Islam

I am returning to the theme of my Chicago Living World Religions field trip, as the last post was a little pathos-heavy.

After leaving the Baha'i temple, we drove to a very large mosque. It was full of people, and the traffic around it was terrible due to the fact that we approached it during the transition time between two prayer services. We disembarked and were gawked at. The people were primarily Pakistani, and many looked at us. No one said a thing.

One man did talk to us, recognizing our confusion. He was Caucasian, as were the majority of us. Pity. He guided us to leave our shoes in a small room full of shelves, and we sat in the back of a large chairless room as people streamed in continuously throughout the entire service, even up to the final seconds of the final prayer.

The Muslims seemed. . .normal. Despite being sadly racially aloof, it was odd seeing men I could have gone to high school with walking in with an unhurried, long-step stride, one hand in pocket and the other flipping shut the cell phone they had just silenced. They went through the prayer rituals as a group, which was lovely. Then we all sat through a "sermon" that could have been presented in any church I've ever been to, save for the mentions of Muhammad and Arabic words used for specific theological terms. It all felt so. . .not strange.

We filed out and got back on the road, but only after a man with a very nice car and with very poor driving skills ran into our van when stubbornly refusing to back out and get a better angle coming into the adjacent parking spot.

Perhaps there's a metaphor for life in that last episode, but I don't see it yet.