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Ask A Muslim – A Simple Question that Opened a Floodgate of Humanity

Ask A Muslim – A Simple Question that Opened a Floodgate of Humanity

Last updated on: February 6, 2016 at 1:39 pm by Guest Contributor

Ask A Muslim – A Simple Question that Opened a Floodgate of Humanity 2016-02-06T13:39:43-04:00 Guest Contributor

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Sebastian Robins and Mona Haydar at their “Ask A Muslim” booth – photo courtesy of Mona Haydar

By Sebastian Robins

Mid-winter in New England sees about seven hours of daylight, and that’s only when the sun is shining. More often than not the skies are grey or spitting rain, and it feels like everyone and everything is contracting into itself, pulling up collars against the onslaught of winter, and keeping eyes down. It was into this darkness several weeks ago that my family and I arrived at my mom’s house south of Boston to help her recover from hip surgery.

We were between jobs and between homes. So we drove east and hunkered down in her seaside town, helped her get back on her feet and figure out what to do next with our lives.

At the time the news of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and the equally horrific responses and backlash, seemed to magnify the bleakness of the season. In the days and weeks that followed, we felt a collective darkness fall over ourselves and our country. As the solstice approached and the days shrank even more, we were paralyzed with fear, and we didn’t even know it.

We’d stay in the house for days at a time, not exactly deciding not to go out, but not making any plans either. We stopped reading the news, and my wife, Mona, shut down her Facebook page. She then re-opened it, vowing to avoid current events. I canceled my Times digital subscription and replaced the New Yorkers by my bed with a book of Rumi poems. We helped my mom, we played with our son and we let the small and mundane be the stuff of our days.

A few weeks later, we were bumping down the highway in our old Subaru, a rare excursion out of the house, leaving the quiet and conservatism of my mom’s town and heading into Cambridge. I could feel the inertia and calcification start to slough off and could taste some of the buzz of the city, when I remembered the story of Haider Hamza who, in the run up to the second Gulf War, traveled through the red states of rural America with a simple white booth and a sign reading “Ask an Iraqi” hand painted on top.

It had stuck with me: the simplicity and innocence of the Lucy-like lemonade stand, the vulnerability of the lone man in the booth, the timeliness of the whole thing. This nice guy, living in New York, who earnestly wanted to understand why “we” were invading “his” country. None of his friends were supportive of the war, and this just confused him more, so they told him to go south and talk to folks there. And he did.

I had drunk a lot of tea that morning, and Ali Farka Toure was coming clean through the car stereo. The sky was clear and our son was asleep in the backseat — reason alone to celebrate. “Let’s do it!” I told my wife. “I’ll build a booth. We’ll have a sign: ‘Confused about World Events? Ask a Muslim.’ And then next to us we’ll find someone to sit under a sign reading, ‘Ask A Responsible Gun Owner.’ We’ll just get to the heart of it, and give away donuts and coffee and see what happens.”

Well, we didn’t know any gun owners, responsible or otherwise, and we nixed “Confused About World Events,” because it sounded too pretentious. Besides, we didn’t want to talk about world events. We didn’t even want to talk about being Muslim, necessarily. I should have made a sign reading, “Ask a Human Being Who Happens to be Muslim,” but I only got that great suggestion a few weeks later.

Amazingly, my wife agreed. I found some white closet doors a neighbor had discarded and painted the lettering. On the first day we were planning to set up, it was pouring rain. Then I got sick, and then it rained some more. Out of a purely stubborn sense of desperation, I made us drive into Cambridge on a cold, drizzling day, praying the forecast for clearing up would be accurate. Even if we just set up for five minutes and go home, I thought, I’ll be happy. We have to do something. If it’s a failure, fine. We fail. But at least we will have tried.

Maybe I was even hoping for a failure, like the library shutting us down, or some heckler unnerving us, or everyone walking by, coldly ignoring our offerings.

We stopped at Dunkin Donuts and bought a Box o’ Joe and two dozen donuts. The man behind the counter was named Abdelrahim, which I decided was a good sign. We drove to the Cambridge Public Library, unloaded, set up the signs, and with hearts racing, stood there and waited.

