Before retiring to sleep, Sibte made sure that the clock sitting on the wooden shelf on the wall next to his bed was wound and the alarm knob pulled. He blew the flame off the lantern, the Arabic numerals on the face of the clock glowed green in the dark. He closed his eyes and silently prayed. In Your Name, O Lord, I lay me to sleep. And by Your command I shall arise. If my soul bequeath my body during my sleep, Dear Lord! Be merciful and forgive all my denigrations.

Every morning Sibte woke seven minutes before the alarm would sound. Praise Be to Allah, Who gave us life after death and unto Him we will return. He’d sit up and push the alarm off.

Sibte Rasool Sheikh, with a euphonious, mellifluous golden voice, had become the chanter, the Muezzin of the golden Mosque, at age seventeen. Before dawn each day he would leave his dwelling to call for Morning Prayer.

The Golden Mosque lay at the bend of the River Hub on the east bank. 

Being physically clean was a prerequisite of a valid service of worship; Sibte was committed to cleanliness, he believed in what the Prophet Mohammed had said, ‘Cleanliness is half the faith.’ He was particular about these rituals. There was a method to everything, a purpose to it all. Man shall not be adrift from fellow man or lose sight of the purposefulness of life. He believed in what the Koran instructed man to be: God’s “vice regent” on the earth—to take charge of his world.

Ablutions had to be renewed for every service if the previous washing had become invalid through sleep, or natural emission of gas, or the flow of any substance from orifices through urination, defecation, vomit. A bath became necessary after husband and wife had engaged in intercourse, or if the man had a wet dream. For a woman, it became necessary after her monthly feminine indisposition and after childbirth. A bath was strongly recommended before weekly Friday afternoon service. A good Muslim took a bath at least once a week. In preparation for the call to prayer, Sibte performed wozu, the ritual ablution.

He declared his intention to purify. 

“Bismillah, In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, purify my heart, guard my actions from hypocrisy and my sex from shameful acts and fornication. Praise be to God who has made water pure and purifying.” Washing his hands up to his wrists, he would state. “Dear God, employ me in good deeds, not in evil ones, and ease my reckoning.” He rinsed his mouth and his nostrils, washed his face and said, “Oh God, brighten my face on the doomsday and do not darken it.” He ran his fingers through his hair, to his neck, saying, “Teach me useful knowledge.” Running his fingers over the outlines of his ear, he proclaimed, “Let me listen to Thy words, Dear God, and the words of Thy Messenger.” Washing his feet, he uttered, “Dear God, make my feet firm on the path over hell, and don’t let them stumble.” 

He was in sync with nature, the movement of darkness and light, while the shades of luminosity on the eastern horizon were still grey, and before one could distinguish silver thread from golden thread. His mind free of
worry or envy, Sibte climbed the white minaret of the Golden Mosque to summon Muslim men and women to Fajr, the first prayer of the day. With his eyes closed, his vision clear, his passion awakened, he ululated azan and
cried out with all his heart and soul.

“Al-laahu Akbar!” God is great.
“Al-laahu Akbar!” God is great.

The rhythm, the cadence and repetition of every verse soothed him. The moment of the efficacious message was one of a rare ecstasy, a joy difficult for him to describe in words.

The fajr call concluded with, “As-Salaat-o-khair um-men-un-naum.” Prayer is better than sleep. Sheik’s favorite. Who was sheik? He was.

His love and devotion were calling believers to pray; this was Sibte the Crier’s unsung joy. His life was his run from home to mosque.

“Al-laahu Akbar.”

Sibte had grown up in an orphanage, where Mullah Waliuddin taught recitation of the Koran. Mullah Waliuddin was a mentor to his favorite students and brutal tyrant to those he despised. He liked Sibte. As a result of his unquestionable obedience to the scripture, Sibte became a hafiz before his twelfth birthday. He committed the entire Koran to memory, exactly and correctly, thirty siparas, containing 114 suras, a text of 200,000 Arabic words. Through the Angel Gabriel, God had revealed the Koran to the Prophet Mohammed over the course of twenty-three years. The recitation of the Koran from memory brought a sense of being a Muslim. Sibte was humbled to join that community.

