Call to Prayer: The End of Ramadan
photo credit: @tasneemalsultan
Originally written, since edited, May 13, 2011. Abuja, Nigeria.
It is transcendental – watching human beings respond to a Higher Calling. Spirituality is a mysterious beauty. Maybe it is in the act of submission to God, because humans, by nature, hate it. Men do not submit to women. Women do not submit to men. Children do not submit to parents. Parents do not submit to their children. Leaders do not submit to their flock. Followers do not submit to leaders.
And so everyone is on a grind, running the rat race and cutting everyone down with a jagged-edged sword. It is horrendous, pathetic. But when you watch a person stop to genuflect in reverence to the Almighty, something moves outside the realm of the physical. That is a beautiful moment.
I was in the midst of such a moment this Friday. The call-to-prayers Friday afternoon rush at Banex Plaza in Abuja is confusing and riveting. The dusty, sticky heat exacerbated by the throng of melanated bodies moving in a singular direction, responding to the sound of Arabic over a loudspeaker, intrigues both resident and tourist. Regardless the individual intention for going to the mosque this afternoon, for I am sure many were just as much spiritually led as they were religiously dutiful, there is a humbling here. It is as though God were personally calling, and believers had no choice but to respond. I was once told that often what is being said over the loudspeakers is more practical instructions to the beloved than spiritual utterances: “turn off your cell phone” type messages. AH! It’s just like at church! Here I was thinking that the voice blazing into the stratosphere and melting down through chaotic Abuja streets was one ushering Allah into the space of gathering. Meanwhile, the spiritual leader was simply saying, “listen guys, turn OFF your phones! Vibrate ain’t good enough!”
Mats are strewn across every possible walkway, and abandoned cars are littered like Lego pieces in a child’s playroom. Groups of men are gathered in rows under trees on the side of the street, bowing forehead-to-earth, shaded against glaring sunlight. I find women, in smaller gatherings, wedged between parked cars, beads in hands, lips imperceptibly moving in prayer. People – more than usual – are everywhere. I will never understand how Africans live on this continent’s soil sometimes. The sun, the baking bodies, the rising dust, the stale polluted air. Nothing about an afternoon at Banex Plaza spoke of comfort yet the call-to-prayer attracted enough congregants to make up a small village. And I was there to buy a pair of jeans and order some suya.
Like clockwork, prayers are over. As soon as they had started. Like a whisper, the colourful mats and their owners dissipated: back to cars, back to traffic, back to office buildings, back to classrooms, back to the rat race.
[picture posted with permission by @tasneemalsultan. full video can be accessed on her IG or on @udeebee’s IG highlighted stories]
