Article #2

Athens’ Islamic Center a haven for the closest of friends
Morgan Augur

Shani Salifu entered the house at 13 Stewart Street last Friday, removed his shoes, deposited them in a cubby by the door, and continued forward into the great room. He was one of the first men to arrive to pray.
Before Salifu, a PhD student from Ghana studying education, sat on the carpet to face the east, he bent forward, hands on knees, in barely audible Arabic prayer. He raised himself back to a standing position, then knelt, still murmuring. Finally, he bent forward and pressed his forehead to the carpet for about ten seconds before returning to the kneeling position, then stood. Prayer completed, he took a Qur’an from the stand containing a variety of language translations and sat cross-legged to study the sacred book of Islam.
He relaxed in this safe place with its light blue diagonal lines on the dark blue carpet that guided the men to face Mecca, Islamic laws mounted on the wall, and soft incense. In this room the Islamic Center hosts weekly prayer services, although it remains open 24 hours for members to pray. Islam is the second-largest religion in the world, but the Center is the only one of its kind in Athens.
In the easternmost corner was a tiny stage just large enough for a pew. A microphone stood on the ground in front of the stage. For the visitors’ comfort, four oriental rugs under cushions and pillows lined the walls of the corner to Salifu’s back.
“As-Salamu Alaykum,” said some men, meaning “Peace be upon you”, in greeting as they passed into the room. Others entered silently, focused to begin their solo prayer. Some rinsed their hands in the drinking fountain just outside of the doors; its spring of water signaled the entrance of another.
After ten minutes, a man approached the microphone at the base of the pew with his back to the crowd to lead the group in an Arabic prayer.
Prayer is sung the way you might imagine a monotone music aficionado would repeat his favorite song to himself throughout the day. It echoed through the speakers mounted in each corner of the room to create a timeless effect. Around the world every Muslim prayed the same prayer, in the same language, at the same time as those in the little house on Stewart Street.
To ensure precise timing, there is a clock on the wall that denotes the standard Islamic time along with the hour and minute that each of the five prayers – Fajr just before sunrise, Zuhr at noon, Asr after noon, Maghraib in the evening, and Isha one hour after Maghraib - are to be performed. As the time the sun rises differs every day, so does the time for Fajr.
Seven minutes later a different man climbed the two steps to the pew. He began with a prayer before he settled into a longer talk in English about education, an appropriate topic for a crowd of nearly all undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students.
“Oh you who believe, believe in Allah,” said the man. “Don’t die except in a state of Islam. Fear your Lord who created you. Give Allah his respect. Speak always the truth.”
He stated there were two kinds of knowledge: secular and Islamic. Secular was the inferior knowledge with no basis in the holy writings but still required. Secular knowledge must be combined with Islamic knowledge or else a student was doomed, the speaker said.
Throughout the teaching, men trickled into the room, performed their solo prayer in silence, then sat and listened obediently to the man at the pew. Some wore designer jeans and polo shirts; others wore tunics and trousers and cuffed them at their feet before they stepped onto the carpet.
The teacher continued to mention three categories of friendship: those of necessity, those for entertainment, and those of a deeper connection. The first two were not true friends, like the acquaintances with computer knowledge or a knack for sports. Only the third is worth confiding in. One must be careful with whom he forges true friendship; only men of virtue, self-control, and justice should be trusted.
“It’s difficult to get to that level, even though I get dangerously close every once in a while,” Hassan Sheikh, a Shiite Muslim and Communication Studies major at OU, said. “You’re going to get to a place where it feels like more of an alliance, the word in Arabic is wali, and it means something just a little bit stronger than alliance. A lot of people describe your wali as someone who has authority over you and you have authority over him. I just don’t know if someone who’s not your same religion would be able to qualify as your wali.”
The speech lasted about 35 minutes and concluded with another prayer. Every man filed in shoulder-to-shoulder, compact rows on the light blue lines of carpet. One man, predetermined by his seniority and depth of knowledge, spoke the prayer aloud for everyone. The crowd murmured “Allah” to punctuate each stanza of the prayer as they bowed in sequence. To conclude the meeting, the speaker wished “As-Salamu Alaykum” to the audience who replied “Wa `Alaykum as-Salaam”, meaning “And upon you be peace”.
Men broke off into conversations that bounced from English to languages as diverse as the crowd itself. The men spoke with a level of familiarity with one another that, if in line with the speaker’s instructions and Sheihk’s description, epitomized the alliance of wali.