This morning I left home early for the long drive into town because my Islamic Studies professor scheduled a graduate student session for Fridays at 11am. He swears the timing was not meant to ensure I arrived at Friday prayer on time, but in any case that's what is happening. So, I walked over, pleased that none of the Muslims-behind-the-wheel thougt it was a good idea to lunge at me with thier vehicle in the mad dash for a parking space as I crossed the street. I suppose there is merit to arriving early before the last-minute crowd pulls up.

I'm glad I was early, having walked in and stuffed my jacket into the shoe rack since there were no more coat pegs open. Maybe if we deported those Saudi students I could properly hang my jacket. As I sat down I was surprised to see the recently returned Egyptian Ramadan imam who won't speak English sitting in the third row next to my professor. In his place on the pulpit was a blind man in what passes for casualware in the Arab world. It was Marwan Sadeddin, one of the famed flying imams! He started out his sermon stating who he was and that he was pleased to be back in his beloved Tucson, starting out well enough. I began the sermon interested to hear what he had to say and ended the sermon thinking I would have kicked him off the plane, too, if only for being such a bore.

His sermon was characterized with unstructured ramblings and a strange disclaimer that he would not talk too much about the incident and yet he talked only about the incident that occured back in November. He delivered his sermon, so to speak, in very good English with a fair amount of Arabic stock phrases which I found were much longer than most Friday Prayer supplications and honorifics. But, stylistics aside, I found the content of his sermon much more disturbing and it was indeed the content which made me loose whatever sympathy I had previously had for him.

Let me first say that the whole incident was a gross misunderstanding on the part of the airline in my eyes, despite the right of any captain to order any passenger off his/her aircraft. However, my wife's initial belief that they prayed on purpose at the gate area as a show-off was correct. Sadeddin let off that bombshell of an admission early in his sermon when he said that he wanted to pray anywhere to show Americans that he can exercise his right to religious freedom. But, his actions, he claimed, were not merely aimed at Americans. He also blasted his Muslim critics who suggested he should not pray at an airport gate like that because of hightened sensitivites after Sept 11. In his counter-argument, he was absolutely correct in pointing out that the Constitution grants the inalienable right to freedom of worship (he referred to it as the "Constitition of this country" and tellingly, not as "our Constitution"; go figure!). However, I severely wanted to interrupt him and yell the verse, "wailun … alladhina hum yuraa'un", " Woe … to those who try to be seen." For me, the point of Islamic worship is to establish that spiritual link between God and the believer, not to show off and assert one's Identity Islam to onlookers. I think the worst inverting of our faith is to use it as a weapon of a pseudo-ethnic identity. But, I digress; let's get back to what he said.

He argued that if he succumbed to the pressures not to pray in public, then eventually "they" would come to prevent people from praying in mosques, and then people would even become afraid to pray in thier own homes for fear of thier children ratting them out to "them" by which I could only assume he meant the government or "kuffar" Americans in general. This was, of course, a rehashing of the fallacious slippery-slope argument, and I was dispairing at the moment that most of the congregation were not educated enough to see his fallacy in logic for what it was. To cement that dissapointment, I saw plenty of heads nodding in agreement. For a minute I thought he was confused and considered himself to be in Soviet Russia. He then continued by lashing out, albeit in a soft voice, at the women who took off thier headscraves after Sept 11. He seemed oddly focused on the fact that people could now see the hair color of women (sisters, or at least former sisters) whose hair color they previously did not know.

Towards the end, he bizarrely compared himself to Rosa Parks, styling himself as a sort of "Freedom Rider" I suppose. Other people pointed out to me how bizarre his self-comparison was while I simply marveled at yet another appropriation of Blackamerican icons by Muslim immigrants who don't typically have much dealings with Blackamericans, Muslim or otherwise.

At around this time, I saw a tall, thin man walk through the seated rows of worshippers carrying a donation box towards the front, a box with the clearly emblazened letters, "CAIR-AZ". Then, I understood this diatribe for what it was: a fear-mongering, guilt-inducing fundraising ploy. A highlight of the afternoon was an old acquaintance of mine who had brought his 6 year old daughter to pray alongside him. I had no problem with it, but was almost on edge expecting someone to tell me my prayer was invalid because of a female next to me. Thankfully, no one did; they were all too busy fleeing the prayer hall as the plantive takbirs started going up when someone pledged money. My understanding is that they went away with alot less than they expected. Another highlight is that one of my fellow Muslimah grad students has convinced the board of directors to partially remove the barrier which obstructed the women's view of the imam, although I wonder if they regretted it for at least this afternoon. She did a great service, so much so that my wife and another Muslimah grad student may become mosque-buddies and start attending again. I say mosque-buddies because a convert American and unconventional immigrant woman need to back each other up against the ice maidens who will nag at them for differing from the Arab model of femininity.

The post-Friday Prayer lunch was quite enlightening. Our guest this week was the Assisstant Director of Hartford Seminary's Islamic Chaplaincy Propgram and colleague of current ISNA-president and Hartford Islamic program director, Dr Ingrid Mattson. Although I was embarrased that his first Friday Prayer expereince in Tucson was a terrible one, it did not overshadow one of the more productive Fridays I've had in a while. We had a long discussion at the gang's favorite French lunch-cafe, served by a charming Tunisian woman (I don't believe in having multiple wives, so get it out of your head). After getting the details of how I could earn my certificate in chaplaincy after finishing my upcoming PhD in Islamic Studies here, I decided that I will do so. What can I do with a certificate in chaplaincy, you ask? Well, the Navy recruits its Muslim chaplains from Hartford and since the Navy supplies chaplains to Marine Corps units…

I won't let the fact that I have to trade my enlisted rank and become, ahemm, an officer be an obstacle. But, I won't be one of those apologetical type of Muslim chaplains (there are solid types as well!) who doesn't want to fight Muslim assholes overseas; I'd like to consider myself one of those fightin' chaplains who's still a Marine at heart, but would now have a star and crescent on his collar insignia instead of Sergeant's stripes.