My Accidental Jihad (16 page)

Yet in all our years together, I had never heard Ismail recite. How strange it is, the way two people who have shared a bed for over a decade can stumble into awkward new intimacy, can discover secrets between them after so many years. He closed his eyes. The voice that filled the room came from a stranger. Not the man who grumbled about the headlines each morning. Not the man who ran for an hour, then sat on our back porch peeling off his sweat-soaked socks. Not the man whose iPhone buzzed at his hip like a living thing. Not the man who turned up the music and danced with his children on weekend nights. This pure, plaintive voice was the sound of a child in a Libyan madrassah: a lanky, earnest boy who stayed up late practicing his Qur’anic recitation by the dim light of a kerosene lamp, refusing to blow it out and rest until the words were perfect. The boy who shot out of the madrassah at the end of his school day and ran to the souk, where he knew his illiterate and volatile father waited impatiently for him to record the day’s transactions in the heavy, ink-smeared ledger. But in that moment in the madrassah, when he recited the Qur’an, he was able to briefly forget everything else but this. His eyelids fell like velvet curtains, and the words spilled from his lips as naturally as if they were his own—they became his own—filled with the longing of his own heart. My focus had been shattered into a million pieces, but like mercury to a magnet, his voice drew me in, gathered up my splintered spirit and made me whole again.

OMAR STOOD ON
my doorstep, smiling and peering at me through square, outdated glasses. He placed his hand over his heart in a traditional Muslim greeting and stepped inside. His disabled son shuffled in, too, with a mischievous smile, as if the joke were on us, dragging half his body behind him like heavy luggage. A friend of Ismail’s, Omar had lived all over the world but moved to our hometown to care for his elderly father, whom he visited each evening in a nursing home. That afternoon he sat cross-legged on our living room floor in pressed pants and a collared shirt, drinking tea and having a passionate conversation with my husband about politics, social justice, and Islam.

The news headlines often link Islam and violence, but Omar was one of the most peaceful people I had ever met. I wanted to know what made him so humble and patient, what inspired him to care so deeply for the oppressed and take such good care of his family and, when I asked him how he was doing, to respond with a smiling
“Alhamdu lillah”
—as if every bit of it were a blessing.

So when he sent me a one-line email—“For anyone on a spiritual path, this is a must-see”—I clicked the link. A grainy video transported me to a windowless room where dark-skinned men were crowded shoulder to shoulder in cheap plastic chairs. A bearded man stood before them: intense, near-black eyes, his head swaddled in a white turban. This was no prestigious university or Western conference center; this was the stuff of American nightmares: a poor, dark, faraway place where violent, irrational men plot our downfall. Why was Omar sending me this?

If the major world religions were schoolchildren, Islam would be the outcast. Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity would roam the playground together, swinging from the monkey bars and making up games and resolving their own disputes. Hinduism would be more solitary—flamboyant and misunderstood. Islam would be the troubled one, mired in conflict, battling a reputation that preceded it.

It’s surprising, since Islam is really so much like the other Abrahamic faiths: touched by sexism from the get-go, adapted to various cultures along the way, open to a range of interpretations, marred by violence and eternally in dispute. But the living heart of Islam is beautiful and pure.

The Shaykh on the video began to speak. Was that a California accent? It was! I leaned in to listen and he reminded me that I would not find happiness in status or possessions, that I must take my fleeting life seriously. “Every breath takes you one breath closer to your final destination.” Like a splash of cold water to my face, his words startled me awake from vivid dreams of vanity and immortality. He taught that this body I cherished and adorned was a just a temporary home for my spirit, which would one day fly away like a bird released from its cage. Stripped to its essentials, his message sounded like the dharma teachings at the Buddhist temple where I sometimes went to meditate.

I’D BEEN MARRIED
to a Muslim for twelve years, but I’d never explored the faith—nor did Ismail pressure me to. According to Islam, he explained, every people have their own prophet; many paths lead to God. So he kept to his prayers, and I kept to my morning meditation. Each day during the month of Ramadan I prepared a plate of dates for him at dusk so he could break his fast, and each December he sorted through our photos to help me select one for the family Christmas card. But mostly we steered clear of one another’s baffling rituals.

