*I am Malaysian Pakistani and Somali and Arab: I am Turk and Irani and native of the Maldives: My home is in Paris, Berlin, London; in Mexico City, Port-of-Spain, Durban; in Karachi, Zagazig or Kuala Lumpur,
I am as at home sailing in a lateen rigged baggala along the red-rock Oman shores bound for Socotra's island as I am crossing the Khyber Pass in a camel caravan...or driving a Mercedes taxi in Istanbul.
Na'am, aiwa, acha, kha, I am your brother, Adam.
You will know me in the mosques when I stand shoulder to shoulder with you and wish you peace when prayer is done: and you may see me in Isfahan talking with a miniature painter or in Dera Ismail Khan listening to a young and vocal teacher of Urdu or in Medan listening to a old man chanting the Quran or in Sacramento listening to a college boy who has all the problems of the universe solved.
You will know me becuase I am your brother and in a real and forceful sense I am a part of you, dependent on you as you are dependent on me...as rocks in a city wall... round as the ancient wall of Baghdad.
I am Egyption and Tunisian and Syrian: I am Berber and Kurd; Fulani and Nausherwani and Pawenda; I am Maliki, Hanafi, Hanbali, and Shafii: all these I am, for I am your brother standing besides you in the mosque waiting for the iqama...white-garbed in the plain of Arafat...fasting with you in Ramadan. I am at home in the black tents of the bedu and the tall buildings of Hadhramaut...; I am always lingering at the Great Mosque to circle the Kaaba and to kiss the hajr al-aswad and drink from the well of Zamzam; and I am standing, too, in the Haraam ash-sharif in Jerusalem and in Karbala...and all of them, each of them, has meaning on meaning for me.
Na'am ya habibi, ya azizi, ya akhi, I am your brother Adam.
You will know me when you see me becuase I wll be fingering my beads and you will know well what this means... subhanAllah...
You will know me and I will know you for we are real brothers; and I am of one place as I am of another...as much a part of one as the other; the lover of all lands where I can listen to the call of the muezzin coming over the night, or hear the beat of a single Muslim heart.
