gasped that she was going to have to renew her wudu at the next rest stop, as she had laughed so hard she may have broken her ablutions and impaired the purity of her underwear. That set off a new wave of laughter in the back seat.
They purified for God in foul-smelling rest-area bathrooms. They prayed by the side of an Amish country road in the dirt and ironweed, in the shade of a shagbark hickory tree. They made symbolic ablution by striking their hands against a rock in the Painted Desert. They prostrated in a windy corner of the observation deck of the Sears Tower in Chicago ("Built by a Muslim engineer, you know!" Wajdy told them). Once, lost trying to get to Mishawaka, they even prayed next to a giant roadside egg. Twelve foot high, made of concrete. The lettering beneath it declared, "Greetings from Mentone, Indiana-the egg basket of the Midwest."
"Don't worry about people looking at us," Khadra's father said. "Focus on the patch of earth in front of you." He pointed to the place where the forehead would touch the ground. They had pitstopped at a Dairy Queen outside Kokomo, on the way back from visiting the Mishawaka community.
The Shamys had been scandalized by the Mishawaka Muslims. They had one of the oldest mosques in America up there, founded by Arab Muslims who had come to America as far back as the 1870s. But slowly, over generations, they had mixed American things in with real Islam, Wajdy explained, so that now they needed a refresher course in real Islam from the Dawah Center. None of the women up there wore hijab and none of the men had beards-they didn't even look like Muslims. And they did shocking things in the mosque, like play volleyball with men and women together, in shorts. And they had dances for the Muslim boys and girls-dances! "Mishawaka Muslims" became a byword for "lost Muslims" in The Islamic Forerunner.
At the Kokomo Dairy Queen, Ebtehaj got out of the big clunky station wagon in her tan double-knit polyester jilbab and a beige headcover. With a fussing Jihad in tow, she headed for the restroom, people's stares following her. Her washing-up cup was in her handbag. She was always looking for handy personal hygiene cups, and this one had a collapsible design that folded into the shape of a compact.
Their father spread the Navajo blanket as a prayer rug for Khadra and unrolled a narrow woven mat for Eyad.
"But you don't have a rug," Eyad said.
"I don't need a rug, son." Wajdy said. They were on a patch of weedy dirt at the rear of the DQ.
"What if the ground is impure?" Khadra said, remembering Islamic school lessons: purity of place required for salah.
"The earth itself is considered pure, binti," he said. "All the world is a prayer mat." Even central Indiana Dairy Queen backlots were okay with God. So Khadra and Eyad knelt on the knobby ground behind their father. A blue beetle started picking its way up and down a pile of broken bricks near Khadra's head during the first rakat and made it over by the end of prayer. Palm, palm, knee, knee, foot, foot, forehead. Rising, her father brushed off bits of gravel that had embedded in his forehead.
A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!"
-Fanny, in Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
From when Khadra first became aware of Ramadan, she begged to be allowed to fast. Because you got to wake up in the dark dewy predawn, part of a secret club. The rest of the human world was asleep. No faint whoosh of cars from the main road, and the parking lots of the Timbers were absolutely still. Even the crickets, even the birds, were asleep. The milkman hadn't come yet to take the empties left in the tin box on the porch and replace them with full bottles of milk. Khadra's mother and father padded around in the little kitchen, bleary-eyed, setting out suhoor food on the chipped Formica table. Sometimes little Jihad woke up from hearing the unaccustomed noise at this hour-they'd look up and find him standing there in his PJs,
They purified for God in foul-smelling rest-area bathrooms. They prayed by the side of an Amish country road in the dirt and ironweed, in the shade of a shagbark hickory tree. They made symbolic ablution by striking their hands against a rock in the Painted Desert. They prostrated in a windy corner of the observation deck of the Sears Tower in Chicago ("Built by a Muslim engineer, you know!" Wajdy told them). Once, lost trying to get to Mishawaka, they even prayed next to a giant roadside egg. Twelve foot high, made of concrete. The lettering beneath it declared, "Greetings from Mentone, Indiana-the egg basket of the Midwest."
"Don't worry about people looking at us," Khadra's father said. "Focus on the patch of earth in front of you." He pointed to the place where the forehead would touch the ground. They had pitstopped at a Dairy Queen outside Kokomo, on the way back from visiting the Mishawaka community.
The Shamys had been scandalized by the Mishawaka Muslims. They had one of the oldest mosques in America up there, founded by Arab Muslims who had come to America as far back as the 1870s. But slowly, over generations, they had mixed American things in with real Islam, Wajdy explained, so that now they needed a refresher course in real Islam from the Dawah Center. None of the women up there wore hijab and none of the men had beards-they didn't even look like Muslims. And they did shocking things in the mosque, like play volleyball with men and women together, in shorts. And they had dances for the Muslim boys and girls-dances! "Mishawaka Muslims" became a byword for "lost Muslims" in The Islamic Forerunner.
At the Kokomo Dairy Queen, Ebtehaj got out of the big clunky station wagon in her tan double-knit polyester jilbab and a beige headcover. With a fussing Jihad in tow, she headed for the restroom, people's stares following her. Her washing-up cup was in her handbag. She was always looking for handy personal hygiene cups, and this one had a collapsible design that folded into the shape of a compact.
Their father spread the Navajo blanket as a prayer rug for Khadra and unrolled a narrow woven mat for Eyad.
"But you don't have a rug," Eyad said.
"I don't need a rug, son." Wajdy said. They were on a patch of weedy dirt at the rear of the DQ.
"What if the ground is impure?" Khadra said, remembering Islamic school lessons: purity of place required for salah.
"The earth itself is considered pure, binti," he said. "All the world is a prayer mat." Even central Indiana Dairy Queen backlots were okay with God. So Khadra and Eyad knelt on the knobby ground behind their father. A blue beetle started picking its way up and down a pile of broken bricks near Khadra's head during the first rakat and made it over by the end of prayer. Palm, palm, knee, knee, foot, foot, forehead. Rising, her father brushed off bits of gravel that had embedded in his forehead.
A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!"
-Fanny, in Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
From when Khadra first became aware of Ramadan, she begged to be allowed to fast. Because you got to wake up in the dark dewy predawn, part of a secret club. The rest of the human world was asleep. No faint whoosh of cars from the main road, and the parking lots of the Timbers were absolutely still. Even the crickets, even the birds, were asleep. The milkman hadn't come yet to take the empties left in the tin box on the porch and replace them with full bottles of milk. Khadra's mother and father padded around in the little kitchen, bleary-eyed, setting out suhoor food on the chipped Formica table. Sometimes little Jihad woke up from hearing the unaccustomed noise at this hour-they'd look up and find him standing there in his PJs,
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