Before I moved to Brooklyn, my experience of Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, was as a movie plot point, something sinister and completely separate from my day to day experience. Living here in Brooklyn, so many things once distant and unknown are now simply a part of my walk to the subway.
Work on this particular Friday was extrordinarlily stressful, I’d spent most of the day struggling with a small group recalitrant computers at a Times Square tourist trap and it was just after 6PM when I finally admitted defeat. I decided to retreat until Monday.
I emerged onto a surreal street scene. Twilight had come early, and a soft rain cooled the steamy summer streets. Tourists running for cover cleared my way as I strode south on Broadway. The rain had an almost psychedelic effect on the towers of neon against the grey gloaming. I took in the moment as I strolled several blocks to the Yellow Line and a train home to Brooklyn. I caught an R train, leaned back, closed my eyes, and enjoyed the MTA air conditioning against my damp clothing.
Rising up the steps at 4th Ave and Atlantic in Brooklyn, the rain had slowed to a misty summer drizzle. I walked quietly along Atlantic Avenue looking to spot if the next B63 was headed my way. The traffic glistened in the long shadows of sunset as the Muslim call to prayer echoed mystically from loudspeakers hidden in the upper reaches of the Al Farooq Mosque. I don’t know what it is about it, there is an earnest, almost straining quality beneath the smooth haunting verse. It’s quite beautiful, and it calls me to question my preconceptions.
So much of what we think we know about Islam and those who organize their lives according to its ideals is so wrapped up in fear, anger and ignorance that there can be no clear understanding. I just know as I walk through those lilting words bouncing off the brownstones of Boreum Hill I don’t feel fear, nor anger, but wonder.
I don’t understand my own thoughts on the subject, but I’ve tried to educate myself. Karen Armstrong’s book, Islam: A Short History gives us a solid history, and as self-described history buff I was surprised how little I knew. I also enjoyed Fazlur Rahman’s Islam. Both books were written prior to 9/11/2001, but they don’t seem dated as they take a long view of the subject. There are thousands of books on this and related subjects written from every angle imaginable, and the ones I’ve read satisfy me intellectually, but they don’t inform my gut.
I get a definite feeling when I consume media on things Islamic, but it never jives with what I feel when I interact with my Muslim neighbors, and not at all what I feel when I hear the call to prayer here Brooklyn.
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