A very good friend, of my young ages from the time of the Lycée Français, had an operation last week. When I visited her, I could not avoid the tears for the deep feelings of love and compassion for her in her suffering. I had come from the Jamat Khana; it was Friday and I really felt like praying. Among those remembered, Teresinha’s health was part of the humble request to God’s infinite mercy and generosity. I normally take the tasbih (the rosary for remembering the most beautiful names of God). She is Catholic, however, after all the years of shared experiences – some happier than others. I asked her to hold on to my tasbih. She tightened it in her cold hand. While I was leaving the room, I asked God one more time, that her suffering was lessened. Yes, because life is pain, and pain is part of living; the only thing we can ask for from Allah is that it is lessened, minimized.
She rang the next day. I had meetings and was late. She anxiously wanted me to see how well she looked and most importantly that the “thing” I had put in her hand made her feel at peace and more at ease with the experience. I gave it to her and said that she could use it to remember God’s most beautiful names. After all, Muslims have only 99 and, according to scholars, there are 999 names, spread across the Holy Scriptures; the last one is only known to God Himself. Thence, she had plenty to choose from. However, she wanted to learn what I say and how I say. Once more, we shared the unity of love and friendship which are above differences of religion, but close to our humanness, as women, as mothers, as spouses, as individuals who have similar kinds of fears, joys, and anxieties.
Last night, my 6-year-old son expressed his before-sleep-concern: his best schoolmate wished he was Catholic, rather than Muslim; that way they could be more similar, closer in friendship. Because, he said: “Jesus is God; not Allah.” He did not know what to do; they love each other so dearly. I could only remember a couple of Quranic verses: “Had God wished, He would have made us one community; instead, he wanted us to exceed ourselves and among each other, according to our interpretations of the faith, in good deeds towards our societies and the world” (the word is taqwa, which by the way, comes some 200 times in the Holy Qur’an). Then, God also says in the Qur’an: “I have made You out of ONE SOUL ONLY, and from there, a multitude of peoples and societies, so that, in your differences, you could know each other.” A little later, my son was already profoundly asleep in the couch, next to us. I do not know what his dreams were; inshallah, they had something to do with the beauty of our common humanity, and especially because we are different.
