Saturday, May 27, 2006 11:14:19 pm
During a visit to an old mosque in Cairo, I stopped on my way out, spellbound by a young maulvi's resonant chanting calling the faithful to prayer. I was mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the human voice made transcendent by faith. I waited till his chant ended.
My guide, an Egyptian Christian, asked if I'd like to be introduced to the young man. I said I would. She introduced us, and the maulvi, in halting English, asked if I were Muslim. The guide, knowing that I was not, looked discomfited, thinking I might be offended by the assumption.
I replied, regretfully, that I wasn't in fact Muslim. Then the maulvi said something remarkable. Holding two fingers very slightly apart, he suggested "Little bit Muslim, yes?" I replied, "Yes, absolutely," and meant it.
Born into Hinduism, I now call myself a practicing atheist. But that does not preclude me from being "Little bit Muslim, yes?". Or little bit Christian, or Buddhist, or Sikh, or Hindu. On occasion I have been, and will be, all these.
If I wasn't, I couldn't be moved by a maulvi's call to prayer, or the soaring spire of a cathedral, or a sputa painted with the turquoise eyes of the Buddha, or the Gurbani being sung in the Har Mandir, or the recitation of the Gayatri Mantra