Buddhism had been part of my life since college, when I’d stumbled across Charlotte Joko Beck’s illuminating text
Everyday Zen.
But there were two words I tripped over, syllables like boulders blocking my path forward: nothingness and emptiness. No matter how many years I spent counting my breath or naming my thoughts, I could not bring myself closer to that abyss Buddhism said was the center of my life.

Maybe that’s partly why I was drawn to this American Muslim teacher who taught that at the heart of our existence was infinite mercy and divine unity. “Meaning is everywhere,” he preached. “May God open our hearts to the meaning of our existence.” I was struck by the love I heard in his voice and by the way he wove God into every other sentence. In the nominally Christian household of my childhood, I’d been taught never to take God’s name in vain;
Jesus Christ
was an epithet reserved for moments of great exasperation. In Islam no circumstance was too trivial, intimate, or explosive to warrant invoking God’s name.

Fervent spiritual seekers once made long, treacherous journeys to study with the great masters. Today even halfhearted seekers with ADD can find them: the best teachers of every tradition are just a mouse click away. I downloaded the Shaykh’s teachings, originally delivered to audiences in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. At dawn, as I jogged along a dirt trail beside the creek, he spoke of a merciful God. He explained that the Arabic word for mercy—
rahma
—came from the Arabic word for womb, and that women had a spiritual advantage over men. “Humanity’s best qualities are found naturally in women, but must be acquired by men,” he taught. He went on to say that, like Christians, Muslims honored Mary as the mother of Jesus but that in Islam, Jesus was also honored because he was her son. Muslims revered her; many scholars believed she had the stature of a prophet, and she was referenced more often in the Qur’an than in the Bible. I did not expect a Muslim teacher to speak so reverently about women—or to refer so eloquently to great Western literature. He cited Shakespeare and Yeats alongside ancient Muslim teachers, and he spoke with insight about the human condition. “To validate our own pain, we deny the pain of others,” he said. “But only in acknowledging others’ pain can we achieve our full humanity.”

He was an American convert, and his idealism and intensity reminded me of my college friend, a wild-eyed philosopher who burned with passion to know God, save the world, and do something extraordinary with his brief and precious life. But unlike my old friend, whose insights were dulled by alcohol or marijuana, the Shaykh’s intellect was razor sharp. His mind and heart were engaged at full throttle and in perfect balance, like the twin engines that lift a massive jet improbably toward the heavens.

“What’s the name of that guy you’re into? Osama Sultana?” a friend asked, and the others giggled. We were seated around a fire pit in my backyard on a cool spring evening. I’d recently told her the name of the Muslim teacher whose lectures had moved me so deeply. The Arabic syllables had swirled in her imagination with billowing black smoke,
Arabian Nights,
tumbling towers, a fine-featured man with coffee-colored skin in a mountaintop cave.
Osama Sultana
.

One girlfriend had just completed a triathlon, another was starting her own company, and a third had just returned from a business trip to Europe. They were smart, funny, and adventurous, willing to explore any subject in conversation—except for God. Even my friend who took her twins to Sunday school studiously avoided the subject—as if she visited him only once a week in the sprawling church off the freeway where he lived, that impressive estate that floated in a sea of SUVs and minivans on Sunday mornings.

When I told my girlfriends the Shaykh reminded me of a prophet, they flashed one another warning looks. They’d much rather talk about controversial subjects like polyamory or pot legalization than prophets.

“Like Martin Luther King reminds me of a prophet,” I hastened to add, to show I was no zealot. Devout Muslims emulated their prophet in every respect, from his manners to dress to diet, so it was no accident that great teachers became more prophetic as they manifested more courage, compassion, and humility for the sake of civilization. I once saw a photo in the
Guinness Book of World Records
of a man hauling a steam engine with his teeth. Men like Martin Luther King and the Shaykh reminded me of that guy: they bore down on truth and refused to let go, leaned into it and gave everything they had to move this great sluggish engine of humanity forward just a few inches before they gave out.

