saturday night lectures, I know something will be awry. One of the longest-standing light fixtures there — that modest yet sparkling chandelier — will be gone.

–

Allah yirhamha. May Allah have mercy on her.

revisiting the golden state

It’s not like it’s my first time seeing Arabs, and it’s not like I came half way across the world searching for them. I mean, I have only to look in the mirror to find one. And yet it’s a little unsettling how many Arabs there are here.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not unsettling that there are Arabs. It’s unsettling that there are Arabs who look familiar, act familiar but to whom I am a complete stranger.

I taught Islamic Sunday School for several years and that’s like teaching a model United Nations, only with little human beings. If it weren’t for the occasional African American or Pakistani child, it could even be a mini Arab League.

I also attended the same mosque for as long as I can remember — a mosque known fondly (and sometimes begrudgingly) as “the Arab mosque in the area.” (Worry not. There are also Cambodian, African American and Desi mosques nearby. If you weren’t born lucky — i.e. Arab, Cambodian, African American or Desi — then, you could move away, start your own mosque or get an ethnicity-change.) In any case, my Arab-majority mosque saw me grow from a girl on a see-saw with a jumper and two braids into a hijabi adult who is still wondering what ever happened to that see-saw.

The mosque saw me change and I, in turn, saw it through its countless renovations: the creation of  a women’s prayer hall out of a kitchen; the conversion of a community pool into a sand then wood-chip playground; and the (possibly fire-hazardous) sealing of various doors after attempted robberies.

I was a vine that grew along the walls of that mosque, and growing alongside me were countless other leaves, many of them just barely unfurling.

That’s why, when I went to my predominantly Arab mosque — and I went often — there were always children clamboring about: young curly-haired boys who, embarrassed, ran away from their Sunday School teacher who had magically stepped out of her classroom (and her designated day of the week); little pigtailed girls who hugged my knees and made me feel like a well-loved tree; a playful infant who made it hard for me to keep a straight face at a ‘azaa (condolences service); a bold pre-pubescent boy who, thanks to a badly tailored shirt and/or a thickened waistline, asked me if I’m pregnant (Who needs marriage anyway?); and the same bold pre-pubescent boy who, on observing me with my bearded brother, asked for the name of my fiance. (I know children ask a lot of questions, but do they have to ask awkward ones? Why don’t they stick to the ‘whywhywhy?’)

In short, I befriended a lot of Arab kids.

Maybe this is because Jumpstart trained me to treat preschoolers like human beings, not stuffed animals. Maybe it’s because, as Mama says, ‘a’lik izgheer (your mind is little) and therefore I get along with like-minded little minds. Maybe it’s because I enjoy the children’s company more than I do that of the mosque’s bigger kids (i.e. parents) who play aggressively, are often poor sports and who separate into teams faster than oil and water.

Whatever the reasons, the conclusion is one. I like kids. (No, I’m not a pedophile. If I were, I’d tell you.)

Well, today I got to see an overwhelming number of kids — almost enough to compensate for one hundred years of solitude. Since it was the second day of Eid, my friend and I took her fourteen year-old cousin to an indoor theme park where, I tell you, we found more children than ants on an anthill.

The outrageous proportion of children to parents, the flagrant violations of due process (and, by that, I mean standing in line), and the faces — all were so familiar. I swear there was a boy-version of a little Libyan girl I know, and I saw one of the Sheikh’s children bouncing on a trampoline.

Of course, not one of the thousand children running about the place knew me. And of course, it was strange being there, considering I was neither a child, a sibling nor a parent. As we say in Arabic, I had no mawqi’ min al i’rab. In the sentence’s grammar, I was neither subject nor predicate.

As night stealthily crept in like the Grinch, stealing away the children’s energy, families began filing out of the crowded theme park, and my friend aptly remarked, “Isn’t it wonderful that, at that age, you get tired, and I mean dead-tired, not from studying or working, but from playing?” And I thought, darn right. The years I spent in the golden-state, kicking myself up off the ground after school on a wobbly see-saw, with no one opposite me but the wind — those were indeed the golden years.

Yes, I’m far from the poppy-flower Golden State of my childhood, but since there are countless happy, boisterous, precocious Arab children here, I really can’t be that far away. I guess, wherever I am, children have a way of bringing me back to a golden state of mind.

potty training

I’ve heard about these Things, and I’ve heard about snotty little Westerners like me, too. But this is the first time the Thing and the Westerner actually come into contact.

As I wait in line, I have a chance to take in the view. And what a glorious view it is.

How strange, I think to myself, that the Muslims here had the same wishful thinking as those at my mosque! White tiles will stay white, they presumed. No. No,they don’t. Every smidge and smear of  mud (and this is my wishful thinking coming into play) shows on the tiles. Throw in a few strokes of the shoe-turned-brush and you have a brown-and-white Picasso.

Next, I notice that the doors on the stalls touch the ground. Huh, I think, our stalls in the U.S. are abbreviated, but this here — this is the complete and unabridged version. Not bad. It certainly makes it harder for pesky little boys to go nosing around. Not that there are any pesky little boys within a 20-mile radius.

And then it is my turn. The open stall beckons. But where there should be something porcelain, there is a gaping hole. Oh no. A little faucet snakes its way into the stall and a little plastic pot presents itself as an excuse for hygiene.

Look, I understand these holes. I theoretically accept them, I do. I believe they are cost-effective, water-efficient and sunnah-compliant. I even think they promote fitness. After all, squatting, according to my basketball-playing brother, gives you better “hops,” which means you have a better chance at dunking.

Still, I’m not sure how to work it. Does it flush? And, if not, then what–?