Beneath that shy, socially awkward exterior was a young man who cared about others deeply and believed that life was a continuous struggle. He loved the poetry of Mirza Ghalib. In his lonely hours, he would recite one of his favorite verses often and again, “The prison of life and bondage of grief are one and the same. Before the onset of death, how can one be free of grief.’’ Sibte lived with his losses and accepted the happenings of his life as God’s will. Difficulties and traumatic experiences in his early life made God real to him. Hope and desperation made God necessary. Without his faith in God he would never have survived. When doubts snuck up on him he would pray hard for them to go away. Subduing his inquisitiveness, he believed in absolute submission and resignation to the will of Allah and His boundless compassion and mercy. By the light of day and by the fall of night your Lord has not forsaken you. Sibte was convinced that one could never grow too old to belong to someone. People need people. A man needs a woman and a family.

He believed in the greatness of God Almighty and in the power of prayer. He believed in God’s will and the need to curb perfidy, greed, and hatefulness. He was devoted in his worship. His aspiration to be a muezzin was unpretentious. He was committed to his calling with passion and dedication. He believed in the power of prayer and all the prayers came naturally to him. Being alone for all these years and never being attached to anyone, he wanted to bond with another being. He prayed for a loving and caring wife.

“Al-laahu Akbar.”

Glory to God, Who created in pairs all the things that earth produces: Mullah Waliuddin arranged for Sibte to wed Muneeza, an orphan like himself. Although Muneeza had never seen Sibte, she was familiar with his voice. She was delighted to be asked to marry the muezzin of the Golden Mosque. To her, his call to prayer was melodic, enchanting, and magical.

“Al-laahu Akbar.”

On the wedding night, an oil lamp with a cotton wick burned dimly in Sibte’s one room shack. Muneeza sat cross- egged on the nuptial cot, her head bent low, her shawl covering her face. Dressed in her bridal red shalwar and kamiz, the bashful bride, with her hennaed hand moist, waited for her groom. Muneeza was seventeen and Sibte was twenty-seven. She was gorgeous with large brown eyes, full red lips, and ivory skin. Sibte didn’t see himself as handsome, but he was fine looking, of medium height with grey eyes, a wide forehead, and a prominent nose. He was dark-skinned and his short dark beard added sheen to his face. He was solemn, civil, and polite.

Sibte walked into the room, removed his green turban, and placed it on the bedpost. He sat down beside her in the lotus position and said, “You are the answer to my prayers of many years. There is a woman for every man and a man for every woman. You are my wife. I would also like you to be my best friend from whom I do not wish to have secrets, and whose soul and body I want to love more than my own. From now on when we are alone, you should not cover your head or face from me, except when you wish me not to touch you.”

Muneeza held her breath for a moment, looked up, and smiled at Sibte. She let her shawl roll off her shoulder. She relaxed. Encouraged, Sibte reached out and held her hand gently and continued with the introductions known as “Sheikh-saying”: “Sheikh is very excited to be with you. Sheikh would like to find his home, enter, and emigrate. Dear sweetheart please be accessible, bequeath, and bestow. Engage.”

Muneeza was amazed and taken with his efforts to tempt her. She thought it clever of him to entice her this way. She found him soft spoken and persuasive. She lay down on the nuptial bed, willing and able, ready to yield. He blew off the oil lamp and lay down beside her.

Which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?

With time, she learned that he spoke slowly and took his time while eating his meals, savoring each bite and enjoyed lovemaking with unhurried appreciation.

Muneeza knew when ablutions needed to be renewed and when a bath became mandatory. So, after a night of sexual interaction, the dutiful wife would wake up before dawn, gather wood in the chula, ignite a fire and heat up a large pot of water so Sheikh, as she addressed her husband, could take a warm bath before his walk to the mosque to call for the Morning Prayer. After two months of marriage, on the nights Sibte desired assignation, being a considerate and caring husband, he would set up the wood in the chula and put a pot of water on. Thus, at dawn, after a night of congress, all Muneeza had to do was light a fire.

“Al-lahu Akbar. “

The early years of their marriage were full of excitement. Muneeza enjoyed taking care of all of her husband’s needs. She very much wanted to bear him a son—two sons and a daughter. They made love most nights except when she was indisposed in her feminine way. During those days Muneeza kept her head covered with her shawl, letting Sibte know that he need not set up the wood for the fire to heat the water for the mandatory post coital bath.

