Tolerating the religious

A few doors away from us, a Muslim family has built a small mosque in their front garden, which is often packed. Safiyya (8) decided to go along at 4am one day with her dad, but I think that was more for the excitement of wandering the streets in the early hours in her dressing gown than any strong religious fervour. Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), she arrived back safely, very pleased with herself and the experience, and but we have mutually agreed she is not going to repeat it for a long time!

All three children have reluctantly ended up occasionally at a local Muslim housegroup for women, many of whom wear niqab (face-covering) when out. In England, the children were all a little intimidated by women in niqab, as it was a fairly rare sight. But here it seems ‘normal’ alongside all the other ‘normal’ forms of appearance (including the hairdresser’s rather prominent noserings and semi-dyed spiky hair) and the children soon made themselves very much at home in their various gardens. And more importantly stayed well away from the electric fences surrounding them all (apparently Johannesburg has more miles of electric fencing than any other city in the world).

We had not been there long when a community party was held for orphaned children with HIV/Aids. As Amaani (3) sat happily on the climbing frame with them eating her lunch, she completely forgot to say the quick prayer (Bismillah, ‘in the name of God’); before tucking in – and I completely forgot to remind her. But the little children around her instinctively launched into a happy song thanking God for everything that they had, and there was no adult official helper in sight. Personally, I was impressed; I could even make out the tune!

And then one day Safiyya came home from her new school saying she thought there might be another Muslim in her class. I asked her what special detective work she had done to draw that conclusion. It turns out that the children take turns to say prayers before break, and this particular day, one boy had opened his hands out to pray, said ‘Bismillah’ , thanked Allah for the school and asked Allah to help the poor people. I congratulated Safiyya on her insight. A few days later Safiyya burst into Christian song at the dinner table, singing one of the school hymns which involved proudly declaring at regular intervals ‘I am in the Lord’s army’! I do strongly suspect she didn’t know exactly what she had signed up to. And I tried to imagine what the typical British non-muslim might feel if a Muslim (or non-Muslim!) child sang they were in Allah’s army…

The South African teachers have all been surprisingly keen for their pupils to learn about other children’s cultures, including the Muslim events of Ramadan and Eid. The nursery children competed in thinking of good deeds they could do in Ramadan (‘I won’t scream’, ‘I won’t punch Jordan in the head’ etc) and were particularly effusive at the end when it was time to hug their class mates and wish them all a happy Eid. I had had mixed experiences of Ramadan at nurseries in England: some welcoming another perspective that would help them to understand the culture of some of their children, while one decided that parental permission would be required from every parent before their 4 year olds could be exposed to such a potentially dangerous subject.

Asim (4) was initially highly suspicious of one of his teachers, who frequently wished him ‘assalamu alaikum’ (peace be upon you) as he arrived in the mornings. It transpires her mother-in-law has recently decided to become Muslim, at the tender age of 60, so the teacher has ended up learning a few basics about the faith. Asim eventually realised she was only trying to be nice, and now happily wishes her lots of peace in return.

Asim is enjoying learning about a number of the Prophets, peace be upon them all, and has surprised me with various astute questions. For example, what happened to the whales when Prophet Noah put all of the animals into the ark? And did the people who discovered baby Moses think that they had chanced upon a floating picnic basket? And if Prophet Jesus could walk on water, could his sheep float too? Meanwhile, Safiyya is practising at full volume her latest school song, ‘I am looking forward to an African Christmas, peace and love to all in our land’. Well Christmas may not actually be a major event in our lives, but a bit of peace and love would go a long way, and not just in Africa.

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