Concert of Faith

The white tarpaulin,ensuring that people stay in line,provides a testament of those who have visited the mosque: names and duas prayers scribbled,serve as reminders,perhaps,to Allah and his Prophet,of the faithful,once they have departed. Please give me a son, reads one in Arabic. Let my father recover, reads another. Grant me patience, in Urdu. Let me get married, in Hindi. And I woz here, scribbled in a childs handwriting in English,her name embellished with a heart.

In Medina,space is there to be claimed. During the month of Ramzan,thousands gather at the mosque. Large burgundy carpets,big enough for over a hundred,are laid across the white marble floor. These become homes as families eat,sleep and pray on the piece of territory they carve out for themselves,creating boundaries with bags and stools.

An Iranian family sits next to a Somali family. They stand up for prayer and pray in different ways. One woman lifts her hands to her ears,indicating she is Shia and the other stands with her hands by her side,the way Sunnis do. In front of the mosque,the worldly divisions between Sunni and Shia melt away.

This is a concert of faith at the second holiest site in Islam. The mosque was once the Prophets home and is now the site of the Prophets final resting place. Abutting his house is a small slab of land known as the Rawdah,said to be a part of Jannah,heaven.

During Ramzan,Medina awakens at night. It resembles a busy public square. Children take a joyride on the large buggies with spinning brushes that clean the floor. Utro. Chalo,Shoo, says the Bengali cleaner,of the Haram. In this Saudi City,every second person speaks Hindi. The workforce is predominantly Indian,from the man selling eyeliner at the shopping mall adjacent to the mosque to the man selling corn. Azam,from UP,came to Medina three years ago,he collects the trash and fills it in large blue bags. He tosses one bag after another into the garbage van and considers his job a luxury. For him,cleaning the mosque of Mohammed is an honour,after all. Meri nasib khul gayi, he says.

Umm Fatma sits on the white marble with one knee raised; her open palm resting on her knee. In front of her stands a plastic cup,brimming with dates. Im not a beggar, she says. Pointing ahead,she adds,We are all beggars. She points towards the Prophets Mosque in Medina. The men in their flowing thobs looking like ghosts,and women in all colours shuffle towards the mosque,Al-Masjid al-Nabawi. The sun is almost setting but she doesnt move: she does not run to get the blessed water that is available,in abundance,for free. It will come to me, she says.

The preacher thunders: Allah-O-Akbar. His voice carries through the hot and humid air,across the city of Medina. The Imams voice,more coaxing than instructive,calls the gathered to pray. But first there is an intermission,to quench thirst,to satisfy hunger.

Many have come empty-handed but in Ramzan there are free lunches. Food is distributed and everyone shares. This sense of community,of belonging is heightened as the desert heat mellows and the sun sets. Plastic sheets,dastar,are laid across the length of the mosque. Orderly queues form and young Saudi boys hand out food. At times a ruckus breaks out in a chorus of foreign languages.

And again: Allah-O-Akbar.

The prayer reverberates from the microphone,into the crowd,springing people into action. Thousands of people move in procession like a single body,as they ready to pray under the night sky.

Like clockwork,this scene is enacted five times a day. On the first night of Lail-a-tul-Qadr,the night of honour and dignity,marking the night the Divine Revelation came to the Prophet over a thousand years ago,something unexpected happens.

At first it is a whimper. It could be a crackle in the Imams microphone. Then come his sobs and the tears dont stop. His voice quavers,he just manages to recite the words that he must have repeated since his childhood. He cries into the microphone,moved by the words and more so by the night,and he has thousands as his witness. As his cries get louder,so do the cries of others.

If hes a sinner,how sinful are we? wails the lady next to me after finishing her prayer.

Here,emotions teeter,ever ready to erupt. In a giddy frenzy to reach the front,a womans face is hit. Her lip bleeds,yet she perseveres. If this indeed is a concert of faith and Mohammed its star,then everyone wants to be in the front row. Despite the blood running down her face,she pushes ahead. The air closes in and it gets harder to breathe. There is every possibility of her being trampled,every possibility of a stampede. Yet those on the floor with their heads on the ground and the chaos behind them,pray,for they come in faith.

Nothing can go wrong in the Holy Mosque, says a lady,though her hijab has been yanked off in the melee. Most have faces stained with sweat and tears,as they cry,Oh Mohammed…

Despite the pushing,order is imposed,by the mutawwas. They yell at the crowd infected with belief: Yallah,Yallah,Yallah.