Friday Sermon: Piety

I never really write in this blog anymore, so I thought I could start things up again in here.

So we live in this little low class area in Hadayeq El Qobba in Cairo, Egypt. It's -let's face it- filthy, crowded, flaming hot, and very very loud. Right next to us is one of those "mosques" that are just a little room equipped with the cheapest lowest quality mic and speakers. At times like these, I say hats off to the Shiats for being lazy and gathering the 5 prayers a day into three prayers only.

Every Friday, as habit has it, the "Imam" says his themed Friday Sermon. Today's theme was "piety" or Taqwa.

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT going to talk about Islam and how wonderful it is. I don't believe in religions. On the contrary, I'm writing this post to discuss how useless today's Sermon was to the lifestyle of the populace of this area.

Now, in a nutshell -and because I wasn't really listening to the whole sermon-, the Imam talked about the five pillars of Islam: Prayer, Fasting, Zakat (helping the needy), Hajj, and... I forgot what the fifth was. He discussed how God specifically adresses us, "His slaves", saying that we should be pious and do as He says. That first point, as I'm sure you agree, is useless because what Muslim doesn't know that?

The second point was how every man (not woman, for some reason) is responsible for making sure his family members are pious. Every man should order -I'm not just using the word "order", he actually used that exact word- his wife to pray, be decent, and wear a veil. He should also order his children to do the same, if they were girls. He did not mention anything about ordering the boys to be pious.

The reason why this second point is absolutely useless is because there is literally not more than 4 unveiled women in this area, one of whom is me. Women have no right to have any kind of rituals of their own because their ritual has been established a long time ago. They go to their mothers or mothers-in-law on weekends, they talk them on the phone all week. That's all the ritual women are allowed to have here.

Whereas men (who are supposed to order their women to be pious and put them at home) are out getting into fights, smoking pot, or just slobbing at a nearby outdoor "Ahwa" ( low class coffee shop). And boys (who are not butched around by their fathers like the girls are) are out playing video games, watching pornography, or stabbing each other to death.

I'm not exxagerating, by the way. My husband told me a story about this boy who was being "disrespectful" to a powerful gang of 19-20 year olds. They hit him to death and then carried his body over their heads to his mother.

Doesn't it strike you as absurd that ever since I have moved into this area about 20 months ago, that's approximately 80 Friday Sermons, not one Sermon discuss how God doesn't want us to act treat each other like animals and that God wants us to be kind to each other and resolve our issues peacefully and not violently? Not once did the Imam try to educate the boys about how important manners are. Why is it so important for them to preach to us about calling on our neighbours to pray and be pious, and not about being kind and peaceful with our neighbours?

It's quite disturbing seeing all these young and old men stand shoulder next to shoulder to say their Friday prayers in the street, knowing that this is only an attempt at appearing pious. The truth is these same people gather around tables full of cheap weed, smoking it all night until dawn at 4 am whenever a street wedding takes place.

What good would a stupid Friday Sermon about praying and making your women wear the veil do to a populace like this?

No good.