I turn to the person next in line, and embarrassed incomprehensible fragments fall out of my mouth. What I’m trying to ask, of course, is: “How does it work?” I say anything but. The girl tilts her head quizzically like a parakeet. “I don’t understand.” No no, I think, I don’t understand. It looks like there’s nothing to it, but what if I do it wrong? Should I ask now, or do the trial-and-error. No, I can’t do that. If I’m embarrassed now, I’ll be doubly embarrassed then.

So I try to explain again. This time, she figures I’m perplexed and so her answer is, without words, to use the little water pot to wash the area surrounding the hole. That’s what you do after you do what you need to do, she implies. I cock my head back understandingly as if she’s just shared with me a major revelation. “Thanks.”

I go in. I’m not ready for this step, I decide. I think to flush, for form’s sake but, seeing as that’s impossible, I simply leave the stall. There’s no soap and no toilet paper, I observe. Suddenly, all the hands I’d shaken today flash before my eyes and I’m filled with an inexplicable dread.

Okay, I think to myself, as I make my way back out into a dangerous soapless germ-ridden world. I’ve had enough bathroom action for one day. Yes, this big baby isn’t quite ready to be potty trained.

memorize and mesmerize

The five daily prayer times are posted not on a shabby bulletin board, but on a digital clock. The domed ceiling is high, with window panes that flaunt the natural charms of a night sky. The broad prayer hall tempts the child in me to somersault or spin around in circles — another temptation to resist, at least while there are witnesses. It invites the adult to sit on the floor and move her index finger along the pattern on the carpet. The jutting pillars double as leaning posts, and the masahif (printed copies of the Qur’an) yearn to be held in the palm of your hands. Not less importantly, each pair of shoes has a cubby, all to itself, and the bathrooms are well-stocked and — believe it or not — clean.

So this is what a non-makeshift masjid (mosque) looks like.

I lined up to pray, only one of three women. Just another prayer, right? Wrong.

A beautiful warsh (a style of Qur’anic) recitation traveled to my ears, as if from all directions. The verses spoke of an ant’s encounter with the army of Prophet Suleiman (Solomon). Worried, the ant warns her comrades: “O ants! Enter your dwellings, lest Suleiman and his hosts crush you, while they perceive not.” What follows thereafter is the report of the hudhud (hoopoe bird) to Suleiman — about Queen Saba’ (Sheba) and her people who worship the sun.

As I listened to this epic story unfold, I realized that to endure the daily prayers is one thing and to savor them, to be transported by them is another experience altogether.

The verses painted an illustrious story. The recitation was magical. But it was the environment that made the prayer memorable. Or was it?

Rewind to the mosque of my childhood — a converted apartment building. Everything about the place looks as if it’s been tweaked or patched up or repainted or filled with cement or constructed as an afterthought. The women’s prayer hall is an L-shape, and a wall or curtain variously divides the men and women (more for technical than theological reasons). The carpet has to be switched periodically because it smells funny for reasons I prefer not to know. The restroom looks mangled even on its better days, with  hot water spouting out of the cold faucet and visa versa and the stall doors clanging shut (that is, when they shut). And, in Prophet Suleiman’s absence, it is the ants that reign. Their armies march in black rivulets along the floor and walls.

Then, the sound system. The sound system hiccups, chokes and — on occasion — dies altogether, especially on the women’s side, where the wiring has been precariously set up.

And yet, under its low roof, under its dangerously fast ceiling fan, under its blinking fluorescent lights, I’ve heard those verses before, much to the same effect. The Qur’an mesmerizes. And a beautiful recitation, I think, would grip me even if I were praying on the train tracks.

in memoriam: abu bilal

The Islamic Center of Claremont has been the stage for a years-long, elaborate drama. Without going into details, we have everything from 100+ anonymous slanderous emails to an expired Board of Directors. The result? A special members meeting that featured a sharply polarized community, a medley of Arabic and English tirades, a well-meaning but uninformed lawyer who referred to the members’ behavior as “animalistic,” 10 police cars and riot police lined outside the mosque, accusations slung right and left, an astonished pair of observers from an umbrella group and a prematurely adjourned meeting (twice adjourned, actually). In a way, the whole episode was like a dysfunctional rerun of Brutus’ and Antony’s speeches, only each was preaching to his own mob or singing to his own choir. Unlike the Romans, none was converted.

And today, one of the Board of Directors passed away.

Yesterday, this man held the microphone and moderated a charged discussion. As the arguments intensified and pressure built up, his hand shook as it held the mic. The onus was on him to encourage order among an outraged crowd. Almost anyone would have felt the responsiblity keenly.

Abu Bilal (as he is known to us, may Allah rest his soul) was a man not old enough for death to be expected, not old enough to have white streaks in his hair and yet not young enough for the very young to fret. “He had blood pressure…” was the medical justification — as if death needs a justification.

I do not pretend to know him. All I know of him is what I saw over the years. A calm, easy temperament. A face that isn’t quick to anger when passions flare. A well-groomed appearance — like that of a man who did not experience the California sun like other mortals. A father who seemed exceptionally doting, gentle even, with his wife and children. In many ways, he seemed like a character out of a picture book. The good guy, and Allah knows best.

Just yesterday, Abu Bilal thanked the community for allowing him to serve for two consecutive terms on the Board of Directors. Just yesterday, he moderated an incredibly unruly meeting. Just yesterday.

And today, his absence is palpable.

After yesterday’s drama, the maghrib athan (call to prayer) was called. A hush fell over the crowd. Members who were near blows dropped everything, splashed water on their faces and arms and feet, and prayed. Shoulder to shoulder. Foot to foot. Behind a single imam. Bowed together and rose together as one.

If only for Abu Bilal’s memory, I pray that the mosque of my childhood be united in spirit — as it is in prayer — once again.