Till We Meet Again...

Once again I return to Istanbul, but this time I am turning the clock back almost twenty years… I have very scant recollections of the grandeur of the city or its people. Actually, I must close my eyes to go back that far in time...

I feel my head spinning from having to wake up so early to take this ferry trip to Bursa this winter morning… Madonna’s “Material Girl” on my Walkman… Sweet Valley High novel on my lap… background noise… probably my father discussing today’s itinerary… sleepy eyes on the verge of boredom… the smell of leather from my black jacket with brass buttons that I bought at the leather goods factory just yesterday… freezing… actually frozen… feel the chill up to the tip of my nose… Why can’t we just go back to bed?

The sun is beginning to rise but the misty air around us seems to want to linger. The cold is invasive… the kind that makes it clear to you that it is going to penetrate to the deepest pores of your bones whether you like it or not… My mother wraps her mustard and khaki shawl around my head. I quickly take it off thinking it makes me look like a refugee or an old Romanian gypsy... Besides, today nothing is going to come between me and my glossy new leather jacket.

I am no longer sleepy… a slap on the face from one of Istanbul’s seaside gusts of wind and you’re wide-awake. My eyes wander. They might as well knowing that I have a long two-hour trip ahead of me surrounded by nothing but sea… They are not searching for anything in particular. Nothing seems to be of interest, but I decide to let them gaze at whatever’s in front of me… Randomly, I decide to stare at him...

I can’t tell how old he is. There’s a point in a person’s life beyond which you can no longer guess his or her age. He had crossed this point years ago, I can tell you that much. He removes his greenish beige overcoat, folds it vertically at the collar one single fold, and gently places it beside him. He sits, slightly hunch-backed, facing a large washbasin located at the front part of the ferry and pulls up his white sleeves. He murmurs something to himself. He begins to slowly wash his hands up to his wrists followed by three throaty gargles. I can hear him cough now… He takes deep sniffs of water, and then cups a handful and pours it evenly over his entire face as if he were worried that he might miss a spot … I can hear the boat’s engine’s begin to rumble… The ferry is moving. Our voyage has begun...

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ إِذَا قُمْتُمْ إِلَى الصَّلاةِ فاغْسِلُواْ وُجُوهَكُمْ وَأَيْدِيَكُمْ إِلَى الْمَرَافِقِ وَامْسَحُواْ بِرُؤُوسِكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُمْ إِلَى الْكَعْبَينِ وَإِن كُنتُمْ جُنُبًا فَاطَّهَّرُواْ وَإِن كُنتُم مَّرْضَى أَوْ عَلَى سَفَرٍ أَوْ جَاء أَحَدٌ مَّنكُم مِّنَ الْغَائِطِ أَوْ لاَمَسْتُمُ النِّسَاء فَلَمْ تَجِدُواْ مَاء فَتَيَمَّمُواْ صَعِيدًا طَيِّبًا فَامْسَحُواْ بِوُجُوهِكُمْ وَأَيْدِيكُم مِّنْهُ مَا يُرِيدُ اللّهُ لِيَجْعَلَ عَلَيْكُم مِّنْ حَرَجٍ وَلَـكِن يُرِيدُ لِيُطَهَّرَكُمْ وَلِيُتِمَّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ (5:6)

5:6 (Ma'ida) O YOU who have attained to faith! When you are about to pray, wash your face, and your hands and arms up to the elbows, and pass your [wet] hands lightly over your head, and [wash] your feet up to the ankles. And if you are in a state. requiring total ablution, purify yourselves. [17] But if you are ill, or are travelling, or have just satisfied a want of nature, or have cohabited with a woman, and can find no water-then take resort to pure dust, passing therewith lightly over your face and your hands. God does not want to impose any hardship on you, but wants to make you pure, and to bestow upon you the full measure of His blessings, so that you might have cause to be grateful. -

I realized at that point that he was performing the act of ablution "wudu"... It is one of the few vivid memories in my life that has stayed with me till this day... Looking back at that scene today, I can feel the cold. It makes me shiver. There he was performing the act of wudu with bitterly cold frosty water. I remember seeing glacial fumes ascend from the vapor-covered faucet. But to him, Subhan Allah, it was an effortless act almost like the water had become his source of comfort in the midst of this harsh freezing seaside weather… After he had completed the “wudu”, I remember him turning around, and our eyes met for a few moments. At first glance, he appeared almost ghost-like because of the way the whiteness of his pale skin was set against his bright white shirt.

Looking more closely into his weary hazelnut eyes covered with layers of sagging pale skin, I saw a kind fisherman… a fisherman who had spent all of his life fishing at one of Turkey’s seaside cities to get his son into medical school. Then I saw him frown, and I saw a retired dignified military man who was trying to forget about his rigid past that consisted of incessant dedicated service to the army each and every day. For a split second, I even saw a communist who realized that the “Red dream” was as unreal as any of us living on forever…

At the end of our glance, however, I was able to see a Muslim who at the time lived in a country where it was difficult to practice even the most basic teachings of Islam. I saw an aging gentleman who was obtaining the greatest of pleasures from the simple act of ablution… Subhan Allah… And I wonder why to me, this act has often become a mechanical ritualistic series of motions to be performed before my daily prayers… always in "fast forward" mode... often a race against time…

Today, I sometimes pray that Allah (SWT) gives me the chance to meet him once again... this time in Paradise insha-Allah... I long to hear his true story, and I want to tell him that we are no strangers... I want to tell him that I often remembered him while performing “wudu” years after I had watched him at the ferry boat. I want to tell him that it is he who taught me that this precious act that we take for granted is one of the most beautiful acts of worship that Allah (SWT) has bestowed upon us… For now, if he can hear me, I want to tell him "Till we meet again..."