Sibte’s daily routine was to leave for Golden Mosque before dawn. He walked down dark, dirt alleys tightly packed with mud shacks that snaked up a steep slope towards the river. The main road was paved, but not tarred, lined by teak trees and the houses of the village’s rich. It ran along the banks of River Hub. In the middle of the village, off the main road, stone steps had once led bathers down to water, but now the water had receded and low mud-walled huts had appeared all along the bank.

After morning prayers, Sibte spent three or more hours every day doing chores in and around Golden Mosque.
Muneeza got up before the dawn of the day, heated the water for Sibte’s bath and made breakfast. After Sibte left for the Golden Mosque, Muneeza took her bath, worshipped, ate and then tidied up and cleaned their dwelling.

Carrying a tattered canvas bag she would often go out and buy fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. She loved shopping for their meals. She was good at negotiating the best deals. “Not a single counterfeit penny more,” was always her last offer.

Just as faithfully as Sibte went to deliver the call for prayers seven days a week, the matherani, the untouchable, trustworthy and loyal Tulsi came to collect the day’s offering from the outhouse. Tulsi was a mother of five, with
an eighteen-year-old married daughter and four sons. “After my fifth one, my Chaman told me, ‘we need to stop.’ And we did.” Tulsi sounded sad to Muneeza. 

With time Tulsi became like a mother to Muneeza, who had never known her own. She looked forward to Tulsi’s daily visits. Tulsi went from house to house in the neighborhood, collecting the deposits people dumped in their latrines, a hereditary occupation passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter. Muneeza felt uncomfortable about what Tulsi and her family did for a living, but also about how they were treated. The people they served treated them as derelicts, pariahs, as if they could be polluted by their proximity. Even Muneeza, for the longest time, sat at a safe distance when the two of them would talk and that was how Tulsi preferred things as well.

By ten o’clock Sibte would return home. While Muneeza prepared a meal, he rested for an hour; by noon he walked back to the mosque carrying a tiffin full of Muneeza’s cooking, food that sustained and stimulated the mind and soul.

At night, following Isha, oil lamps lit the main road. The scent of spices, smoke, and cooking oil filled the air. Sibte walked home carrying boiled milk in a pail and a quarter pound yogurt wrapped in a banana leaf. In the distance a Datia bound train clanged the tracks, whistling its arrival on time. Immersed in marital bliss, giddy Sibte hurried home, reciting his new favorite Mirza Ghalib verse, “The starry Pleiades in the sky lay veiled and hidden during the day, Why, What came over them at night, stripped, exposed they lay.”

“I hope you have taken your dinner,” he said to his wife every night upon arriving home, knowing the answer. His obedient and dutiful wife, who lovingly called him Si, would have rather starved than precede her husband in
eating dinner.

During their meal together he told her of the contributions the mosque had received and the repairs and maintenance it needed. Muneeza would tell him the prices of fruits and vegetables and the cut of meat she’d bought. She would not talk much about Tulsi. She was not sure if he approved, but she always told him if she had given Tulsi a few extra pesos or an article of her old clothing. For dessert Sibte added three heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar to some yogurt and mixed them well. Before eating his fair share, scooping it with pieces of fresh chapatti, hand made with careful attention by his wife, he would lovingly feed scoop after scoop of yogurt to Muneeza. He then ate the rest, savoring each bite.

Muneeza was totally devoted to her husband. She cooked, cleaned, knitted and sewed. If his life was a bicycle, she was the other wheel. The essence of her living lay in the thrills and pangs of being a good wife and a good housekeeper. Every fifteenth of the month her devoted husband came home carrying an envelope containing his meager monthly salary and placed it in her hand with enthusiasm. She was his banker. She was able to give him money every time he asked.

“Al-lahu Akbar, Al-lahu Akbar.”

Seven years passed, when at the conclusion of one congress, Muneeza opened her eyes and noticed, above his upper lip, a gray hair in Si’s beard. Si rolled over, a satisfied smile on his face, saying, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”

All of a sudden, Muneeza spoke of something that had been on her mind for a while. “I have not been able give birth to a child for you,” she said in a low voice. “Maybe you should consider a second wife who could bear you a son.”

