With her heart pounding in her chest, she bolted
into the mosque, wrapping her veil around her head as she did.
“Allahu Akbar!”
She increased her speed and slid over to the last line of worshippers. In the next two seconds, raised her hand, said her takbeer, stood straight, said another takbeer and went into ruku.
She was breathing so fast that the adhkar slipped out of her mouth in short, suppressed gasps.
“Sami’ Allahu liman hamdah.”
“Rabbana walakal-hamd.”
She and everyone else stood from the bowing position. She was still struggling to catch her breath.
Her eyes darted to the Imam, who, like every other male, was on the floor directly beneath her and every other female worshiper in the OAU Central Mosque of Unity. When she was on her period, she loved to look down at other worshippers as they prayed. Not just watch, but watch from above.
An aerial view of a congregational Solah was perhaps the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and the semicircular balcony currently beside her usually allowed her to see the men praying from above. Right now, It was a distraction. A terrible combination with a mind that hadn’t quite caught its breath.
“Allahu Akbar.”
The entire mosque went into Sujuud.
She struggled to regain her focus as she prayed. She knew what she did was wrong. Very wrong in fact. She’d read and heard in several places that Rasulullah had instructed the Muslims not to rush when joining the prayer, and to walk calmly, and to pay up the part of the Solah missed afterwards.
She’d learnt that so many times, and she’d had promised herself each time that she would try to quit the habit of rushing to join the congregational prayer. But, she found it really difficult to see the Imam go into ruku, and not hasten to join the Solah before he rose.
“Allahu Akbar.”
She sat up, and closed her laps together, not wanting to have any space between her trousered legs on the tiled floor.
“Allahu Akbar.”
They went back into Sujuud, and she realised two things. One, her breathing had calmed, and her words were coming out in a more controlled manner.
The second was that she was suddenly very thirsty, and was particularly craving for a bottle of chilled pepsi.
She stifled a groan of frustration as the Sujuud went on a bit longer than she wanted.
The last Rak’ah?
Her thirst grew, and she found herself struggling to concentrate. She couldn’t blame her body though. After jugging all the way from sports complex and then breaking into a run when she heard the takbeeratul-ihram at the All Souls Chapel some meters away from the mosque, her throat had every right to demand hydration.
Subhanallah, did the Imam die in Sujuud ni?
The sound of childish laughter soon caught her attention. She didn’t know if the child had been giggling since and she’d just noticed it, or the happy sound had just begun. It didn’t matter though. The sound distracted her. The Sujuud was taking too long. Sweat was trickling up her back. Her feet were beginning to hurt.
“Allaaaaaahu Akbar.”
She sighed in relief and joined everyone to stand up.
She hated coming late for Solah, especially Jumu’ah, because she’d miss the Khutbah, and sometimes miss the opportunity to observe naflah too. She hated herself during those times. This time wasn’t any different.
“Aamiin.”
Her throat was parched. She wanted a drink. She wanted Pepsi. Chilled cold Pepsi. Maybe she would buy one immediately after Jumu’ah. But then, did she have cash? She groaned. She hated the idea of buying a drink of ₦350 and then having to add one nonsense ₦50 charges to it. To her,that was the perfect example of daylight robbery. Sometimes, she wouldn’t mind walking a further distance to buy stuffs from someone who would ask for ₦20 instead, rather than…
She groaned again. Well done, Shaytaan. She thought sarcastically as she pulled her wandering mind back to the Imam’s usual soft voice as he journeyed them through a surah she didn’t know.
She kept her eyes focused on the ground, and found herself admiring the laced end of the gown of the woman who stood directly in front of her. Unconsciously, her eyes travelled up the woman’s length and made a mental note of the style. She would tell Hind to sew ….
Her eyes caught a swift movement beside her, and she moved her eyes to see a young boy of about two years running around in circles, giggling excitedly as he did.
She moved her eyes to the gown, and back to the floor.
The child’s giggles grew louder, obviously from the dizzying sensation he was getting.
“Allahu Akbar.”
She went into ruku, her eyes struggling to focus not on the child who was running beside her.
“Sami’ Allahu liman hamdah.”
“Rabbana walakal-hamd.”
She whispered, her eyes darting to the giggling child.
“Allahu Akbar.”
“Allahu…” She cut herself off as she bolted towards the balcony and grabbed the arm of the child that had, in a way she could not even comprehend, jumped through the cemented space between the bars of the balcony.
She resisted the urge to scream as her shoulder twisted uncomfortably in the space. The discomfort graduated to being painful, and she groaned.
The little boy dangling by her hand giggled in innocent ecstasy.
She found it hard to think, or to process what had gotten her in this position. To get over the pain, her mind went over the past few seconds again. She’d been praying, concentrating…at least trying to concentrate on her prayer. Then she’d seen the child spin closer to the balcony when she went into ruku, and had also seen him stare down from the hole when she stood up from ruku.
The rest was too hazy for her to remember.
She didn’t dare try to pull the child up. With the pain shooting up her arm and every other part of her body as a result of the awkward position she stood…squatted in, any movement would send the child to the head of an innocent worshipper.
Or, to the space between the prostrating head of one worshipper and the feet of another.
“My God!” She whispered in pain as the child began to swing back and forth, obviously enjoying the fact that he was flying in the air like Spiderman.
“Allahu Akbar.”
She didn’t know if she should scream. She didn’t know if the person beside her in solah had seen what had happened, and had decided to hang on till the prayer ended, which was supposed to be very soon. Or she hadn’t seen them at all.
It was the latter. It had to be the latter. She didn’t want to believe that anyone would be fanatical enough to see this kind of danger and not cut his or her prayer to help.
But then, Umar had been stabbed multiple times while he led Solah. He hadn’t bothered to defend himself, and his followers hadn’t cut their prayers to do so either.
