Allahu Akbar…
The sound was haunting, arresting, as it wafted through the warm desert air of the Omani capital of Muscat. It was the Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, recited five times per day as a confession of faith.
I wasn’t surprised to hear it: Oman is about 75 per cent Muslim, after all. What did surprise me, though, was how intoxicating the sound was. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. And it was praising God.
In Muscat, a teeming city of over 700,000 located along the southeastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, I had found myself amidst the city’s labyrinthine main market, located near the postcard-perfect corniche and the azure waters of the Indian Ocean. I was in Muscat to investigate its history and culture for a New York-based magazine, and was enraptured by the exotic sights, sounds, and smells all around me.
Near the beating heart of the marketplace, I stepped into a taxi. I already knew my next destination. For the purposes of an article about things to see in Muscat, there was one place I absolutely had to write about: the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, the largest mosque in Oman.
“Ah yes, the mosque. I know it well,” said my young driver, Hamed. Dressed in a traditional white ankle-length robe with long sleeves known as a dishdasha and a type of turban called a muzzar, he paused. “Are you Muslim?”
Like Adam when he ate the fruit Eve offered, or Samson when he allowed himself to have his hair shorn, I acted without thinking.
“I respect Islam.”
The next thing I knew, not only had we driven to the mosque, we had removed our shoes, washed our bodies in a practice known as wudu, and were inside the mosque’s massive men’s prayer hall, which contains both the second-largest carpet (containing 1.7 million knots, weighing 21 tons, and 4,343 square meters in size) and second-largest chandelier (at 14 meters) in the world. Never mind the mosque had a large sign that clearly said “Muslims only” — we were performing salat, the act of formal worship that includes bowing towards Mecca.
What was I doing?
As Peter had denied Christ three times, I had denied Jesus at a time when I could have shared the good news. After all, isn’t evangelism something we are called to do?
Given Oman’s laws, foreigners are a way to help spread the gospel, since it can be difficult for Omani citizens. Oman’s Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs (MERA) recognizes just three Christian organizations: the Protestant Church of Oman, the Catholic Diocese of Oman, and the al Amana Center (an interdenominational Christian group). Although MERA claims that there is no limit on the number of groups that can be licensed, churches must be built on government-owned land, meaning planting new churches is all but impossible.
In the face of such obstacles citizens face, I had quaffed at the chance to spread Christ’s message. Part of 2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV) says:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
It appeared I was the one who needed reproof and training and righteousness. I was like the man in one of Jesus’ most famous parables, pointing out the speck in the eye of another while I had a plank in my own.
I knew bowing down to Allah was wrong. Muslims don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah, who can forgive us of all our sins, after all. So why had I done it? Fear, mostly: fear I might offend my host, or fear I might be ostracized for confessing my faith in Christ.
The Bible tells us not to fear, that Christ has secured our salvation – so long as we believe in Him. We all fall to sin. But we can be forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus, if we are truly sorry for what we have done. I would later ask forgiveness for what I’d done in the mosque, but missed the opportunity to spread the message of Christ’s love and to profess my own faith.
I failed the test.
Photo (Flickr CC) by Rafiq HMZ.
