Koran Lessons

The situation was awkward, but not uncomfortable. Even after retracing the events in my head, I was unsure why I had willingly entered a cramped room in the basement of a residential building—miraculously boasting a desk, a television, and a bed. A large Egyptian flag took up the better part of the back wall--revealing that Tariq wasn't Jordanian. Every other inch of the wall bore framed chapters of the Koran, and on the floor lay a few prayer mats pointed south.

Tariq didn't own much, but everything he owned reinforced the one thing he had--Islam. He was the friend of a friend, and had invited me for tea and conversation. He had promised me, however, that his intent was not to talk but rather to discuss. And a discussion, he noted, is best with two people.

"I have a few questions for you, Andrew--seven in fact. I'm going to ask you all of them and then wait for your response. When you're done, I'll give my answers and you can reflect on what I've said and what you've said. Remember though, neither you nor I is perfectly right in our answers. The true answer, usually, is somewhere in between."

He coughed--not from sickness but from awkwardness--and began to read. "Do you care for something greater than yourself?" I assented, and elaborated on my own vague notions of the universe and my role in it. When I was done, I felt the echoes of bad Arabic grammar floating throughout the room, but also recalled memories of middle school summers spent staring at the stars, becoming conscious of the cosmos that would never become conscious of me.

Tariq continued quickly through five more questions, but paused before his last. He smiled innocently, and I could tell that this particular question was the one he was most proud of. "Imagine you're on a boat in the middle of the sea, and a storm erupts. Whom do you call for help?"

Similar scenarios appear frequently throughout the Koran, but I tried to answer the question in my own way. I saw myself clinging onto bits of tempest-tossed wood, paddling back to a distant mainland. But that didn't really answer Tariq's question.

Surely if I were inches from death, it would be an appropriate time to reflect upon life, and to try to finally discern what those decades of blundering about on the earth had actually amounted to. Perhaps that would mean that I would call on some sort of god, but the more I thought about it, it seemed a bit unfair. Who was I--who had given nothing but scholarly fascination to God and gods--to summon a deity in a time of need?

"I don't know," I answered. Tariq seemed vaguely disappointed, but then pulled himself together quickly. "Thank you for being honest," he said, and began to explain how he would call on his God to save him when a deep, but powerful voice interrupted him. "Allahu akbar," it cried. We had been called to prayer.

In the Middle East--like anywhere--people are slow, so there's a considerable gap between the call to prayer and when people actually go to the mosques. Tariq--who claimed never to have missed a prayer--was fully aware of the disconnect and payed minimal attention to the voice of the muezzin. Instead, he turned on his television.

A few verses of the Koran were flashing across the screen, a small dot moving across the words to guide the reader as they were recited by an imam. I leaned closer to discern the highly-stylized script and try to recognize the chapter.

"It's about Solomon," Tariq explained, "Welcoming the Queen of Sheva." We read the story together, about Solomon who would give up his faith for nothing and ultimately succeed in converting the Queen of Sheva. After it was over, I respectfully noted important divergences from the biblical story. I explained that in biblical tradition, Solomon had actually began to worship other gods later in life, and had fallen from favor with God himself. God, accordingly, recanted on his love for Solomon, and continued to guard his kingdom only out of respect for his father, David.

"That can't be right," Tariq continued. "Once a man finds God with certainty then he cannot leave him. And surely once God bestows his favor upon us he returns to us often."

"I'm not disagreeing with you," I said, "I just think it's interesting how the Bible tells a different story."

"That can't be right either," Tariq corrected. "The Bible tells the same story. Maybe some parts differ from the stories I know, but it was composed by people who knew God, and therefore the book is holy too." He then continued, "It's the same story really, about God and his people, and their reaching out for one another. Perhaps the Solomon of the Bible forgot about his God because he was king of Israel and lacked nothing. But if he had been grasping the mast of a sinking ship, he would have remembered him."