The thought that they will accept me into the sufi order feels like gold flowing in my veins.. I walk differently . I walk upright, my feet touching the ground more gently.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Kulaha buyout Allah - all of them are houses of God
I , as a Christian Sufi, went to the mosque to pray on New Year's Eve, and prayed together with a Moroccan woman who told me later that she lived in Geneva and as a Muslim went to pray in the Swiss churches because she liked them better than the mosque there. Mirror images. Peace is coming.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Ten years and how being Arab is infectious...
On my way home I picked up my bicycle and then stopped in front of the Moroccan restaurant where the lights were still on. This used to belong to my very first Arab friend, Hisham... Who taught me how to smoke a sheesha with fruit tobacco at 3am one night and we talked about the Iraq war and Osama bin Ladin. It was 2005 or so I think, during the Iraq war. I spoke about how the US army said that trying to catch Bin Ladin was like looking for one particular rabbit in all of the caves of Afghanistan. We grinned at each other and he whispered:"They will never find him..."
Today, 10 and 1/2 years later, with Hisham long gone to another place in town, I looked into the windows of that restaurant and the brown skinned head waiter came running towards the terrace from the inside, opened the windows wide, gave me a huge beaming smile and asked:" Are you a Muslim?"
I was startled , thought for a second, and then realized that I had forgotten to remove my black and golden hijab scarf after leaving the mosque tonight.
" I am a sufi", I said. "A what?" "Soufiyya" "Ah!" He replied and nodded.
"Mawlid Mobarak!"
"What?" He said, and since I don't speak a word of amazigh, the Moroccan Berber dialect, I switched to English and said:" it is the prophet's birthday!"
"Oh", he said, "really?"
"YesI was just at the mosque, they told me!"
He called his colleague who also came and looked at me, he looked vaguely familiar and had never seen me with hijab before, I wondered if he recognized me, maybe they wondered if I had married one of the Moroccans by now and converted just for that, or whether they even realized I was European and not Arab, and then I smiled, waved and drove off...
Today, 10 and 1/2 years later, with Hisham long gone to another place in town, I looked into the windows of that restaurant and the brown skinned head waiter came running towards the terrace from the inside, opened the windows wide, gave me a huge beaming smile and asked:" Are you a Muslim?"
I was startled , thought for a second, and then realized that I had forgotten to remove my black and golden hijab scarf after leaving the mosque tonight.
" I am a sufi", I said. "A what?" "Soufiyya" "Ah!" He replied and nodded.
"Mawlid Mobarak!"
"What?" He said, and since I don't speak a word of amazigh, the Moroccan Berber dialect, I switched to English and said:" it is the prophet's birthday!"
"Oh", he said, "really?"
"YesI was just at the mosque, they told me!"
He called his colleague who also came and looked at me, he looked vaguely familiar and had never seen me with hijab before, I wondered if he recognized me, maybe they wondered if I had married one of the Moroccans by now and converted just for that, or whether they even realized I was European and not Arab, and then I smiled, waved and drove off...
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