The truth of the matter
October 14, 2010
This afternoon I was chatting with my host father, watching him sew up a run-down pair of shoes. His first comment after we passed the usual greetings was, “In America you all would just throw these away, but here, having spent 100 dirhams [12-and-a-half dollars] on these shoes, we sew them up! We learn how to fix things and keep them going because we have to.” It’s probably true that most Americans would chuck a pair of busted shoes, not having the patience or skills to fix them and Goodwill not accepting damaged items. I’ve always been impressed with how my host dad all the time seems to be rigging up some fix for a broken something-or-other, but there are some resourceful people in America, too.
Anyway, the comment that really caught my interest today was on a different topic. My host father mentioned that he heard about heavy rain and flooding in parts of America, which I hadn’t heard about myself but he probably saw on a satellite television channel. He expressed sympathy for the people affected and said a sincere, “Ay’aafu rbbi,” “May God forgive (and heal).”
Within this Islamic-Berber culture, ill health or bad circumstances are seen as coming from God. Someone who hears of another person’s troubles responds with this prayer. The prayer is for God to heal the afflicted after forgiving them for whatever they may have done wrong (the wrong-doing of which led to God’s imposition of their affliction), but no real sense of blame is expressed. Things happen to people, to everyone, it’s just up to God to set everything right again.
His prayer, said simply but firmly, brought to mind all the things I’ve heard recently about a lot of Americans expressing fear, hatred, and distrust of Muslims. Some people in the United States who probably have never had much meaningful interaction with any members of the Islamic community seem to have a habit of speaking out forcefully against Muslims and Islam in general. Reflecting on my own experience living in a Muslim country for an extended period of time, I can’t think of any moments when I genuinely felt that my status as a tarumit, a non-Muslim foreigner, proved to be an obstacle to having positive, productive, and sincere interactions with the Muslim Moroccans around me. My firsthand experience here doesn’t line up very well with the preconceived notions of many vocal anti-Islam Americans.
My host father’s sincere prayer stands out as one of the many small bits of evidence that I encounter everyday, proving again and again the humanity and thoughtfulness of the Muslims I have met in person. Hard as it might be, I try to avoid making generalizations when I can. But having had the experiences I’ve had here in Morocco, having constantly come face-to-face with the goodness of the people with whom I live and work, I can’t help but believe that these wonderful qualities exist just as much among Muslims as they might among Christians or the members of almost any other religion. It seems to me that the average person just wants to live, hopes the best for themselves and for their families, and wishes well for others. I believe that that could be said for most people in the world, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or religion.
I hope I can recognize and seize any opportunities that I come across to share my experiences with other Americans, especially with those who haven’t had the chances that I’ve had to study and interact with people of another country and religion. I suppose I probably haven’t done enough of this up until now, but I’m looking forward to working on it in the future. I’d consider any chip I could make in the wall between greater American society and the Muslim community to be a great success.
