Cambridge Taxi, or Masjid Hassan II
Islam, My Taxi Rides May 7th, 2007
Sue, Rene and I decide to split a cab back to Jamaica Plain. I am relieved to have found my friends. Steer Roast, the event at MIT at which we have spent the evening, is supposed to be a joyful time for alumnae and students to celebrate the Spring; for me, it has proved to be an exercise in courage. I have not seen some of the other alumnae since we graduated; only those who still live in Boston know about my conversion to Islam. Wearing a hijab to Steer Roast has served to “out” me to many people all at once. I am tired.
It is always the case that when I find myself in this position, the support and solidarity that my true friends show me far outweighs the painfulness of my other former friends’ reactions. The kindness with which Qwidjibo, Becca, Geeta and Dean treated me tonight is a balm for my heart; I know far better than to care too much about others’ drunken outbursts in light of their love. Still, my nerves are more or less shot. By the time that I find Sue and Rene on the fifth floor balcony of Senior House, I am ready to go.
We climb up on the roof to look out over the Charles River at Boston. This view is as beautiful as I remember it being: I doubt that I will ever live someplace with such a breathtaking view again. Views like this cost serious money of the sort which an institution like MIT is more likely to have than I, Miss Travel Aficionado, am.
It took years and years for me to learn to be at home in Boston. Living in Cambridge at MIT for my first four years here imprinted me with an “us and them” attitude to the city. Cambridge remains as familiar as the back of my hand; Jamaica Plain, my new neighborhood, still holds secrets. In my excursions to the Masjid Al Quran, I have just begun to scratch the surfaces of Roxbury and Dorchester. I am happy to feel a longing in my heart for my apartment; Jackson Square has apparently replaced Cambridge as my locus. Sue and Rene live nearby. For all of us, crossing the river has come to mean returning home. Thank goodness. Subhan Allah.
We wind our way down five flights of stairs to the first floor. The courtyard is mostly deserted. A man in a hooded sweatshirt sits petulantly by the fire; a side of beef is roasting on a giant spit before him. His title is “Baster”; very slowly, throughout the night, he will turn the meat. A handful of young men are packing up the stage, bundling lighting equipment into black cases.
We walk past the Medical Center, and I remember spending the recovery period after a spinal tap gone badly there. My back aches reflexively. The fire alarm went off one night when I was there, and a nurse wheeled me with a sheet over my head through the hallways. The pain and disorientation burned a pattern into my consciousness which even now I can see. I hurry across Main Street to the hotel. Entering its doors, I take stock of our appearances. Rene looks stunning in a suit and tie, as does Sue in her outfit from the ballet. I, by contrast, look like a Bond villain. I have on a bright white overcoat, and orange-and-pearl striped hijab, and dark blue pants with white pinstripes. A beautiful girl in a scarlet prom dress fixes her hair in the mirror near the lobby. We cross without incident.
Passing through the largest revolving door that I have ever seen (all three of us can walk quite comfortably in one of its compartments), we find ourselves at the taxi stand. A white cab waits by the curb. I am the first one into it. The driver looks at me hesitantly. “Assalaamu alaikum,” I say. “Wa alaikum as salaam,” he replies. “Kayfa halak?” I ask. He nods. “Alhammdulilah,” he answers. “alhammdulilah.”
Rene takes the front seat, while Sue joins me in the back. We set off in the direction of the river. She and I talk quietly about Steer Roast, about the friends we saw there. Rene, less shy than I, asks the driver where he is from. “Morocco,” the driver replies. I, listening in from the back seat, am glad to hear this. Some of my most interesting taxi conversations in Boston have been with Moroccan cab drivers. I have been to Morocco, and I enjoy reminiscing about it. What a country.
I am about to ask the driver where in Morocco he is from, when Rene speaks up. “Our friend Aram just went there,” he says. “They speak French a lot in Morocco, right?” The driver agrees. “It is the second language,” he says. “Except in the North, where they speak Spanish instead.” Rene launches into a complicated question comparing Jewish-Muslim relations during the time of the Moorish conquest of Spain with Arab attitudes regarding Israel today. He asks the driver, “What is the root of the problem over Israel?”