So was she wrong for doing so?
“Weeeeeeee!” The child exclaimed in pure ecstasy as he tried swinging again.
“Stop it!” She scolded sharply, wincing at how her voice echoed in the silent Mosque.
The child looked up at her, bent his head to his shoulder in that common childish way and said, “Ehn ehn. I want to swing!”
She wished she could slap him. Instead, she tried to put her second arm into the space, to see if it could assist the left which prevented the child from breaking his neck or someone else’s. Her shoulders groaned in protest, warning her that that could send her and the child down to the next floor.
Ya Allah, I love that You be worshipped, but please let this Solah end right now or please get us out of this dangerous mess. She thought desperately, scared that any movement, even that of her lips, would weaken her left arm.
Is tashahud really this long?
“As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullah.” A pause. “As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullah.”
The congregation repeated after the Imam, and she closed her eyes.
Three. Two. One…
“Yeeeh!” was the first exclamation she heard.
“Subhanallah!”
“Oh my God!”
“Ah!”
“E gbà mí!”
Then a tumult.
She gritted her teeth and opened her eyes. Down below, she saw that the men had gathered and were looking up, shock mirrored on all their faces.
She couldn’t see the women, but she knew they had the same expression on their faces. Plus horror.
“Pull him up now!” A woman shouted.
She resisted the urge to scream at her.
“She can’t!” A man said from below. “Can you?”
She recognised the voice as that of the Chief Imam’s son. She shook her head.
“Drop him!” Another man shouted. About ten others chorused the suggestion.
“No!” The Chief Imam said, rushing from the pulpit to the middle, directly under them. “If we’re going to do that, there has to be something here.”
“We can catch him!”
“It’s risky!” The Imam insisted, and looked up once again. “Get a mattress! Somebody!”
She groaned. Loudly this time.
“Hurry!” About twenty people shouted.
Around her, she heard running footsteps, from upstairs and downstairs.
The pain was getting unbearable.
“I can’t do this.” She choked out.
“Please hold on! Where’s the mattress nítorí Ọlọrun!”
“Let’s hold her!”
In a second, she felt several hands grab her left leg, and several others grab her right.
She was grateful. She was safe. But the child wasn’t.
Suddenly she felt a tug.
“Don’t pull o!” She screamed desperately.
“Don’t pull!” Several people, both male and female, chorused.
“No mattress. Only blanket!”
She saw the lady run to the other side of the balcony holding and waving a black blanket, breathing heavily.
Around her, people, especially the elderly women, were beginning to pray out loud.
“Blanket can not do it!” Someone screamed from downstairs.
“Toyeeb, bring the mattress na!”
“I’ve checked everywhere. There’s no mattress!” Said a breathless voice from below.
She screamed as her fingers began to loosen.
“ Let’s catch him, there’s no time!”
The men began to gather around below them.
“Throw the blanket!” Someone screamed from below.
The lady threw it.
She closed her eyes, feeling the last of her energy slip slowly.
Ya Allah, please!
“Drop him!”
Her fingers did before she gave them permission to.
Her eyes flew open in horror, and she saw him land into what seemed like a makeshift trampoline made from the blanket, with about eight men holding the edges of the thick cloth tightly.
“Thank God!” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could translate them into Arabic.
“Alhamdulillah o!”
“Is he okay?!”
“Ọlọrun o ṣe o!”
She watched as one of the Muslim professors of her department rushed to carry the boy up from the blanket.
“Pull the girl back now!” The Chief Imam shouted from below them.
She felt all the hands on her legs, plus a few more, pull her upper torso out of the balcony space.
“Careful!” She heard the Ameerah say.
Immediately she landed on the hard floor, she was surrounded.
“Move back! Give her breathing space!” The Naibul Ameerah said.
“Shift!” The Ameerah screamed at the reluctant ones.
They shifted.
She sat there, exhausted and sweaty. Around her, sisters from the excos and the elderly women of the Muslim community had gathered, and were asking her if she was okay in various ways. Someone was fanning her, another tried to get the crowd to move. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She was drained. Her arms and shoulders ached.
“Well-done o!”
“Superwoman!”
“Let me even snap your picture.”
“Ehn! Don’t try it!”
Several ladies stood in front of her.
Someone called her name from behind. She decided, for the sake of strength, to ignore it.
“Let me see her. Is she ok?”
Everyone parted as the chief Imam and his cohorts made their way towards her.
She tiredly wrapped her hijab properly. With the arm that wasn’t throbbing as though it wanted to pull itself off.
When they got to her presence, she looked up.
She didn’t even pretend to want to stand up as she would have normally done. If they expected her to do that, then they were evil.
Instead, the Imam said, his eyes bright with worry. “Are you okay, dear? What’s your name?”
She just stared, really too exhausted to speak.
About five people from the crowd shouted her name at once. She permitted herself a moment of surprise; people knew her?
The Imam obviously noticed her state because he ordered everyone to step back and instructed the Ameerah and her deputy to help her to somewhere under the fan.
As she was led away, she saw some of the mummies and daddies greatly scolding a teenage girl at the back. The little boy was running in circles around them, giggling.
She looked away, just realising that she hadn’t even thought of who owned the child in question.
She rested her back on a pillar and closed her eyes, words of “sorry y’hear” echoing all around her. She suddenly felt sleepy.
“Take.”
She opened her eyes and saw the Naibul Ameerah stretching forth a sweaty bottle of Pepsi towards her.
She grabbed it immediately. With her left hand.
She twisted off the cover and brought it to her mouth, paused, transferred the bottle of chilled drink to her right hand, brought it back to her mouth and gulped it down thirstily.
Allah does have funny ways of accepting Du’a.
Elusogbon Aisha