Sibte lay beside her, content and happy with the way things were, accepting the situation and the course of events. He said sincerely, “Oh, child of God, don’t say that. I am at peace. Si is happy.”

His attitude worried Muneeza. She wanted to be a mother and she wanted Si to be a father. She was a loyal, obedient, and submissive wife, but with the passage of time and no fruit to bear, she lost interest in lovemaking. She no longer got excited or aroused; yet she let Si enjoy himself and from time to time showed a consuming interest. But slowly, her head scarf appeared more frequently to keep him at bay. After three more years, Muneeza withdrew altogether. She stopped relating to Si for the union of male and female gametes.
All conjugal contact was suspended. She never removed the scarf from her head when Si was home. She did all her chores and went to sleep with her head covered. She did this not to cause pain, nor to chastise nor to punish Sibte. She knew that congress on a regular basis pleased Si and she hoped that his need for it would lead him to take another wife. Islam permited polygamy under certain circumstances; with the consent of his first wife, a husband could take a second wife, as long as she consented to being a co-wife. 

Sibte was aware that Muneeza was troubled by not being able to become a mother. Maybe it was his fault, he thought. He didn’t know how to convince Muneeza not to worry about it, and to trust Allah and His wisdom to guide her to the chosen path. He loved Muneeza and cared for her even more. He was not going to take another wife just to have a child. When he’d been young young, living in the orphanage, life had seemed at its bleakest and most desolate. Once he’d come to believe in the wisdom of Allah his journey had grown smooth, even easy. He believed that his life did not belong to him but to Allah. The mercy of God was with him and all his prayers were answered, all his wishes granted. I don’t have to be a father if it is not God’s will. I have to accept this. As much as Sibte desired congress with his wife, night after night, new moon after new moon, he let her alone. He respected Muneeza’s will, her space, her privacy. Abstinence was her decision and she was entitled to it. He learned to live without her special affection. 

Sibte, at age fourteen, had asked his teacher, Mullah Waliuddin, “Is it a sin to get aroused upon thinking of your future wife?” Mullah Waliuddin didn’t contemplate for long, although this was his habit before answering most questions. “It’s not a sin to get aroused, that is natural, but it is a sin to act on it in an inappropriate way.” Sibte faithfully went to sleep on his cot while Muneeza slept on her own cot next to his. He struggled but accepted her way, her wishes. Prophet Mohammed had said, “Most perfect in faith amongst the believers is he, who is best in his manner and kindest to his wife.” Sibte trusted in what the Prophet said. Upon arriving home at night, he continued to ask his wife if she had taken her dinner. His obedient and dutiful wife continued to starve rather then precede her husband in eating dinner. They continued to talk of their day’s events. And after dinner Sibte continued to add three heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar to yogurt and lovingly feed scoop after scoop to Muneeza.

“Al-lahu Akbar, Al-lahu Akbar.” 

Sibte realized, over time, that his wife would not engage in certain activities because she thought she had failed to make him a father. He wanted to tell her it would be his pleasure to keep trying. He would try harder to make a mother of her, the harder the better. During these years of abstinence, restrained from indulging in something he so continuously desired, he often recalled what someone had said: “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” In private he begin to recite his favorite Mirza Ghalib verse, “The prison of life and bondage of grief are one and the same. Before the onset of death, how can man expect to be free of grief?”

Amazed, embarrassed, and surprised, Sibte awoke one morning after a wet dream. A bath became necessary. He quickly heated a pot of water and took a bath before going to call for morning worship. This magical happening had a place in dreams, thought Sibte, but true magic was to make everyday conjuring real. This accidental pleasure inspired him to try recapturing it while he was awake. So on Friday afternoons, prior to his ritual bath in the tin-roofed bathroom, feeling giddy, guilty and fearful, he took the matter in his own hand, using the mustard oil. And after his bath, he rubbed the remaining oil all over his body as well as on his face and head and combed his hair back.

“Al-lahu Akbar, Al-lahu Akbar.”