My stomach turns over. Oof. That’s a complicated question, and one for which I would not want to take on responsibility for representing any viewpoint other than my own. Will the driver answer the question? If he does, will he identify himself as a Muslim? A Moroccan? An African? An Arab? I listen with half of my hearing, and return to talking to Susan.
We discuss her upcoming wedding. I am terribly excited for her; the details of her color selection are intriguing to me. I try not to covet what Susan has. The sort of affair which they are planning easily outstrips the budget which I could spend on a wedding by an order of magnitude. If I ever get married, I expect it will be at the beach or at a lake, and that we’ll have a cookout and boating. The native Americans buried food on hot rocks beneath the earth and slow cooked it that way; I suspect that roasted onions, squash and apples are approximately what I could afford to offer my guests. God bless Sue and Rene.
From the front seat, I hear the driver say, “It has to do with how the state of Israel was founded.” We nearly miss the turn off to the Riverway, and the conversation is momentarily distracted by a rush of directions. When we are back on the right path, I pipe up. “You are from Morocco? Subhan Allah, there is the most beautiful mosque there, in Casablanca.” I am referring to the Masjid Hassan II. It has the tallest minaret in the world, and is the biggest mosque outside of Mecca. I toured it in June and was moved by its sparkling beauty. One third of the mosque is built out over the sea, and its ceiling may be rolled away to let in the brilliant sky. The mosque is a conduit of marble between two blue universes.
“Yes, I know it,” the driver says. His voice does not sound altogether pleased. “It should have never been built. They took the money from the Moroccan people to build it. My wife, she used to be a teacher of mathematics. She made $270 a month. They took $100/month to build the mosque.” He pauses. He says to Rene, “Excuse me, but I will answer the lady first.” Rene agrees. “Of course.”
The driver continues. “There used to be a very poor part of the city there. They moved thousands of people to build the mosque. They transplanted them twenty miles north of the city.” I remember the neighborhood near the mosque well; there the old medina twists along behind a ramshackle wall. It is like a honeycomb left in the sun, collecting dust. “That is the most hated mosque in Morocco,” he says.
“At the mosque, they told us that the Moroccan people voluntarily donated money to build it,” I venture. Now that I say it, it sounds unlikely. The driver snorts. “No, they took money to build it. Then the king dared to name it after himself!” he is plainly angry. “Let me tell you something. When it is time to pray in Casablanca, that mosque is empty. Maybe a few dozen people pray there. But go to any other mosque in the city! The old mosques, even if they are falling over, are full of people. There isn’t enough room for everyone who wants to pray in those mosques. People pray out in the street.”
I realize that in all the time I spent at the Masjid Hassan II in Casablanca, I never saw more than fifty people there. It had not occurred to me at the time that this was unusual: many Moroccans seemed to ignore the adhan. Then I think about one of the mosque’s oddities: the unopened hammam beneath it.
A Moroccan hammam is a communal bath, similar to a steam bath or a Turkish bath. There are two beneath the mosque: one for men, and one for women. They are heated to perfection and filled with water; they are miracles of tiled extravagance. They are like bath houses for ghosts, because though they are completely functional, they are also completely empty. No business has been founded to operate the baths, our guide told us. That seemed terribly odd to me at the time. The operation of such beautiful baths beneath such a beautiful mosque would surely be a joyful enterprise, would it not? If the Kingdom is already paying for water and heat for the hammam, then how much more could it possibly cost to administrate the hammam?
I ask the driver about this. “The hammam at that mosque is not open, is it?” I try to remember the ablution facilities there, but cannot. “How do people perform Wudu?” The driver shakes his head. “They have glass in the floor of the mosque, so that you can see down into the ablution chamber,” he says. “You can look down into the women’s area from the masjid.”
This cannot possibly be right. “What?” I ask. “You can see the women performing wudu?” The driver agrees vehemently. “Yes! It is awful! But the mosque was designed by the French! They wanted it to be exotic.” He spits out the word as if it were a lemon seed. I am left with nothing to say. We are almost at my house. I tell the driver where I need to get out. He finishes his commentary on the masjid as we pull up at the fire hydrant near my door. “The poor people from Morocco, they go to that mosque. And they see all the gold, and the ceiling is rolled away, and it is distracting to them. How can they pray when they see such a place? How can they pray when they see what their money has paid for?”