The first time I saw my husband put his forehead to the ground in prayer, through a crack in his bedroom door when he thought he was alone, I was as disturbed as if I’d caught him piercing a voodoo doll with a needle. What kind of God, I wondered, would want us in such a compromised position? But worship is Islam’s fundamental practice; Muslims cultivate a direct relationship with God through their five daily prayers. The more I listened to the Shaykh, the more I wondered about those prayers. Five times a day seemed excessive—unless I counted the number of times each day I lost focus, compulsively checked messages, got too distracted by busyness and daydreams to remember the single most important thing. Then it seemed infinitely small.

I knew from my writing and running routines what rewards came over time from disciplined practice, so I decided to perform the Salat, or Muslim prayer, for one month—just to see what happened. I did not discuss my prayer experiment. Meditation was hip, but prayer put me in league with strutting televangelists, histrionic abortion-clinic protesters, homophobic politicians with lurid sexual secrets. And Muslim prayer was even worse.

I HAD ALWAYS
had a hard time taking instruction from my husband, but thanks to Google, I didn’t have to in this case. I found a website to guide me through the motions, with an audio file to teach me Arabic pronunciation. In my bedroom I moved awkwardly through the positions. With the help of a free download, I turned toward the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, which Muslims everywhere face in prayer. I stood noble and tall, as God’s representative on earth, then bowed at the waist, then folded all the way down to the ground like the lowliest of servants. My body strained to embody nobility and servitude, strength and powerlessness. That repeated up-and-down movement dislodged something deep inside. The weight of my forehead against the ground broke apart what I’d spent a lifetime trying to protect: my fragile individualism and brittle self-determination. With my face to the ground, an oppressive weight rolled off my shoulders: the burdensome arrogance and guilt that came from believing I was master of my life, the sole source of its brokenness and beauty. I began to weep for all I did not understand and could not control.

It was not easy to pray first thing in the morning, just before bed, and in stolen moments of privacy throughout the day. I only discussed my experience with one wise and luminous friend. Her serenity and strength did not come from taking yoga classes, listening to Eckhart Tolle CDs in her car, or attending Buddhist retreats in Big Sur. She paid dearly for her maturity a few years ago, when her husband was struck with leukemia and died a few months later, leaving her with a five-year-old son to raise.

The morning after her husband died, we sat together at her kitchen table drafting his obituary. Not long after the funeral she attacked her front yard, hacking away at crab grass and slamming the shovel’s metal blade into hard North Carolina clay the color of rust. She built a garden, enclosed it in a high deer fence, planted vegetables and marigolds. When I visited her in summertime, she filled my cupped hands with brilliant yellow flowers whose petals appeared to have been dipped in blood.

“A strange thing has happened,” I told her. “I’ve begun to pray—and it actually
helps
me.” After two weeks, the change was subtle but undeniable. I was more patient and grateful. Anxiety was loosening its grip. Meditation emptied my mind, but prayer filled my heart.

My friend hugged me. “I’m so glad for you,” she said, and her happiness lit up the room like sunlight.

“I just can’t understand
why
it works,” I went on. “Do I sound crazy? Is it a placebo effect? Am I deluding myself?”

She put her hands over her ears, groaned, and rolled her eyes.

“Please, stop! For God’s sake, if it’s working, don’t overanalyze it!”

After I’d been listening to the Shaykh for over a year, I had the opportunity to attend one of his
khutbas,
or public sermons, while I was on a cross-country trip. A low-budget Internet video denigrating the prophet Muhammad had recently led to explosive protests in Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya, had been murdered during an attack on the American embassy in Benghazi. The Shaykh had been giving impassioned speeches against violence and fundamentalism. “I adopted this faith,” he said at a Friday sermon in Northern California, “and I am sick of defending ignorant, backward, reactionary fools.” At the same time, he challenged non-Muslim Americans to consider why this country refuses to tolerate the vilification of an ethnicity but allows the vilification of a faith. Did Americans realize that Jesus and the other prophets were as beloved to Muslims as was their prophet Muhammad? He had thrust himself into the middle of a volatile confrontation and was taking on both sides. He looked exhausted: smaller, more fragile in person.