Less God, More World
by YBLalat

The sun was almost gone for good. Its golden yellow ray was not as blinding to the naked eyes as minutes before. The heavy sky was lit only from its ankle up. The lazy, dark clouds were one side brighter than the other – like two parts of the same scenic portrait, with one face illuminated by the nearby window. A quick sip of the slow-rising air and you could taste the dampness of the icy cold night creeping slowly with time. Looking at the edges of the vast and empty farm land of Iowa, sunset looked nothing but a blissfully spectacular event.

“Do we still have time?”
“Time is adequate, but barely.”

Kuceng threw onto the marble picnic table his green canvas bag and pulled out of it a funny looking compass. Its black-and-red arrows dangled haphazardly at the slightest touch of its body. None of the arrows pointed to the north and none of them pointed to the south either – both were to the east and the west. The compass was placed onto the flat cement floor, still swerving inconsistently at the slightest breeze of the desert wind. He took out a black booklet the size of a cheap pocket calculator from his bag and moved his head up and down over every page that he browsed through. He skimmed a few more pages before looking up at me in a very confused manner.

“Are we in the Central Time zone yet?”
“Yes, I think Iowa is in that zone.”
“Does this still work even if this part of Iowa is on the state borderline?”
“We don’t have a choice but to assume so, correct?”

Kuceng glanced quickly at the rapidly disappearing bright yellow horizon and pulled back his worried eyes into the inside of his green bag. With one hand still holding onto the black booklet, he dug into the content of the bag in search of something that seemed did not want to be found. From one layer of clothing in the bag to another, his wet fingers became more frantic and chaotic - tossing every item in his grip to the sides. The sky became darker and darker with each layer unfolded. The wind grew stronger and colder with each breath taken. Time was running away from us faster and faster.

“Are you sure they are in this bag?”
“Yes! Help me find them! Quick!”

I yanked the bag away from Kuceng forcefully, nearly cutting his wrist with the open zipper. He immediately stepped back and made way for me to search for the prayer rugs. Once more, he stared at the bleak evening sky and promptly pulled away his face to the other away and muttered to himself curse audible only to his ears. While I was busy hurling the inside of his bag onto the dusty marble table, he waited patiently on the cold cement floor for the compass’ arrows to steady itself. With every short but calming moment of the arrows, Kuceng speedily tried to read the arrows’ angle so that he could determine the corresponding kiblah reading.

“Ah! Here they are – in the side pockets!”
“Quick, quick, we don’t have much time!”
“Have you found the kiblah?”
“I think so, but quick, put them on the floor.”

With both hands holding onto a prayer rug each, I literally threw them onto the cold and dusty floor of the interstate highway picnic rest area. One landed half-folded with one of its side tucked neatly underneath the other, while the other prayer rug slanted pathetically onto the red brick wall before sliding slowly onto the floor. Kuceng was still managing the clumsy compass, trying to get as close to the accurate reading indicated by the black booklet as possible. Covertly, I bended over to rearrange the prayer rugs into order, with one of my hand trying to take my socks off of my right shoe. As soon as the socks started loosening up, Kuceng stomped his right foot onto the floor, and with his long right arm stretched towards one direction into the horizon, shouted, “It’s this way!”

Straight away we kicked our wet shoes to the sides, slamming them onto the red brick walls, and in near and unplanned synchronicity, chanted together to the desperately slim hour of nightfall the God-gifted special prayer mantra for the musafir.

“Sahaja aku solat Asar, jama' taakhir dengannya Zuhur, qasar dua rakaat, kerana Allah ta'ala......Allah hu Akbar!”

**********

Oh yeah. I am so relieved, so guilt-free. Now, Allah has nothing to tag me down with.

Now Asar and Zuhur are in the process of being out of the way of our road trip, and we could wait for just a few more minutes here at the highway rest area to do the jama’ for Maghrib and Isyak. This thing, this privilege that Allah has given to us musafir is so convenient. In a long and wearing road trip like this, we only need to stop and do our prayers for a minimal amount of two times a day – one for the daytime and nighttime prayers, and one more for the Subuh prayer at dawn. We could even narrow that down into two types: one is we do the nighttime jama’ of Maghrib and Isyak very near to Subuh time, and two, we could do the daytime prayers’ jama’ around the time of the day like now, near sunset, and then wait some more for the nighttime jama’.

Out of the five times, us musafir do only two times the daily requirements.

Just imagine all the time that could be saved from the frequent stopping at God-knows-where and using the public toilet to do the wudhu, with all the hassles of having to take off your never-washed socks from your never-washed shoes. But first you have to withstand the suspicious, askance glance of the ignorant, American infidels and their debasing laughter and prejudicial whispers at the sight of you taking off your socks and washing your feet on the sink. They would think of you as mad, uncivilized bastards from some rural and unpopulated tribal communities in the middle of Africa – sticking your nasty, fungus-ridden toes onto the icy cold tap water in public.

Who in their right mind would do such a disgusting feat in the middle of Midwest winter?

And then, you need to consider the trouble of finding the proper and partially hidden location for the prayers to be done. You can’t just go and do your thing in the middle of the pedestrians’ passageway – people will stare! This is America! Civilized people don’t bow and arch and stoop like crazy, religious freaks like that! They would think that you are a fundamentalist and a militant extremist! A Moslem terrorist! So dedicated to God!

Sometimes you are lucky enough to find a nice hiding place to do your prayers and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you are just forced to put your forehead and knees onto the sharp, spiky tarmac of the sidewalk, and sometimes it would be the wet and soggy farm soil where it smells like overnight cow dung fertilizers. Sometimes the weather does not cooperate to your expectation – it would be freezing cold outside, or crispy icy wind, or sweltering humid heat. And all that torture taken merely for a 2-rakaat Subuh?

All this trouble would be easily eliminated if the prayers were to be done in the privacy and comfort of one’s apartment bedroom. But then, not being a road trip musafir like this, you can’t skip the approaching prayer times and you can’t shorten the long rakaat. An Asar and a Zuhur could be handily cut down to a two-and-two combo and if you were to done that in the near twilight hours of the day, you could combine the four rakaat daytime combo with the three-and-two Maghrib-and-Isyak nighttime combo within the same half hour. Hah! Such convenience! Such ease! And that is, by God, all valid and guilt-free!

Nothing beats the joy of a week-long road trip: less praying, more travelling.