How indeed, I think. His words remind me the way I felt touring Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I went to the basilica because I wanted to see the roots of my (at the time Catholic) faith. In retrospect, I am unsure of how I expected these to be transmitted; what I did observe was disappointing. Saint Peter’s did not inspire me with its connection to divinity. Instead, it was like a mausoleum for dead popes. Visiting it did lasting damage to my view of the Catholic church. Could the masjid in Casablanca which I so loved visiting have a similar effect on its visitors? I hope not.
I take a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet, and try to give it to Susan for my portion of the ride. She refuses, and I know better than to make an issue of the fare. I thank her and Rene, and then I thank the taxi driver. “Masalama,” I tell him. He and Rene resume their discussion of Israel as I shut the car door behind me. Inside my apartment, my bed is waiting.
January 13th, 2008 at 3:51 am
IN THE NAME OF ALLAAH THE MOST KIND THE MOST
MERCIFUL.
Assalaam alaikun wa rahmatullahi wa
barakaatuhu.
The abesan muslim community central Mosque of
Ishola Estate is still in need of $45000 to erect
deserving edifice for the community, our focus right
now to complete the Mosque, make it a befitting and
attracting place of worship with all necessary
facilities to serve the community and entire muslim
ummah better. AL Qur’an chapter 2 verse 251
enunciate. the likeness of those who strive in
Allah’s ( S.W.T ) cause thus; ‘The likeness of those
who spent their wealth in the way of Allah is as the
likeness of a grain of corn; it grows seven ears,
and each has a hundrend grains. Allah gives manifold
increase to whom He please And Allah is
All-sufficient, All knower’
Believe in Allah and His messenger (Muhammad) and
that you strive hard and fight in the cause of Allah
with your wealth and your lives. that will be better
for you. if you but know; ( if you do so) He will
forgive your sins, and admit you into gardents under
which rivers flow, and pleasant dwelling in Garden’s
of Eternity (Adn paradise) that is indeed the great
success ( Q 61 verse 11 & 12) May Alla
THE ABESAN MUSLIM COMMUNITY CENTRAL MOSQUE.h ( S. W. T.)
continue to gard and guide you all aright
Wassalaam alaikun wa rahmatullaah
January 13th, 2008 at 3:54 am
No amount is too small
IN THE NAME OF ALLAAH THE MOST KIND THE MOST
MERCIFUL.
Assalaam alaikun wa rahmatullahi wa
barakaatuhu.
The abesan muslim community central Mosque of
Ishola Estate is still in need of $45000 to erect
deserving edifice for the community, our focus right
now to complete the Mosque, make it a befitting and
attracting place of worship with all necessary
facilities to serve the community and entire muslim
ummah better. AL Qur’an chapter 2 verse 251
enunciate. the likeness of those who strive in
Allah’s ( S.W.T ) cause thus; ‘The likeness of those
who spent their wealth in the way of Allah is as the
likeness of a grain of corn; it grows seven ears,
and each has a hundrend grains. Allah gives manifold
increase to whom He please And Allah is
All-sufficient, All knower’
Believe in Allah and His messenger (Muhammad) and
that you strive hard and fight in the cause of Allah
with your wealth and your lives. that will be better
for you. if you but know; ( if you do so) He will
forgive your sins, and admit you into gardents under
which rivers flow, and pleasant dwelling in Garden’s
of Eternity (Adn paradise) that is indeed the great
success ( Q 61 verse 11 & 12) May Alla
THE ABESAN MUSLIM COMMUNITY CENTRAL MOSQUE.h ( S. W. T.)
continue to gard and guide you all aright
Wassalaam alaikun wa rahmatullaah
February 28th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Interesting article, I too have spent some time in Morocco and have visited Masjid Hassan 2nd several times….. I miss Morocco very much.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:09 am
As salaamu alaikum,
My son is planning a trip to Morocco in approximately two months (insha llah)..to meet his potential wife. He is not a wealthy man and wants to know if it is permissible to find lodging in the Masjid Hassan II in Casablana. He was also informed that it takes 2-3 weeks to go through a marriage process in Morocco and that bribes have to be paid. Please advise…thank you for your help.
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