Memorable Fajir

Counting the number of times I’ve prayed in the masjid on one hand maybe two, my first Fajr prayer in the masjid during this Ramadan, with my young daughter on one side and my mother-in-law on the other, could not have been sweeter. As I stood in prayer and bowed in prostration at 5 in the morning, my belly full of food and my body swaying from the exhaustion of being awake for 18 hours, I’ve never felt more spiritual and in-tune with both fellow believers and the entire human race. And I felt that profound connection despite the fatigue and despite the fact that my mother-in-law, my daughter, and I stood directly behind the partition separating the men praying in front of us and hating the distorted message that it sends to my daughter of her father’s inherited religion and her mother’s chosen one. The connection was knowing that Muslims all over my city had eaten their fill to prepare for the upcoming day’s fasting and were now in solemn prayer. The connection that we are unique people created by God with differing cultures, beliefs, and views from small things to big things, and yet we pray at roughly the same time in roughly the same way and most certainly to the same God that we Muslims call Allah. And after the prayer, I helped my mother-in-law put her shoes back on, tied my daughter’s laces, and took her hand as we met my husband and two sons. We walked quietly to the car reflecting on the prayer and observing the beautiful sky full of clouds that looked like mountains as the sun was magnificently rising in the east. We entered the house and went to bed, sleep coming sweetly.