Seventeen years passed. Sibte’s beard turned to salt-and-pepper. Modern living arrived in his village, the main road got tarred, and electric poles replaced the oil lampposts, with bare bulbs dangling on a wire. Radios played loudly in the village stores and in the homes of the rich. Electric chandeliers, fans, and a water pump were installed in the Golden Mosque. Haji Fatah Ali, local philanthropist, donated a loudspeaker system to the mosque, so the Muezzin’s call to worship could be heard all over the village. All the changes of sight and sound made Sibte sad. He thought that culture died when a village changed, that humans were losing touch with nature. Sibte sensed the loudspeakers distorted his voice and made it sound too husky. Muneeza, on the other hand, was pleased by the effect. Listening to Sibte’s resounding ululation for prayer from the minaret of the Mosque opened something inside her all over. She liked how far Si’s deep, rich voice carried.

“Al-lahu Akbar, Al-lahu Akbar.”

When Tulsi arrived in the morning, Muneeza was in a state of perplexity. She still wanted to know if she would ever be a mother, but felt apprehensive about consulting a soothsayer.

“Bebe, you look bewildered, so totally occupied.” Tulsi remarked. Muneeza, after a brief hesitation, told her what Tulsi already knew, how troubled Muneeza was that she hadn’t become a mother and how badly she wanted to make Sibte a father.

“Lord Krishna said, ‘It is better to perform one’s own dharma badly than to do another’s dharma well,’ but I have learned that the Prophet Mohammed recommended that when one is dealing with something that is disconcertingly complex, one should pray to Allah the Almighty for guidance by offering Istekarah. I suggest that you submit and tender this prayer.”

Muneeza was surprised to hear Tulsi talk with such knowledge and inspiration. Muneeza thought of when they’d first met and how sad Tulsi had been when her husband told her they would have no more children. Muneeza
knew of Istekarah, the special prayer that seeks both guidance and knowledge. The believer offered Istekarah before going to sleep at night. Then, the first thought, muse or dream that came to the seeker’s mind the next morning was supposed to be of divine inspiration.

“Al-lahu Akbar, Al-lahu Akbar.” 

That evening, Muneeza offered Istekarah. Kneeling on her prayer rug, her hands folded open, with humility and devotion, she asked, “Dear Lord, for Thou does what Thou likens, and commands what Thou wills. I seek Your guidance by virtue of Your Knowledge, Authority and Supremacy, Knower of hidden things. You know, I know not. Please guide me to be a loving, giving wife, grant me a son. Please God, make me a mother and ordain for me the good, wherever it might be, and make me pleased with it.” She went to bed with an open mind and a seeking heart, knowing and trusting that God would reveal His wisdom. 

Praise be to Allah, Who gives us life after death and unto Whom we shall return.

When Muneeza awakened, her dream came to her instantaneously. In her dream she was walking on the banks of the River Hub, holding the hand of an infant. She could not recall if the child was a boy or girl or whose child it was. “Hare Krishna. Lord Krishna take away my sorrows, my shortcomings, my failures and pains. Grace be to Allah through Whose blessing good things are accomplished,” she said to herself. Everything is as it should be, it is all good. Muneeza felt blessed. She sat up on her bed, her head covered with her shawl. She glanced at the clock with its green face and greener hands and numerals. The clock glowed and ticked. It was early, three-thirty in the morning. They had been abstinent for seven years. In an otherworldly state she watched Sibte sitting on a low kitchen cot, lighting up the wood-burning clay stove. A pan full of water sat on top of the stove, waiting to be heated.

The kindling crackled and burned bright. Red, yellow and blue flames lit up the entire room with a warm glow. Muneeza innocently asked Si, “And what are you boiling that water for?”

“It depends, dear Muneeza,” he repeated with a smile. “It depends. If needed, I’ll take a bath before I go out to call for the morning prayers, or else I’ll make a cup of tea to drink before I leave.”

Muneeza rolled her shawl off her head. “Come here, Si, dear,” she said with that certain smile, lying down in her bed. “Please come! I would like to give you a reason to bathe.”

“Al-lahu Akbar, Al-lahu Akbar.”

“Fasabbih-Bismi-Rabbikal-Azeem.”

Celebrate with Praise of thy Lord, the Supreme.