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"Hayya' ala Falaah"
"Allaahu Akbar" -- "God is the most great"
"Laa ilaaha illa-Lah" -- " There is no deity
save God".
Photo courtesy of Marion Kaplan: www.marionkaplan.com
I felt strange as if surrounded by something uncanny,
overwhelming. Each one stood up in his sailboat, raising his hands
on each side of his face, reciting Surahs (chapters of the noble
Qur'an); they stayed since they feared to fall because of the
pitching, then they bowed. From where I was, I could only watch
the backs of the men, rising and kneeling several times like a human
tide. They all followed their Imam (literally "the one who has faith").
The imam was not a priest; he was usually the one who had
memorized more of the Noble Qur'an.
I suddenly remembered a sentence I had read from traditional
Muslim sayings:
"The first thing for which the servant of Allah shall be
called to account is the prayer. If it was good, all of his work
was good, but if it was bad, then all of his work was bad."
I reassessed these words silently to myself, still amazed by their
power. Here, the saying made even more sense because nobody
delayed prayers; they were made right on the spot at fixed hours.
The saying disturbed me even if I was not willing to admit it. The
words seemed to come from a totally unknown dimension. This
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world was not anything related to me but it already asked for
concessions: I was already paying close attention to it. I was
entranced by the dance of the little embarkation and the coming and
going of my reflections. Meanwhile, the ripples on the sea seemed
to accompany the movement of the bodies as if it itself was praying.
I was soon ripped out of it by some noble personage wiping his
nose in the tip of his djellaba, tears of delight in his eyes.
As someone who arrived for the first time in the Middle East, I was
stunned to see all the activities halted during the time of prayers.
From the boat I could see the town. Wherever the believer stood,
he laid a clean piece of cloth on the floor. Some still performed the
"wudu," the ritual washing, while others continued prostrating.
Sailors, merchants, men and children, all were doing the same thing,
whether alone or inline with people in the street, in the shops, on the
top of a wall or on a roof, on a boat or on a camel's back, all
depending upon the circumstances.
And that looked amazing!
Those who were weak or ill prayed as well; they mimed the
movements following with their eyes or their heads going up and
down, up and down several times. Others prayed with or without
their shoes on. All that seemed so strange to me; somehow there
stood the frightening difference.
I shook a little before focussing on the sand dunes smoothly curving
along the horizon. The priors' spines were now like the blade edge
of the dunes whirling with the wind against the light. The backs of
the dunes curving away from the coastal hills were sparkling with
light and seemed, with the silent embarkation, to extend the
prostration. One minute of sheer quietness passed as if time had
stopped. One minute… two minutes… Five minutes.
The sounds of activity suddenly returned. Our vessel's keel
suddenly appeared to plough through the waves, reaching haven.
The lights and shades rolling intertwined in the tide soon became a
dream. People had stopped praying but I could not shake myself
out of my previous state of mind.
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