My (earnest, irate) thoughts

Al-Fatiha means The Opening. This is the first chapter of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book. Muslims recite this sura twenty to forty times a day in their daily prayers. The English is OK, but the Arabic is extraordinary. I wish sometimes that I was internally fluent in Arabic. I wish for this to happen magically, though no work of my own. But then, once upon a time in Bayside, Queens, one of my ESL students, a young woman from Palestine, informed me that Qur’anic Arabic is difficult even for a native speaker, and that Arabs must study it and read commentary on the verses just like we do. I used to love to watch her jotting notes to herself in the margins of the worksheets I passed out. Loops and dots in the margins.

Bismillah.hirrahman.nirrahim
(In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful)
Elhamdulillahi.rabbil.allemin
(Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds)
Errahman.nirrahim
(Most Gracious, most Merciful)
Maliki.yeumiddin
(Master of the Day of Judgment)
Iyyake.neabudu.we.iyyake.nestayin
(You alone do we worship, You alone do we ask for help)
Ihdinas.surratal.mustagkim
(Show us the straight path)
Surratal.ethine.enamte.aleyhim.gayrilmadubi.aleyhim.welled.dallin.Amin.
(The path of those You have favored, not the path of those who earn Your anger nor of those who go astray. Amen.)

It’s really beautiful to hear someone singing Al-Fatiha as it’s meant to sound. In Konya, Turkey — a city that is famous to me for two reasons only: it is the final resting place of the Sufi poet Rumi, and it is the home of etli ekmek, a thin-crust pizza that is insane — we went to a mosque for sunset prayer. I was beside myself as I stood in line with Turkish ladies and we listened to the imam sing Al-Fatiha. He sang it really slowly and carefully and beautifully, and at that moment I wished with all my heart that this was my religion from birth, that this was my home and that these were my people… that a small part of me didn’t feel forever strange and left out, both in America and in Turkey.