I Tried to Celebrate Ramadan With a Bunch of Muslims I Don’t Know

Photos by Andy Chappell

I’ve been feeling pretty down lately—I think living away from my family and friends in Toronto for about four years is finally starting to get to me. Maybe I’m just sad that after about six beers I don’t understand Australian accents, or maybe it goes a bit deeper than that. I wanted to feel part of something that felt like home and the Muslim Eid Festival seemed like the easiest way to do it.

I’m Muslim in the way a lot of people are Jew-ish in that I’m not really, but I still think Islam in Australia is funny—Muslims are only about two percent of the population, and we only hear about ourselves when we riot or someone white says something dumb about us. It feels like two percent is too small to be depicted well, but just enough to be scary, and it leaves you feeling like Muslims have no role here.

Islam does have long roots in Australia: Saleh Sadadeen, a Muslim cameleer, and his gang of Muslims helped open up the interior of Australia and establish Alice Springs. The man has a school named after him and as the lady at the Islamic Museum of Australia booth told me, helps prove that West/East divides are not as stark as modern political rhetoric makes them.

The festival was held at Melbourne’s Royal Fairgrounds. When I popped in, booths were just setting up with friendly cultural accouterments: ethnic gear, Muslim-friendly dolls, Islamic Tourism to Brunei, even the Liberals had set up a booth. Outside the hall were roller coasters, bumper cars and shooting games. I bought a taqiyah  because I thought I should have one. When I went home, I realized my head was too fat for it.

The most Muslim “moment” was when the magic show, hosted by Mr. Smith, a super harmless looking guy with a purple suit and puppet, was about to begin. Some dude came up on stage and started lecturing the audience about the evils of magic and how the Quran says it’s forbidden. No one moved. When you’ve got three noisy ass kids at your feet, you’ll participate in anything that gobbles up their attention, even if it means plunging to hell for eternity.

Eating halal food and enjoying the fact that the janitors and workers were white instead of the usual brown only gets you so far. I felt like I was letting someone down. I’m not really Muslim, and so what the fuck was I doing here? I felt like I wanted a connection, but maybe I just missed my parents. I wanted to feel part of something familiar, but despite being involved in my early years, Islam is now pretty unfamiliar to me. What’s religion anyway? Part of it is being rewarded for your faith by support and community, and what was more communal than praying together? I decided I’d give it a try.

Praying five times a day is a large part of Islam. I had seen the “prayer room” signs upon entering the fairgrounds—if I could just find out when the next prayer was held, it’d be easy. It’s a pretty basic thing to know when the prayers occur and when I asked the lady at the information booth and she didn’t bother to hide how ridiculous she thought my ignorance was. It’s rare that I get super embarrassed—but this rookie level cultural slip got to me.

Praying is all done in Arabic and despite their being over a billion Muslims, only about 500 million people in the world speak the language. I’m guessing that more than a few people don’t know what the fuck is going on so I’d be okay. And anyway, I can rattle off 5-6 prayers in Arabic even if I only have a general idea what I’m babbling. But this is how deep the culture is—these Arabic phrases are one of the first chunks of language I learned. Is that enough to connect me? The prayer room had to be where I found out. If I was going to feel something, it would be there.

Already embarrassed, I didn’t want to actually ask anyone how to do it. I went over to a kids booth and flipped through books until I found, “How to Pray Salat: Quran Stories for Little Hearts”  which details all the steps. The only thing I remembered was to face Mecca and I needed all the help I could get. I read it three times.

The prayer room was adjacent to the main hall and away from the noise. I did the prescribed washing up in the bathroom (when was the last time I cleaned behind my ears?) and took off my shoes. The room was big enough to fit 500 people and I expected it to be full 5 minutes before Asr, the afternoon prayer. There were about 8 dudes here. Where was the Imam bellowing in Arabic? How was I going to know what to do? I found a prayer mat behind the group. Everyone was murmuring to themselves. I watched them and copied the movements, hoping a decade-and-a-half-old memory would work its way loose. I couldn’t figure out what to say: I repeated the prayers I knew, tried not to swear in my head, and felt a tinge of shame.

What was particularly Muslim about me? Besides the fact that I feel like one sometimes? I’d always felt isolated, whether culturally, personally, or whatever: not knowing how to pray and drinking beers is forbidden to one group, being born in Saudi Arabia and speaking Urdu alienates another.

I went home that night and didn’t really say anything about it to my girlfriend. We went to a party and I watched her smoke cigarettes. We passed a bottle of wine back and forth, and I knew I didn’t need to say anything, or do anything and even though I forget to wash behind my ears sometimes, I still had something to come home to.

Follow Adnan on Twitter: @whotookadnan

For more Muslim culture:

Being the Muslim at a Christmas Party 

Would You Care if Obama Were Muslim?

That Muslim Punk Thing, Ten Years Later