Ramadan Prayers in Morocco

Muslims do not believe that acknowledgement of their prophet will get them into paradise.  Unlike some Christians for whom belief in Jesus and baptism is enough to get them into heaven, or Catholics who can seek expiation for their sins from their priests, Muslims believe that every one of us will be judged individually and that each person has to ask forgiveness directly from our Creator. 

Ramadan is a  special time each year when through fasting and prayer, we can seek atonement, forgiveness, blessings and mercy. There are extended, optional prayers every night at the mosque.  Thousands of people gather for at each mosque all over Morocco for 90 minutes or so for these prayers.

With the call to Isha, the last obligatory prayer of the day after the sun has set, there is a Quranic recitation abt 10 or 15 minutes long as people gather in and outside the mosque. Once the recitation ends, the imam leds isha, the night prayer that has 4 rakats.  Each rakat is a complete cycle of standing, bowing and prostrating.  Standing again is the beginning of the next rakat.

Then the imam leads 8 rakats of taraweh, the special prayers that can only  be  made during the nights of  Ramadan each year.  Finally, some imams leads  2  rakats of  the  witr prayer. Many people pray a single witr rakat on their own before leaving the mosque. Other imams pray a 3rd rakat and include in it the qunut--the part formulaic and part spontaneous pleading while standing end of the witr prayer--lasts about 5 or 10 minutes.

It's hard to guage the time while in prayer, but the experience is truly powerful. Regardless of our level of understanding the Arabic, it is almost impossible to not feel the meaning during the qunut: to hear a grown man's voice break in his plea for Allah's forgiveness and His Mercy, to hear people around you crying softly; to see that you are among the thousands people at just that one mosque who have come voluntarily out of fear for their souls; to know that you are surrounded by people who are crying for mercy and forgiveness.
  
During the last 10 days of Ramadan  there are additional late night prayers in the Moroccan mosques. These are another 10 rakats of taraweh prayer that end with a long pleading for forgiveness, mercy, and blessings for ourselves; for our families; and for the less fortunate.  These prayers last another 90 minutes or so, and finish just in time for people to go home and eat before the start of another day of fasting.

The fast of Ramadan can be taxing, and those who are physically unable are allowed to either make the days up later or in other ways.  But the taraweh prayers are open to anyone who can make it out of the house.  People come walking and in wheelchairs.  Those who are not able to stand for long periods or have difficulty prostrating bring stools, camp chairs, folding chairs and lawn chairs.  Some just stay seated on their prayer rugs.

Some people are able to go to the mosque every night. Some only as their schedule permits. Some make their prayers in their homes.Some do not make them at all.  Those who do make the extra prayers during Ramadan find immense spiritual benefits that only come once a year.

Life on the Edge

In Morocco extended families are the norm.  Most people contribute time, money, childcare, senior care, what ever is needed for the family unit to run as smoothly as possible.  Life moves somewhat more seamlessly from one decade to the next. I'm not romanticising it; I'm just suggesting that in extended family life, the transition between decades may not be so angst-ridden as it is for many Americans.

In just a little while my friend will slip into her next decade, the 60's, and she has very mixed feelings about it.  The way she looks at it, the teens, 20's and 30's are cool.  The 40's are depressing, marking the beginning of that Big Downhill Slide.  The 50's are cool though, as she achieved the ineffable cache of being "a woman of a certain age".

But now, facing the big 6-0, life feels different.  If this part of  her life were a film, then in it she has been standing for some time on the edge of a cliff.  Now without any segue, she's hanging by her fingernails.

According to Islamic tradition, many Muslims die at the age of 63, with Allah sparing them the infirmities of old age.  According to the shorter, lunar Islamic calendar she's already passed 60 and is nearer to that chronological milestone  (on this point we both hope that Allah goes by the calendar of the country of birth).  She doesn't feel ready to face her end.  As she put it, " I feel like I have to give Allah a 30-minute Powerpoint presentation of my life, and I'm still working on slide #4".

I tried to console her:  just as 13 and 14 are beginner-teen years, the  60's are simply beginner-old age.  She didn't appreciate my observation, though. Go figure.

The support of the extended family in Morocco eases the passage of life from one decade to the next.  I pray that my being here means that when it's time for me to let go of that cliff edge, I will have a soft landing.























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Where is Paradise?

I'm sure scholars, philosophers, and perhaps architects have written about the link between our view of the horizon and our awareness of the spiritual world around us.  I have seen a vast ocean, and I have looked upward at the limitless night sky. Always my idiosyncratic perception of the heavens was that Allah's paradise was "up there" or "out there" somewhere.  City skyscrapers always made paradise seem, to me at least, even further away, as if the height of the buildings themselves demaracated the material and spiritual worlds.

The single-story compound I visited in the Moroccan countryside had an unexpected effect on my own perception of paradise.  I  stayed in a family compound.  On all four sides of me, there were 10-foot high walls.  Beyond those walls, I could see nothing of the level farmlands,  other nearby structures of similiar height, nor the mountains in the distance.  As far as I could see, the material world stopped at the top of those walls. 

In this circumscribed world, it seemed to my spiritual self as if the breadth and height of paradise began at the top of those compound walls.  Paradise was sitting just above my head.  I could almost touch it, or I could be crushed by the weight of it.

I had not thought, when I went to  visit a family in rural Morocco, that the trip would have such a profound effect on my own  spirituality.  But even the passage of time there was affecting as night came, and the midnight blue of the sky was highlighted by stars.  Then fajr came, and the sky was cobalt blue, backlit from the rays of a sun still too far away to bring the colors of the dawn.  Shades of paradise just above my head.

Eid al Adha

Eid al-Adha, the eid following the hajj, is a major holiday in Morocco.  Schools and businesses are closed.  Everyone cleans house and redecorates according to their budgets.  People save money all year if they have to, in order to sacrifice a sheep or even a cow.

I find that unlike in America, where the eid is often simply squeezed into a couple of hours to go to the mosque during a work day, the importance of the holiday here has given me time to reflect on the way that it is significant to me personally.

Our sacrifice of an animal reflect the test of Abraham, whom Allah allowed to sacrifice an animal instead of his son Ismail.  So the first thing I found myself thinking about was death.  Three sheep were sacrificed for various families on the roof of the house.  I watched as they were killed, skinned and gutted.  Each sheep was killed out of sight of the others so as not to alarm them.  All unsuspecting of their own imminent deaths, they were like each of us human beings, who cannot foresee our own ends.

I thought about Allah, Who has the only power there is over our existence. There is no other power but His as we have to live each minute and to die without recourse.

I thought about work, for turning the animal from a living being into food is a time-consuming, difficult and messy business. People here spend a brief time in the morning in their new holiday duds and then change into work clothes as they work through all the steps that will end in having meat on the table.

After all the work is done, folks can relax for couple of days and go visit friends and family.  They enjoy cakes, share laughter and give money to children.  That is how Eid al-Adha is done in Morocco.