Sacred Spaces

Ronia Ibrahim (she/her)

1. 

In the beginning,

There was the red one that he prayed on. 

Faith was introduced to me in pillars of five, prayer being number two, holding up and pulling down my father as he bowed and stood five times a day. He taught me how to make wudu’, how to purify myself; how to wash my face; rinse my nose with my pinky; my arms (up to the elbows); feet. Purity felt unusual; it came in the form of droplets dripping off my eyebrow, the ware whare scarf wrapped around my head. And of course, Purity was laid out onto the carpet—the red one with black arches and green threads, like eyebrows of stern masjid uncles and their olive thobes. 

Purity was wet and soft and close and quiet and red-black-green-gold. 

This is what it means to be a Muslim. Afternoons were spent practising our prayers, Arabic stumbling off my tongue: new, sharp, and playful. Then there were the actions—so rhythmic and specific. Down to the ground, but always back up. Hands to the sky, then resting on the heart, woven by verses from The Qur’an. As we sat on the ground, my mind would wander somewhere between the precision and obscurity, lost in earth and echo. Then I would sometimes be brought back by my father’s finger, lifting briefly in the air, as if to say, pay attention, as if to say look, while pointing to God, somewhere, there.  When we went down to press our noses into the rug, I could smell my Dad’s rose perfume, and wondered if this was what God smelled like too.

2.

In the summer of 2010, Dadu came to visit us. Yellow days filled with the smell of turmeric, and suitcases overflowing with gold-trimmed saris and fancy flip-flops. I held each gift in awe, amused and unsure of my grandmother’s extravagant gestures of love. Her hugs unfamiliar, her language distant and different. The prayer mat she brought with her was gold and decorated with an image of a grand mosque, illustrious patterns of ivy leaves, said “MADE IN TURKEY”, and felt like velvet—but didn’t feel foreign at all. Maybe it was the fact that I knew what my faith looked like: the rivers flowing under gardens (Qur’an 2:25) and gold domes in far away deserts. Maybe our shared sense of sacred knowledge was the only thing we could both truly understand.

But such images are hard to hold on to. There was the school in Wainui, where we learnt “Tahi, Rua, Toru, Whā”, and there was the school in Kilbirnie, where we learnt “Alif Ba Ta”. Suspended in what seemed like two separate worlds, one with blue-eyed girls and ham sandwiches, the other, pull-on hijabs and plates of jalebi. I was the brown girl who couldn’t eat bacon and didn’t celebrate Christmas. I was the girl who was good at reading Arabic. I was the girl whose dad wouldn't let her go to sleepovers. I was the girl whose dad was a board member of the Masjid.

Then there was home. Somewhere in between the foreignities of the mosque and the familiar kowhai stillness of the backyard, I existed. The former was the one that felt like a fever dream.  The latter was unkind to those who did not conform.

Some part of me started to wonder if my faith even existed, if it even did shine and tower like they did on those carpets. When Dadu and I prayed together, we shared a mat turned sideways. Maghrib became memories of raspy-whispered prayers and visions of fallen minarets and lopsided leaves. I became impatient and confused. Tired of standing and bowing everyday in my prayer performance, all act, no soul. 

The next summer we visited Bangladesh. Bangladesh, with its dirt cracked roads and rickshaw drivers praying by the curb. Where Assalamu alaikum meant “hello”, and hijabs were trendy. 

Mornings that broke with the crackling of the adhan before the birds. Where faith revolved around life, was the same as life. Embedded in the food and the words, rolling off their tongues, and spilling off their clothes. 

Every morning after Fajr in the dark of Dhaka’s dawn, I would trace the ashen gardens on my rug. I realised, the rug I prayed on did not carry the truth. It was the proof. 

3.

A list of the many gifts that you may receive from a Hajji returner, apart from the alarming mark of the pilgrim’s bald head: bottles of Zam Zam water; scratchy gold kufis; dusty boxes of Saudi dates. “This too”, my Uncle said, pulling out a bundle of prayer rugs wrapped in factory plastic. I sifted through the layers of green, burgundy, maroon, beneath crisp plastic, part of me feeling strange to see intricate silk mosques pre-packaged. I chose the blue one because blue was my favourite colour.

I had seen others at the ^halal butcher, hanging on the walls with price tags, as if advertising ‘Al Aqsa for 15’, or ‘The Kaaba for 20”. In reality, we weren’t even close to having the money to afford to visit those places.

One time, after paying for our meat, my father looked up wistfully, pointing to the ^Kaaba, and with bright eyes said to me, “one day we’ll go there insha’allah”. 

4.

The Prophet’s* one was called a khumra, a mat of woven palm fronds enough for his head and hands when he prostrated. 

The “prayer room” in highschool was the cleaner’s closet. It was the door between a classroom and the girl’s bathroom, invisible to the passing eye, distinct to the believer. It was the speckled floor closet with its shiny black rubbish bag inhabitants and bottles of bleach. The thin walls echoed of chatter and lunchtime-anarchy, hardly a place for privacy. There was no cotton rug to separate the spiritual from the material, no softness to place my hands away from the dust ground, no gold threaded niche to remind me where Mecca was. But alone in that discarded room, I refused to feel neglected. I did not have a prayer mat, but I did have my faith. I thought of the second pillar, the softness of my father’s words. Purity dripping off our eyelashes, rivers flowing under gardens. My English notebook on the ground, raising my hands to the sky, resting them on my heart, whispering into the stillness of the dust air.

For the next few years I spent my lunchtimes in that makeshift sanctuary, reciting prayers into a pulp cover. Away from the basketball court squabbles. Away from the lanky-limbed boys jeering to passing girls, the cliques and their deafening bluetooth speakers. 

The fire engine red 1B5, that was my khumra, lying on the cold vinyl ground, that was the one I prayed on when I needed faith in the faithless of places.

*peace be upon him

*Glossary 

Adhan: Call to prayer

Al Aqsa: Third holiest site in Islam, a mosque located in Jersualem

Assalamu alaikum: Greeting that means “peace be upon you”

Fajr: The dawn prayer

Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca

Insha’allah: Arabic for “God willing”

Jalebi: South Asian deep-fried sweet

Kaaba: Black building in the center of Masjid-al-Haram in Mecca

Kufi: Cap commonly worn by Muslim men

Maghrib: The evening prayer

Masjid: Arabic word for mosque

Wudu’: Islamic ritual ablution

Zam Zam: Holy water from the Zam Zam spring in Mecca