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Monday, February 14, 2011

Salaat

It's 5:00 in the morning in Jerusalem, and the first call to prayer is underway. I think I can make out at least six different muezzins' voices amplified from the minarets in our neighborhood, echoing off of the hillsides, bouncing among the stone houses, calling all Muslims to turn their attention toward Allah before the sun rises.

I've just finished reading Dave Eggers' Zeitoun, the memoirs of a Muslim family in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's a compelling story, beautifully and simply told, which lifts up the spiritual journey of the Zeitoun family, and illustrates how important prayer is in a Muslim's daily life, no matter where he or she lives. When Abdulrahman Zeitoun is mistakenly incarcerated after the flood, and held in Guantanamo-like conditions for over a month, he continues the ritual of salaat, performing his five daily prayers. In the midst of his suffering and fear, he knows that his prayer will keep him connected to the world outside and to God -- a right no one can take from him.

Here in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, Muslims make up the majority of the Palestinian population. Hearing the booming, competing calls to prayer throughout the day, it might seem they are the loudest voice here, going about their daily religious routines. But the conditions of living under occupation place many obstacles in the lives of all Palestinians, and even the offering of daily prayers cannot be taken for granted.

One day I was crossing the checkpoint to visit one of the churches in Bethlehem. This checkpoint has two stations to walk through; the first with metal detectors, x-ray scanners, and armed guards pacing the catwalk suspended above the maze of enclosed aisles people have to navigate to pass to the other side. The second is a small door in the wall itself. At the first station, Palestinians have to show two kinds of identification and a permit for crossing and place their hands on a device that identifies their fingerprints before (and if) they are allowed to cross in either direction. Depending on how many people are waiting, how well the technology is functioning, and a number of other factors, one never knows how long this passage will take. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, and often people are turned back with no explanation offered.


On this particular day, I had made my way through the first station and was crossing the wide, paved lot when I noticed a man kneeling in front of the 30 foot wall. I wondered if he was alright, since people passing through here typically move along as quickly as possible. But when I looked a bit closer, I noticed that he was performing salaat and had placed his prayer mat out of the way of the crowd, facing Mecca -- and facing the wall. At this time of day, around noon, it had probably taken him a long time to get through the checkpoint, and this was his best option for a place to pray before moving on with his day.

I wonder what he was thinking and feeling at that moment, as he prayed to Allah, the one God of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, before the wall that had been built to separate these groups from one another. Has this become an ordinary, pragmatic thing to do? To kneel before the wall because that's where one happens to be at noon?

Or, in facing Mecca and turning his mind toward God, was the man able to see through the wall in a way? To transcend these circumstances and connect to a bigger and better truth than the one we see with our eyes? Maybe the words of his prayer hold an answer:

In the name of God, the Most Benificent, the Most Merciful... Guide us in the straight way; the way of those whom you have blessed, not of those with anger upon them, nor of those who have lost their way...