Sanctified

Watercolor painting of Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem) painted in the Art of Ihsaan Community.

(Written in 2018)

The streets convulse and pulsate before my eyes. Narrow serpentine forms that twist and turn waiting to choke me in their grip. The uneven, slick paved stones treacherously waiting to trip me as I move towards the entrance. Inhaling the dusty darkness, foreboding suffocates my heart. The ominous forms of the soldiers appear. Every gun is pointed towards me- from the roof, from the gate and then one of the figures laughs joyfully sensing my fear. Relishing it. I never reach the mosque in this nightmare. The darkness swallows me and I wake up with his voice still ringing in my ears.

This was the aftermath of my week-long trip to Palestine which included Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jericho. Due to the eruption of violence, we were not able to complete some portions of the trip. Muslims hold three mosques as sacred: the Holy Kaaba in Mecca, the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina and Masjid Al-Aqsa in Al Quds or as it is commonly known, Jerusalem. The first two mosques are located in Saudi Arabia within a few hours distance and are routinely visited by the faithful who can afford the journey. Having successfully completed the Umrah – visit to the Kaaba- and the visit to the Prophet’s Mosque most of the people from our group would be returning home. The few that were going ahead to visit Jerusalem were being briefed and prepped for the unique rigors of the journey ahead. The group leader did not mince his words,

“We cannot guarantee your safety if you do not follow our instructions. In fact, we cannot guarantee that you will be returning back home with us. Under no circumstances are you allowed to interfere with or participate with anything you see in the streets. Whether you see the soldiers harassing an old Khalti or a young child it is irrelevant. Under no circumstance do you intercede to assist anyone. We usually have someone closely attached to our more emotional and volatile youth to redirect them immediately if they happen to witness something distressing.

 Do not step outside the hotel room without your American passport and tourist ID clearly visible hanging from the lanyard around your neck. And most importantly, especially in Hebron, do not give any money or candy/ sweets to the children begging in the street. If you give it to one child, dozens will appear out of nowhere and cling to you and climb on you. Not only will it be traumatizing for you, it will also be extremely painful for the one who has to physically remove their scrawny bodies from yours. Do not drive off to another city or town to visit relatives or friends or be reckless and decide to do some sightseeing on your own. Violence can flare up at any time and checkpoints close and you will be stranded, and we might be forced to leave you behind.”

He temporarily softened his tone and smiled, taking pity on the slightly perturbed group of pilgrims that sat before him, the starry-eyed look fading rapidly from their eyes. Most of us were Americans with a few people joining our tour from Dubai- all of us accustomed to lives of ease, peace and security.

“Masjid Al Aqsa will take your breath away. It will feel like a surreal dream and your phone will fill up with pictures of the Dome of the Rock. Every time you walk by you will take another picture which will be exactly identical to the previous 50 pictures you took yesterday, but you will not be able to help yourself. The unevenly paved paths of the old city will cradle your feet. Maybe your feet will touch where one of the other Messengers walked or where Marium strolled as she walked to her room? Those exciting thoughts will go through your mind but the violence and fear will never be far away. In essence, it will be an unforgettable emotional roller coaster ride so please be prepared for it.”

As he wrapped up and we dispersed you could catch snippets of conversations that reflected the uneasiness in the room:

“I didn’t even want to go. It was all my husband’s idea. Is it even worth the stress?”

“It’s been my dream to pray in Aqsa. They are painting an extremely scary picture so that we are more careful. If it wasn’t safe how would the tour even get permission to visit?”

“Do you guys have no faith? You just completed the Umrah and visited the Prophet’s grave and you are being so spineless! This is why the Muslims are in such a pathetic shape and the whole world pities us.”

“No need for a sermon. Its natural to be worried. Inshallah all of us will be fine and it will be an absolutely amazing trip.”

“Inshallah, inshallah.”

***

Tel Aviv airport was just like any other American or western airport; clean, polished, glistening with duty-free shops and signs directing the travelers. Very few hijabis were visible. A tangible discomfort settled on our group as we all separated and approached different security desks for immigration. Standard questions were asked in a heavily accented, but brusque manner:

“Why are you visiting? How long will you be staying? Do you have relatives here?”

Some were allowed to pass through but most of us were redirected and reunited in a small waiting room. As instructed by our group leaders, we remained docile and politely retreated to the room, mentally prepared to hang in there for several hours. After approximately four or five hours, the group leaders and guides were questioned and then all of us were released. Two of the scholars accompanying the group however, spent eight hours in an interrogation room before they were allowed to rejoin the group.

