Opinion: An instant connection,
The image of sun-drenched halls of a mosque during peaceful Friday afternoon prayers being shattered by the shrill of gunshots and screams of worshippers keeps playing in my head.
I keep thinking of the well-worn carpets, the less than perfectly painted walls, the dim lights becoming the scene of a massacre as child and man fall to the ground.
I don’t know what the New Zealand mosque interiors look like nor how the scene of horror unfolded. What I know is how close to home this is. We, too, live in a country where Muslims are in the minority.
We, too, attend mosques on Fridays, coming inside as the hustle and bustle of the city oblivious to the ritual going on. The azan never plays off the buildings here, but it resounds in our heartbeats and we respond. Separated by time and space, we join the ummah around the globe to stand before Allah. And so it was not difficult to feel an instant connec- tion with the Muslim worshippers of Christchurch this fateful Friday.
Events such as these reminds us of a very simple truth: We do live in foreign lands. These countries we adopt are beautiful, its people are welcoming and friendly, its lands prosperous and peaceful. But they are not Muslim lands.
And when you are a devout Muslim, you are relying on the rule of law to enjoy that peace; constitutional rights to practise your religion, laws that prevent hate crimes and violence.
These are incredibly effective at creating peaceful societies for the most part, but in my opinion, the best respect for all things sacred comes from something more raw, more emotional than that; something more individual and less institutional, something devoured by secularism, political ideologies and other forces that hollow out human thought and soul. In this abyss, such acts of destruction are born.
I’m struggling to write this reflection; my heart is broken. Putting it back together and it crumbles again and again for the lives lost and more for those of the loved ones left behind.
I am struck, too, about how the recent attack ties the ummah — us — together with the Muslims of hundreds of moons ago when the righteous kept watch as their brothers prayed by turns.
I think, too, how lucky the dead are to have joined their martyred brothers and sisters across time — having their souls taken at Friday prayer in a house of Allah. He didn’t even realize what he was giving them when he took their lives away. And he gave Muslims around the world a reason to unite, to be proud of our faith and to remember Allah with more fervour.