The masjid is usually very crowded on Fridays. Even those who are oblivious to the existence of Allah throughout the week come to offer namaz. And they are so well groomed, it seems they have come to wash away all their sins in one sitting and won’t need to think about the matter till next week.
Because of the swelling of the congregation on Fridays, prayer mats are now laid out in the open courtyard of the masjid as well. A shamiana has been put up here using the walls and the neem tree as support. Although this has no effect on the heat, or the prickliness caused by it, the shamiana provides enough shade for people to escape the direct glare of the sun. The month of September is about to end, but there is no sign of rain. Not a single drop. Instead of water, the sky is raining fire. Even animals are nowhere to be seen on the streets and bylanes after ten in the morning. But today is Friday, and the neighbourhood is bustling with people even at high noon. After bathing at home, people wearing spiffy white clothes and caps make their way to the masjid.
Just going from the house to the masjid nearby is enough to drench people in sweat. But even this kind of oppressive heat is unable to deter them from their Friday routine. Armed with the protection of their faith, they make their way, one by one, into the masjid. While some laze around in the shade of the awning, others move towards the taps for their wazu. Those who have finished the wazu step over those already sitting on the prayer mats and plant themselves under the fans. Or they squeeze in between those already seated, without a care for the discomfort this causes.
Qasim has been preparing for the Friday namaz since the morning – trimming his hair, ironing his clothes, bathing – but he is still not ready on time. The clock has struck one, the azan has been recited and he’s only just finished with his bath. As he walks into the verandah wrapped only in his towel, the first thing he notices is the clock on the wall. Hurriedly, he puts his clothes on, applies oil on his hair and combs it, puts a cap on his head, applies surma to his eyes and, to suppress the smell of sweat, dabs perfume under his armpits and on the collar of his kurta.
He has to cross four lanes to get to the masjid from his house. Each lane has about five to six houses. He figures that if he walks under the awnings, taking advantage of the shade, then he’ll get even more delayed. Reaching the masjid late on a Friday means ‘houseful’. He won’t get any place to sit. This is why, ignoring the shade, he makes a run for the masjid from the gate of his house.
It takes him under a minute to reach. But this one minute under the direct onslaught of the sun saps him so much that he starts panting. As if he has just run a mile. Completely drenched, he goes to recover in the shade of the wall near the wazu taps. Then, he takes off his cap, and starts fanning himself.
‘Oh man, it’s so hot! Can’t even tell when it will rain!’, he says while putting the cap back on. Then, he takes out a handkerchief from his kurta pocket, wipes the sweat on his face and neck, and puts it back in.
After drinking some water, he fills a pitcher and sits atop the wall reserved for wazu, to perform his ablutions. Then, like the others, he too steps over those already seated to get to the first row, right in front of the prayer mat of the Imam.
The Imam sermonising from the pulpit is his father. After teaching Qasim Hindi till the eighth class, he sent Qasim off to a madrassa to study molviyat. He is now back for the Eid holidays. After he settles down, the Imam gives him a searching look, without pausing the sermon, as if to ask him, What made you so late, boy? I told you to come early … is this when you come to the masjid? That too on a Friday?
He had wanted Qasim to reach before azan, so Qasim could hear the sermon from the beginning. After all, Qasim will have to take his place when he is gone.
It is more than ten minutes since the Imam saheb began his sermon. Sitting in the front row, Qasim is listening intently. The Imam saheb is talking about the increasingly sinful ways of people and giving advice to the congregation on how they can save themselves. ‘Muslims are themselves responsible for their suffering, for their unhappiness, for being oppressed, tortured and killed in different parts of the world,’ he says. ‘This is because they have stopped doing those things that were commanded by Allah and have instead taken up those proscribed by Him.
‘We have made a joke of the Quran and Sharia, made them mere playthings. We have left the Sunnat and Shariat of the Prophet and taken up the ways of the infidels. We do whatever we feel like without a care for the teachings of the Prophet. We have learnt to steal, lie and gossip. We have become too worldly. We are ignorant about transcendence. We don’t care about the afterlife because we are too attached to things in this life. We are in love with material things. But is this world worthy of love?
‘It is merely a prison. We all have to leave it one day, we all have our date with Allah. The accounting of our entire life will be done that day … But we don’t care about all this anymore. We are too busy with the world around us. Our hearts do not know the fear of Allah anymore. We have left the Sunnat and Shariat of our Prophet. This is the reason that today’s Muslim is surrounded by so many problems at once. This is due to our weakness and, thus, our fault. We are being punished for abandoning Sunnat and Shariat.