***

“When you see it, you will know why they took it from us,” Rabia, my Palestinian colleague had said to me before I left.

The images of violence from the Middle East, specifically from this region, are plastered so concretely in our brains that it is impossible to imagine anything beautiful about it. The landscape of Palestine is breathtakingly exquisite. On the first bus ride all of us initially sat in stunned silence as we drove through the terraced mountains carpeted with ancient olive trees and fruit trees. The fruit juice vendors are everywhere: in the old city, at various tourist stops and in the marketplace. Luscious, plump pomegranates are squeezed before your eyes for sweet, blood-red juice that is simply a treat for the senses.  The illusion of calm is marred by the presence of the illegal settlements that encroach upon the landscape; neat rows of elegant homes similar to what one would find in the suburbs of America or Europe with majestic views of rolling hills and blue skies. However, those that live there need towering walls topped with barbed wires and checkpoints manned with soldiers to maintain the facade of normalcy.

***

Map of Old City

I have been blessed to visit the sacred cities of Mecca and Madina several times in the past twenty years. The polished marble floors, the glistening skyscraper hotels and the McDonalds and KFC across the street make it very difficult to imagine what it must have looked like at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Almost all historical feature surrounding the sites of the two holy mosques have been erased by the Saudi Government to prevent people from attempting any sacrilegious acts of worship. The doors of the Old City of Jerusalem open like a portal into a different dimension of time. The uneven paved stones that have been smoothed by the footsteps of millions of worshippers through the centuries, lead to the various mosques, churches and walls. We all have a tenuous understanding of the concept of the ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ but to walk the Old City is to see a physical and tangible manifestation of it. Narratives of beliefs intersect with aspirations of salvation just like the streets crisscrossing within its ancient walls. The uninitiated might consider it simply a rock but for the devout Muslim it is the launchpad to the ascension to God where the Prophet was permitted to be part of a divine conversation; or another rock a short distance away where according to Christian tradition the body of Jesus was laid. The Jewish worshippers congregate next to the wall that is believed by them to belong to the ancient temple of Prophet Solomon. The land, the architectural monuments, the very air is made sacred by the intensity of the emotions that surround the city.

All of us recognized the giddying sense of anticipation we felt as we crossed the main gates of the Old City and began to walk towards the doors of Masjid Al Aqsa. It was the same sensation of reverence, gratitude and disbelief we felt when we walk towards the Kaaba. The call for the evening prayers bounced off the walls but the sound of loud laughter and guffaws did not subside. All along the path to the mosque groups of young me were just chilling in coffee shops and restaurants enjoying themselves. We exchange confused glances. Why aren’t these people coming to the prayer? How can you be this close to Aqsa and not go for the prayer! We were abruptly confronted with the answer. Heavily armed Israeli soldiers, some barely out of their teens, manned the gates of the mosque. They stopped a few people randomly and asked them to recite Sura Fatiha, a short prayer that almost every Muslim has memorized because it is recited in every prayer. I consider myself a very calm and patient person, not easily agitated or triggered but I felt my face flush with heat as the words formulated in my brain, “How dare you ask me to recite the Fatiha? How dare you block the way to my mosque?” Death glares from the group leaders quelled all fantasies of standing up to these soldiers and some of us demurely recited the prayer and were allowed to pass. The injustice and shame highlighted by this incident can only be accessed if the characters are reimagined. Imagine bearded Muslim men standing outside a Catholic Church asking worshippers to recite the Lord’s prayer before they would be allowed to enter.

The holy mosques in Saudi Arabia are filled to the brim with worshippers – this is pre-covid- so it is shocking to step into the Aqsa compound and find small groups of people scattered around casually walking towards the mosque. Apart from the informal harassment by the soldiers there are also formal restrictions imposed upon entry into the mosque. The restrictions are eased on Fridays and during the month of Ramadan allowing the mosque compound to fill up with worshippers. Aqsa (check last two pages of link) is not just the Dome of the Rock with the golden dome. It refers to the entire compound that includes several other mosques and an enormous underground prayer area. At almost full capacity it can accommodate 400,000 worshippers.

Removing our shoes, we step through the giant green wooden doors to an ornately decorated interior resplendent with arabesque patterns and Arabic calligraphy. The subtle lighting accentuates all of the gold highlights in the decorations creating an ethereal haze within the building. The architecture is both unique and familiar; golden mosaics on the walls remind me of the Hagia Sophia in the Turkey, but the dark wooden roof with its intricate painted motifs is unlike anything I have encountered in any mosque. The walls seem to whisper the praises of the Lord. The carpets are crimson like the pomegranate juice that is sold by the roadside vendors, imbued with the supplications of the millions that have prayed there and with the blood of many who have been injured within this holy sanctuary. The segregation of the genders is not strictly enforced and all of us move freely around the mosque and participate in the congregational prayer, listen to the lectures and sit in silence relishing the great honor of being the chosen few that were allowed to visit Islam’s third holiest mosque.

