The Cairo Gyro

I sit down at the make-shift breakfast nook with my mint tea and flat-bread sandwich in hand. The old nightstand and mismatched chairs Sammer hauled downstairs serves well as our only area to sit and eat near the kitchen. There’s not much to look at. The brown staircase leading to the bedrooms complete with an empty storage niche at the bottom fit for Harry Potter himself. The heavy white door to the kitchen that was built far too large for the door frame and never closes. An entryway to an unfinished bedroom, the sheets Sammer hung up as a curtain to give us privacy from the main road. And just to the right of that, the front door to the ground floor of our apartment building. The tube lighting above me buzzes as if, like everything in Egypt, it’s about to break but never does.

Somewhere outside, I hear a voice. It sounds beautiful and reposed as it descends the stairs outside my door. What surah is that? I listen harder but I don’t have to because the voice gets louder and closer. He’s leaving the building and I can hear him continue to recite to himself the whole way out. Some people whistle while they work or hum as they walk, but he doesn’t. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this voice reciting Qur’an merrily as he walks in and out of the building but each time I hear it, it sets me at ease.

The athan sounds. Allahu Akbar. It’s carried on the air and into the room. A dozen Allahu akbars overlaying each other like bricks built upon one solid foundation, one unified call. In their loud unwavering voices, the athan is an unstoppable force, an assertion of religious identity that no Pharaoh or President could suppress. I proceed upstairs to respond to it. It amazes me how something so “overplayed” as the athan, 6 times a day (there are two for Fajr), can still have such a magnetic pull to it as it pulses throughout the busiest and most populated metropolitan city in the world. I think of how I have to change the Alarm tone on my cell phone every now and then lest my ears become immune to hearing the same one every morning and fail to wake to it.
Not with the athan.

After salah I sit down to do my homework, wajib as she calls it. After all it’s something compulsory that must be done! In a room with no TV, no phone line or internet, I often feel very disconnected from the outside world. Right now though it means there’s nothing to distract me from my wajib. I write the Hijri date at the top of my paper, it feels so nice to be able to do that, to be constantly reminded of the day when Prophet Muhammad salAllahu `alayhi wa sallam, made that brave and dangerous migration to Medinah. To remind myself that today is another day to follow in those footsteps and move from bad towards good in my own life.

A neighbor puts on a tape of Qur’an recitation and thankfully the sawt is wadih enough for me to listen along with. This beats having the TV on as background noise any day. The recitation is slow and almost mesmeric. I’m happy and content doing my work, guiding my pencil from right to left across the page, dotting the letters and carefully placing the vowels. Likewise, the Egyptian recitor gives each letter it’s due right as he enunciates, elongates, and stops on them correctly- upholding his people’s reputation for their superior mastery of tajweed.

The people here take these sounds for granted, the Qur’an tapes being played in neighborhoods and shopping malls, the athan calling them punctually for every prayer. It’s funny how these things, though they are a part of every day life here for the locals, manage to catch my attention so easily. I am comforted by this and wonder at how, in a sense, these sounds make me feel more at home here than I’ve ever felt before.

This is a view of Maadi, Cairo.

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Part of traveling is knowing that you will be absent for events in the lives of the loved ones left behind.

For me, it’s the hardest part.

The passing of a loved one is something that hits you so hard it’s like the world was temporarily yanked from underneath your feet. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you can be all the way in Africa and still feel it. If you decide to travel one day and find yourself in a similar circumstance remember that you can still try to be there for your loved ones who are dealing with it on the home front. Call them and check on them, send them something, contact a friend and have them provide food and company to your family on behalf of you.

Remember most of all that it is Allah’s Decree that you cannot be home at such a time. Qadr Allah Wa Maa Shaa Fa3la.

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They say when you become fluent in a language you start to think in it and then dream in it. I haven’t had any dreams in Arabic yet but I’ve found that my thoughts processes are starting to contain Arabic terminology. It’s amazing how Allah has given us brains with ample capacity. I’m learning new vocabulary every day and yet there’s room for so much more! SubhanAllah, before coming to Egypt I thought hitting twenties meant I’d be feeling so old but my time here has proved otherwise. I’ve met sisters several years older than me who have come to study Arabic and are now fluent in it. I’ve met girls my age and older who working on their memorization of the Qur’an and not only getting older by the day but also getting closer to their goal. Some drink deeply at the Fountain of Knowledge; others merely gargle. And though what I’ve acquired so far is barely a droplet of it, I feel fifteen again! Alhamdulillah.

I was skeptical about private classes before but now I’m convinced that I need them. I love my teacher, Ustaatha Hind (Maadi Fajr Center). My first impression of her was one of intimidation. The first week or two of class I was incredibly shy and uneasy in class. I kept wishing other students were in the seats next to me and that she’d call on them instead of me. The constant and direct eye contact between teacher and student was something I had to get used to. After taking a leave from campus classes and instead going on to teach at an Islamic School in Florida the past couple years this was complete role reversal for me. The classroom was lonely for me and I wished Sammer was in my class. My teacher would chuckle at my mistakes and I felt embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I was so self conscious and nervous because I couldn’t hide behind my book or shift in my seat and hope the pupil’s head in front of me would block her view. I couldn’t slip a piece of chewing gum out of my bag unnoticed or check the time. I’d leave class with tension in my shoulders and that was when it finally hit me: I really needed to loosen up. She was there dedicating all her time and attention on me and there I was foolishly wishing her attention would be diverted!

Instead of being intimidated by the presence of only her and me in the classroom, I began to embrace it. In class setting the teacher would be calling on various students to take turns reading the dialogues and exercises aloud. A private setting however allows me to be the only reader in the class so I get to read every page of the unit to/with Ustaatha Hind and thereafter emerge from that unit with no mistakes in reading, pronunciation, or understanding of the words. Who cares if she chuckled at my mistakes, I’d rather have the teacher poke jest at me than fellow classmates. Not one of my questions or confusions goes unnoticed so I never have to feel shy about not understanding. My teacher has immense patience towards me and I know I wouldn’t receive the same treatment if I was in a class of other students holding them up and wasting time mulling over a correct answer. She’s getting to know me quite well now and she’s becoming an expert at reading my facial expressions so she knows when something’s amiss. Masha’Allah. I might be taking the winter intensive course at Madinat Nasr Fajr Center for 3 weeks in December and January. If I do, that’d mean I’d be in a group class setting, something which I’m no longer looking forward to like I was before.

The book we’re studying from “Al-Arabiyya Bayna Yadayk” provides a selection of various Ayahs from the Qur’an along with every lesson. The ayahs are meant to be read in class in order to focus on a particular letter and sound for that particular unit. This is one of my favorite times in class. It turns out my teacher has amazing Tajweed too and a passion for the Qur’an. She even goes over the words from the Qur’an with me and we extract things like plurals and synonyms from it. We do the same thing with text from Ahadeeth too. Perhaps if we were in a class setting, with Muslims and Non-Muslims present we wouldn’t be spending time on that.

Private classes are a lot more costly though, over three times the amount paid for regular group classes. If one has the means to take private over group, I’d highly recommend it. Group classes have their benefits as well and once I take my winter intensive course and experience that for myself I’ll be sure to write about it insha’Allah.

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