‘We should never forget that the Jews and Nazarenes are our open enemies. What all they are doing to deviate us from the path of righteousness! They are the ones responsible for birthing all kinds of filth in society. Short skirts, roaming almost naked on the streets, and marrying according to one’s will! Even homosexuals! My friends, marrying someone of your sex is the biggest sin on this earth. There’s no forgiveness for this.
‘Today, we have left the pious path laid out by our Prophet for the ways of the Jews and Nazarenes. We are okay with their way of life. Homosexuality is a conspiracy of the Jews and Nazarenes to corrupt Muslim youth and make them stray from the path of righteousness. They want to remove Islam from this world. Those who have sexual relations with their own gender are not forgiven on the day of Judgement. The doors of Heaven are forever closed to them. Allah doesn’t just punish them on the day of Judgment, but also in this life.
‘We should remember the fate that befell the people of Lot. There too, this filth was practiced openly. Men had stopped marrying women and were marrying each other. They rejected the Prophet of their time. There was complete anarchy … people did whatever they felt like. This is why Allah visited divine punishment on them, and sent angels to destroy their entire city. My dear friends, there is still time for us to learn from these things and come back to the path of righteousness laid down by our Beloved Prophet.’
The Imam saheb continued in this vein for a while. The gathered devotees listened respectfully to him with rapt attention. ‘Without a doubt!’, they chimed when the Imam talked of heaven and hell, and ‘Amen!’ when he spoke of forgiveness.
Qasim also liked the Imam’s sermon. But when he thought about the last part on homosexuality and the punishments reserved for homosexuals, he remembered that this was all quite common in his madrassa. Students there studied less and were more into this stuff, even if on the down-low. Often, while sleeping, someone untied your pyjamas, or you woke up to someone pinching your ass. At night a boy might lie on top of you. Two guys might go to the loo together for a bath. What’s more, many of the boys had been caught red-handed doing such things.
This happened recently too. Just before Qasim came home for the holidays, a new boy from Bihar had joined the madrassa. His name was Nadeem, he seemed like a nice, healthy kid. He was always well groomed and because of this, he stood out from the other kids in the madrassa. He was also very studious. One night when he was sleeping, another boy laying close by untied his pyjamas. Nadeem was asleep when the boy’s hands fell on his exposed parts; he got up in shock and started shouting furiously, ‘What nonsense is this? Who did this?’ When he did not get an answer after shouting repeatedly, he threatened to complain to the Maulana. But even then, he couldn’t calm down. ‘Is this a fucking madrassa or a whorehouse for homos?’ he whispered to himself.
All the kids laughed a little when they heard him speak this way. But no one owned up to the deed.
Even now as he recalls that night, Qasim starts smiling. But as his smile turns into a laugh, he covers his mouth with his hands and stops.
Imam saheb finished his sermon at 1:25, so that people would get five minutes to read the four sunnah prayers before the Friday namaz. Then he came down from the pulpit and stood on his prayer mat to read the prayers himself.
After reading the sunnah, the azan for namaz sounded and he went back to the pulpit to deliver the khutba. Then standing on the prayer mat, he offered namaz like every other day.
After namaz, he recited the dua. As soon as that was over, there was a stampede. Ignoring the six sunnah and two nafl prayers that came after the Friday prayer, people started pushing and shoving each other – and like bees trying to escape a hive that’s been stoned, the hordes streamed out of the masjid doors as if a film had just ended.
Most of the people leaving in the middle of the namaz, were the same ones who came to the masjid only once a week. After they left, the remaining devotees finished their namaz in peace and went back to their homes.
When Qasim got home, he found his father, the Imam, sitting on the dastarkhan and having lunch. He went quietly and sat under the fan in the verandah. Seeing him arrive his mother called, ‘Come, you also eat, Qasim.’
‘What have you made?’ he asked.
‘Meat.’
‘What meat?’
‘Beef.’
‘What?’ Qasim asked, surprised and disturbed. ‘Don’t you know it’s a crime to slaughter the cow? If anybody finds out, we will be in a world of trouble. Police will show up.’
‘Boy, if you live in fear of these idolators, then one day you’ll be chased out of this country too,’ his father replied. ‘Come, say bismillah and start eating. See what a delicious feast Rahim has made.’
Qasim looked in Rahim’s direction. He was about the same age as Qasim. Besides the kitchen, he helped Qasim’s mother with many other household chores. He was leaning against the kitchen door now. Hearing praise from the Imam, he started blushing and giggling. Qasim got angry seeing his face. Don’t know what Abbu sees in this idiot to sing his praises all the time, he thought to himself.