Aqsa was the first qibla (direction of prayer) of the Muslims. Within the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him) the qibla was changed to the Kaaba in Mecca. While we physically turned our faces towards a different building, the hearts remained attached to Aqsa. Most of the Prophets descended from Prophet Isaac lived on this land and preached in this area. It is not difficult to imagine an Prophet Zachariya in traditional flowing ropes sitting by the steps and sharing the word of God with the faithful. The tour guide took us to the room that is mentioned in the Quran as the ‘mihrab’(room) of Marium (mother of Jesus) but just like the relics in the Museum in Turkey, sometimes the overzealous tend to dilute myth with reality. While the historical context is valid-she did live and pray in Aqsa- but it is difficult to pinpoint an actual physical location.

***

The most disturbing segment of our short trip was to the Ibrahim Mosque in the city of Khalil or Hebron. The bus ride through the terraced landscape took us through a checkpoint that passed through an Israeli settlement. The soldiers boarded the bus, asked for our passports, laughing and talking to each other in Hebrew. As they checked my husband’s passport the gun was casually pointed in my direction. We all breathed an audible sigh of relief when they exited. My Palestinian friends in Texas would laugh at us when we complained about the “random” checking at airports. They regularly had to unbutton their pants at the checkpoints and go through these humiliating searches on a daily basis.

The visit to Hebron was the most excruciatingly painful part of the trip. The city looked like its inhabitants had evacuated because of a natural disaster or were barricaded inside due to a curfew. Except this curfew was never be lifted, and the disaster will never pass.  Hate-filled graffiti screamed from the walls and the windows are gripped in metal screens to protect against rocks thrown by settlers. The eerie silence was broken by the beggars sitting by the street: matted hair, disheveled dusty clothes, black beaded eyes with madness in them. Emaciated children peddling wares, imploring you to help with their words and their vacant eyes. If it were not for the warning given to us earlier, we would have emptied our pocket and given them the clothes off our backs. Palpable sadness gripped us as we made our way to the mosque. The children followed us in small packs circling in and out tugging at our heartstrings.

            United Nations Security Council resolution 904 was adopted without a vote on 18 March 1994. After expressing its shock at the massacre committed against Palestinian worshippers in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Mosque of Ibrahim) in Hebron in the West Bank, the Council called for measures to be taken to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilians throughout the occupied territory.

The mosque is considered to be the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah and is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. It is divided into two sections and you must pass through multiple gates and security screenings to get inside. The increased “security” was put in place following the massacre of 29 worshippers during the morning prayer in 1994 by an American Jewish settler and the death of an Israeli child by a Palestinian sniper in 2001. The street kids are fearless. While we line up in neat rows, they zip in and out with the soldiers screaming and yelling at them running after them with their guns. In the ensuing clampdown 520 businesses were closed which led to the creation of the haunted town we walked through. We listened to the details of the massacre from the tour guide, prayed and left. As we walked out, we noticed a group of young girls, apparently also tourists, giggling by the side of a building. A Palestinian man was crouching near the ground, surrounded by young soldiers that were shouting expletives at him and shoving him. It seemed to be some inhuman, bizarre form of entertainment; stripping the man of his dignity brought joy and made the soldiers seem more attractive in the eyes of the teenage girls. We turned away filled with horror and a measure of self-loathing; scarred forever by having witnessed the agony of another human being, unable to offer help and forced to just heartlessly walk away. The descriptions of hell in the Quran are succinct and seemed to fit Hebron precisely,

“Death will overwhelm them from every side, yet they will not be able to die.” (14:17)

Except people do die here and here the punishment is not eternal.

***

The days were few but the memories numerous and unforgettable: the bustling markets of the old city, the delicious falafel, the crunchy, gooey kunafeh drenched in sweet, fragrant syrup, the incredible hospitality of the people of Palestine, and the soldiers posted on the rooftops as we exited from the Friday prayer. The nightmares lasted for a few weeks upon my return and then faded away as the routines of life took over.

“Since Covid is sort of over they are taking a group to Aqsa in the summer. You want to go again?”

As I mentioned earlier, it was his idea. Do I really want to deal with the stress? But to pray in Aqsa again - the sweet fruits, the luscious greenery, Palestine…ah the lure of the Holy Land.