Impossible Man by Michael Muhammad Knight

Author:Michael Muhammad Knight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2020-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

WE FIRST LANDED in Karachi, where the airport was crowded with people lining up to get out. From what we heard there had been shootings that day. After reaching Islamabad, we stepped out of the airport into a sea of men pressing from all corners with various offers, just as Siddique had said. We climbed into the nearest taxi, and I told the driver, “Masjidi Faisal.”

On the way I must have spotted at least a dozen minarets poking up out of the landscape. For a second I thought that they looked like sharp erect penises but immediately scratched that; I was so happy to have finally arrived in the bosom of Islam. I was more alien in Geneva than here, I thought; here was where I belonged.

Our long Shahrah-e-Islamabad road ended right in front of Masjidi Faisal. I instantly recognized the mosque backdropped by the green Margalla Hills, just as Siddique had described. The mosque was huge, like football-stadium huge, and really did look like a spaceship with a rocket-minar on each corner and giant crescent-topped pyramidal dome in the middle, as though it could blast off into the clouds and carry its contents to paradise. Or it looked like a giant stone tent, almost.

Taking off my socks to wash for prayer was the best feeling in the world—another proof of the wisdom in Islam’s details. Washing for prayer removes the mental dirt, and taking your time with it creates further distance between the prayer and whatever distracting stresses you faced. I washed my arms up to the elbows, ran wet hands over my hair, cleaned out my ears, rinsed out my mouth, and pushed water up my nose.

Then I heard the call to prayer blaring from loudspeakers placed on each minaret. It was the same voice from a thousand prayers in Rochester.

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