‘Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah. Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah.’ I turn my head over my right shoulder, then to the left one. And the few people behind me follow the same process. The Morning Prayer always helps me start my day on a positive note. I wake up, do the wudu, then I come to the masjid to hear some melodious Qur’an recitation in qiyam. But today is different. As the Imam Sahab of our masjid is on a leave, I was asked to lead the prayer. As I am a hafiz myself, I usually lead the prayer in our masjid in Imam Sahab’s absence. Maybe it sounds like I’ve been a madrasa student when I call myself “a hafiz”, but the truth is I’ve never seen a madrasa from inside it.

I am Rizwan Ahmad, a research scholar in History. Though I usually have a lot of things to do throughout my whole day, I never want to miss a single prayer (I may thank the Lord of the worlds for that). Though my field is history, and I do love that very much, I feel more attracted towards the theology of Islam. But, to my bad, it wasn’t always like that. Whenever I think of that particular incident, that particular person, I thank Allah for sending him in my life.

It was almost six years ago, when I was in college. At that time, my mind was washed by the western culture and I used to think of the religion of Islam as “Barbaric” (May Allah forgive me for that). I would never attend a single prayer of the day, of course, because I had been addressing myself to be an Atheist. “If God existed, I would be able to see him.” This was all I would argue. But being just nineteen, I couldn’t have established my points to society, but my mother. I would tell her that I believed in Darwinism, I believed in Big-Bang, I believed in Richard Dowkins; but all she would reply was “May Allah guide you”. But not always she would be this calm. Being a mother, she surely cared for my success; precisely, in the afterlife. I remember it was Friday morning. I lied on my bed with the phone in my hand, when my Ammi entered the room.

‘Rizwan, I have something to tell you, beta.’ She said.

‘Yes, Ammi, what is it?’ I put my phone down.

‘Are you busy right now?’ She asked as she sat beside me.

‘No, Ammi.’ I replied. ‘I was just passing my time. Do you want me to do something?’

‘I want you to go somewhere.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

She paused for a moment.

‘What happened, Ammi? Is everything alright?’

‘Promise me, you won’t deny my request.’

‘Okay,’ I hugged her and smiled, ‘I won’t.’

‘Today is Friday, Rizwan. Today is Jumu’a. Please go to the masjid.’

‘I can’t.’ I didn’t take two seconds to reply. ‘I don’t worship your God,’

‘He is your God as well, my child.’

‘I don’t have a God. I don’t BELIEVE in God. Please Ammi, don’t ask me to do that.’

‘Will you not even do that for me?’

‘Will your God be happy if I do this for you, and not for Him?’

She paused again. I knew that she didn’t have any answer to that.

‘I do not always tell you to go to masjid,’ she spoke again. ‘So why am I saying this today, have you thought about it?’

I looked at her, sighed. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t you love your father, Rizwan?’ Her voice broke. ‘At least go and pray for him.’

I had lost my father a week ago. It was the previous Friday. Though I never expressed my love for him (we boys are all the same), he was someone I would never have thought of losing. Now Ammi was mentioning him for me to go pray? I didn’t really like it.

‘If there was something called GOD, He wouldn’t take away everything from me. Now you want me to pray to the One Who took my father away?’ I said it all in the heat of the moment, and then realized that I shouldn’t have.

I saw tears in my mother’s eyes. She didn’t say anything more as she left my room, and left me alone for introspection. At that time, my mother was the only person I loved. And, if I just go to masjid to make my Ammi happy, what’s wrong in that? Is my ego bigger than my urge to make my Ammi happy? After a lot of discussion with myself, I picked the prayer cap, and went to the masjid (My mother had taught me how to make wudu, so it wasn’t a problem for me).



I didn’t know exactly when the prayer would start, so I reached even before the Adhan. When I entered, I saw a man with a long beard in a long white dress talking to some kids. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that he was the Imam of the masjid, as he had just led the janaza prayer of my father a week ago. I didn’t bother myself with anything, and sat by an old man almost in the middle of the room. People started filling the rows as time went. Some started reciting something while counting the Tasbeeh, some of them started reading a book, probably Qur’an. Some were praying namaz by themselves. As I sat there, the adhan was called. When the person on the microphone said “Ashadu Anna Muhammadar Rasulullah”, I noticed almost everyone in the masjid replied to that in Arabic. I was curious to know what that was, but didn’t ask anyone. When the adhan had ended, the Imam of the masjid went to some sort of a throne placed a little higher than usual, so that everyone would be able to see him. He first gave us salam, and getting the reply from us, he started chanting something called Khutba in a lyrical tone:

‘Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillahi Nahmaduhu Wanastainuhu Wanastaghfiruh. Wanu’minubihi Wana Tawakkalu Alaih…’

I was unable to make anything out of it. And I was getting irritated at the same time. If your tongue isn’t Arabic, it’s better if you don’t chant something in that language, I thought (little did I know that it was a part of the prayer, and it must be given in Arabic). People barely understood what he was chanting. After sometime he started speaking in Bengali with so much aggression, and I...