In the first five minutes, we had two interactions which made the whole effort worth it. First, a student walked up to us, having just gotten out of classes for the day at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, adjacent to the library, the same school the Boston Marathon bombers had attended. He wore a backpack and held his phone nervously. He didn’t want a donut or a cup of coffee. He stood there for a moment, approached us and said, “I just wanted to say I’m Muslim, and I think what you’re doing is really cool.”

Next, a woman walked up. She, too, stayed back, as if she was composing herself. She approached us tentatively and was choked up with emotion, stuttering between tears and jubilation. “I just want to say thank you,” she said. “Thank you for doing this. I’m so sorry for what’s happening right now. I don’t know what to do. This is so great… Thank you.” And in that moment, I realized a few things.

First, we were going to stay out here until it got too dark or cold to stand it any longer. And second, I knew then we weren’t doing this to convince anyone that Muslims are good people, that Islam is really about peace, that we unequivocally condemn acts of terror, that we’re more terrified of ISIS than anyone else.

We weren’t trying to “convert” the intolerant. Instead, we were there to give a small morsel of hope to people who were also trying to come out of a dark place, who were also affected by world events, who, like us, were feeling depressed and hungry for some sense of sanity. We were doing it because sadness creates a need to mourn and connect. But our collective fear had kept us indoors and silent, heads down, surviving instead of grieving and sharing.

By now, I had helped myself to several cups of our own coffee, and the caffeine was mixing with the adrenaline. I wanted to jump up and hug both of these people, cry in the sense of shared humanity that is our birthright, that is always within grasp, and which gets so close after a tragedy.

I restrained myself, and more people arrived. They took a donut and coffee and apologized for not having a question. Others talked to us and apologized for refusing a treat (“gluten free,” “New Year’s Resolution,”). Maybe we should have brought fruit, I thought. Or chai. Or baklava.

More people came. More students, Muslim and non, from the school. More thank you’s and hugs. Debates about donuts versus crullers. Coffee versus tea. Handshakes and business cards. Stories of interfaith dialogue and interracial and inter-religious marriages. Jokes about Trump. Our son snuck donuts out of the box, and we let go of our feeble “no sugar” rule for the day.

We were baffled by the “success” our booth found online. At first it was thrilling, and then confounding, and then it was almost tragic. Like, are things really so bad out there that Muslims are afraid to be Muslim? Is dialogue so needed that free donuts, coffee and conversation makes the news? I was happy with the press, pleased to see the story in the papers and equally terrified when we were “covered” by Jihad Watch.

But somehow the success only underscored the gravity of the moment we were living in.

We went back the next day, and again two weeks later. Almost everyone who approached us was positive, sweet, curious. I thought the magic would be gone when we were filmed by Al Jazeera and “AJ+,” figuring the cameras would scare people away or bring out the real crazies. On that day, though, we started getting our first real questions about Islam, our faith our marriage.

People asked us earnestly what they could do to combat Islamophobia, what they should know about Muslims, and what were the most common misconceptions about Islam. Here I was, a convert of only three years, still figuring out my own place and identity within this grand religion, attempting to answer questions. I looked for Mona to help, but she was in her own conversations. So, I did my best.

As we continue with the project, we’re including students from the school and planning on visiting other schools. Mona is speaking at church services and youth events and continuing the work she’s done since long before the booth was conceived: Bringing a loving, inclusive and human voice to Islam and using poetry, dialogue and beauty to move beyond religion, beyond the labels and titles that divide.

And we’ve been most touched to learn that we’ve inspired others in the way that Haider Hamza inspired us: An open house at a Western Massachusetts mosque, “Meet A Muslim” events in Irvine, California (giving away free roses!) and a “Brotherly Cup of Tea” at a Paris mosque, inviting in the larger community.

We pray for the day when no person or group needs to set up these kinds of booths, when “outing” yourself in this way is not newsworthy, when curiosity and conversation among strangers are commonplace. Until then, may we inspire and encourage each other to share in this adventure of being human.

May we not be afraid to offer a stranger a free cup of coffee, and may we not be afraid to take one. And may we have the courage to look up, to shake off the wintry fears and find light in every dark corner.

Sebastian Robins is a dad, freelance writer, and amateur bicycle enthusiast. He taught elementary school and university students in the Bay Area for ten years before moving to New Mexico. There he served as the director of Lama Foundation, an inter- spiritual, off-the-grid intentional community and retreat center. He currently lives south of Boston with his wife and son.

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