Seeing Qasim lost in thought, his father repeated, ‘What are you thinking? Come, say bismillah and start eating.’
This time Qasim sat down without a word.
After finishing, he washed his hands and went to the drawing room. Sitting idly for a bit, the fatigue and laziness together made him desire a nap. So, he picked up a pillow and putting it under his head, lay down.
The fan on the ceiling was working but it was spewing fire instead of cool air. It was hotter than the hottest loo. After lying down for a while, Qasim started tossing and turning. When a whiff of air licked his sweaty waist, it felt good. So he continued to lie on his stomach. But soon, even this became uncomfortable; his chest was drenched in sweat in a few minutes. He couldn’t find an ounce of relief. Unable to bear the suffocation in the room, he got up and went outside.
There was no one on the street except a small group of people standing under a tree, and a dog sitting under the awning of the house across, breathing heavily. The lanes of the rest of the neighbourhood and the crossroads in front of the masjid were completely deserted. He looked around and decided to go west to the nearby stream, from where he could hear the sounds of children bathing, shouting and splashing water at each other.
He went and stood under a neem tree on the banks of the stream. Buffaloes and children were enjoying their mid-day bath. The cattle were quietly, calmly settled in one place. Little children were climbing on their backs to dive into the water. They were pushing each other around and laughing. The ones who were a little older climbed the rosewood tree on the other bank to dive into the water from a greater height. A little farther off, a group of children were playing the game laal bahu with a small piece of brick – where a child picks up a piece of brick and asks, ‘Who does this laal bahu belong to?’ and the other kids answer in unison, ‘To me!’ After this the first child throws the brick into the water and all of them dive in after it. The one who fetches the brick out of the water wins the round and now asks the same question for the next round, and so the game continues. Everyone was lost in their own world, enjoying the cool water. Qasim felt good seeing the kids laugh, shout, and play with such abandon.
Standing under the shadow of the tree, he contemplated the scene for a bit. When this began to bore him, he decided to go back home.
The sun was so intense, it felt like it was spitting fire straight from the gates of hell. Walking back home, he felt his vision going dark and saw stars in front of him. He stopped in his tracks, composed himself, and set off again.
As he neared his place, he felt a deep thirst. Licking his lips, he realised that they were completely dry. His parched tongue and chapped lips made him feel as if he had been thirsty for centuries.
The verandah was completely deserted, his mother and sisters were sleeping in the inner room. The door to the kitchen was closed. He moved towards it to get some water. When he tried to open the door, it was locked from the inside. He knocked a few times and waited. After a few moments of silence, he knocked again. But nobody came. He raised his hand again and this time, the door opened before he could reach it. Standing in front of him, his Abbu was adjusting his kurta. He looked Qasim up and down and then stalked into the house. When Qasim went inside the kitchen to drink water, he saw Rahim, face to the wall, adjusting his pants.
Qasim stood there a few moments, watching Rahim’s glistening back and his hands working around his waist. Then he turned around, and shut the kitchen door as softly as he could. And without any water, he walked out again into the blistering heat.
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The original story in Hindi, titled ‘Juma’, was published by Hans Magazine in February 2018.
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Shahadat is the author of Aadhe Safar Ka Humsafar, Hindi Yugm, 2021, a collection of stories which has garnered praise as well as controversy for its frank portrayal of Islamophobia and queer love in India, and its critique of orthodoxy and misogyny within the Indian-Muslim community.
His work has also been published in Hans, Kathadesh, Kathakram, Pehel, Vibhom Svar, Vanmali, Maati Patrika and Naya Gyanoday, among other literary magazines and journals. Shahadat is also a translator between Urdu, Arabic and Hindi. His translations include Pakistani writer Hijab Imtiaz Ali's short-story collection Sanobar Ke Saaye (Urdu to Hindi, forthcoming from Rajkamal Prakashan) and Zahir Dehlvi's memoir on the 1857 revolt, Dastaan-e-1857 (Urdu to Hindi, forthcoming from Samvad Prakashan).
Translations of his short fiction have appeared in Out of Print, among other literary journals.
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Akshat Jain is a writer currently working in New Delhi. His work has been published in the The First Line Literary Magazine, Cecile's Writers Magazine, Indian Ruminations, Indian Review, Aaina Nagar, Ashwamegh and Bengal Lights and Out of Print, among others. This is his first translated publication.