The Golden Minute

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I was walking home yesterday and it was a time of the evening when many Muslims in New York City pray to Mecca. We have a mosque in the East Village, the Madina Masjid, located on First Avenue and 11th Street. The mosque was founded in 1976 by Bengali immigrants, some of whom ran restaurants on "Indian Row" on 6th Street. On a marquee-like sign you can see that Allah is the true God but that Judaism and Christianity are also part of the true faiths. Listed along with Abraham and a few other prophets, including Muhammad, is Jesus. All this is in large green and red letters. On top of the mosque is a minaret—turquoise with gold leaf. As I walked up First Avenue toward 12th Street I could see some Muslim men making their way toward the mosque, chatting, greeting each other. I turned the corner and walked down 12th Street toward home and was surprised by the sight of a large skateboard ramp that had been erected in a public yard adjacent to a yard the members of the mosque use to garden. A company that produces a sugar-pumped, hyper-caffeinated beverage was sponsoring the ramp, had set up a large umbrella covered drinks stand nearby. A young man was skating on the concave ramp, a few others clustered nearby talking about the ramp--it looked like some event was going to happen just a bit later.

As I walked past, the muezzin at the mosque began the call to prayer, the adhan. The minaret on the mosque is purely ornamental so the muezzin stands on the sidewalk when he chants. He calls out that God is greatest, that he bears witness that there is no lord but God. That he bears witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God. If you've ever heard a Muslim call to prayer it is beautiful and haunting, regardless of what you may or may not believe. The muezzin's voice carried across the garden and play yard and schoolyard, past my old church Mary Help of Christians, now shut and silent.

And it hit me.

Here was Islam mere yards away from the fruit of western culture and it was peaceful. No, it was even more than that. It was golden. It was a golden minute, perhaps followed by another one, the moment itself a prayer.

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