Blood and Baseball

Ahmed saw his friend Omar waiting for him in the usual place in the courtyard of the Regents Park mosque in London.

"As-salamu alaykum Ahmed, I missed you at Fajr," said Omar. Ahmed nodded in response to his friend's greeting.

Ahmed and Omar stood in the main courtyard just outside the prayer hall. The vast hall could accommodate 5000 men and people could be seen moving in through the open door of the hall. Women in hijabs were also present in large numbers today and would pray from the broad balconies overlooking the hall. A vast carpet lay on the floor of the hall conveniently segregated into squares of red and cream to designate each worshipper's place of prayer.

"Peace be upon you also Omar, Allah sees all, I prayed at home this dawn," said Ahmed. Ahmed was clean-shaven and wore jeans and a smart close fitting white shirt while the chubbier Omar had a neatly trimmed beard and was dressed more traditionally in a blue kurta and brown pajama trousers with a white topi prayer hat.

"You know it is not the same, it shows a lack of discipline that you could not make it to mosque." Omar looked irritated. But then he always looked a little grumpy, Ahmed reflected.

"Well, I am here for the noon prayers." Ahmed tried to sound positive.

"You mean Zuhr," Omar corrected him.

"No I mean noon prayers, we are in England and if our faith means anything then it has to translate into the English culture. So no I will not be attending Asr, Maghrib, or Isha Salah but you may well see me for the afternoon, dusk, or bedtime prayers." This was an ongoing discussion between the pair of them. Ahmed was quite integrated into British culture while Omar was not.

"Too much is lost in translation. You know that. The eloquence and poetry of the Quran cannot be properly expressed in English words," Omar said.

"Well we disagree, anyway did you hear the news?" Ahmed replied looking to change the subject.

"No what happened?" Omar looked irritated at being deflected like this.

"A journalist took a photo of a baseball in the garden in front of the Saudi embassy in Charles Square," said Ahmed.

"So what?" replied Omar.

"Well, what has baseball to do with the Hanafi's prescription to focus on Camel, horse, arrow and foot? The necessary training sports for the camel archers that defeated the Persian and Roman empires," Ahmed grinned as he spoke, he would play with his friend a little before sharing his main point.

"Nothing, I do not get your point, it is better to think about Allah than waste your time and energy on useless sports." Omar rolled his eyes.

"But the prophet wanted us to train for war so that we could engage in jihad. The thing is no one rides horses these days in battle, we fire guns and missiles, not arrows. Battles today occur on land sea and sky. So maybe the prophet today would say something like practice shooting, driving cars, planes and boats, running and swimming?" Ahmed was trying to make the point about adapting to the times in a way that he hoped Omar would understand.

"Maybe, the focus on Allah and Salah still seems the priority in his teaching. Anyway even if I conceded the point about sports what has this to do with baseball and why would a Western journalist, finding a baseball in the garden of the Saudi embassy, be interesting?" Omar replied.

"Because no one in this country plays baseball they play cricket." Ahmed motioned as if holding a cricket bat and then stopping a ball just before the wicket, he grinned at Omar.

"Again so what?" Omar was clearly growing impatient and his face reddened slightly with the rage that was always there and not far from the surface of his features. Ahmed knew from experience that Omar was done with playing games.

"The baseball was covered in blood. An American journalist has gone missing, last seen entering the Saudi embassy with a present for the ambassador there. The Ambassador is reputed to be a baseball fan and even owns a team back in Saud. Reports indicate that the present was a baseball signed by Sam Khalifa the only Muslim baseball player to play in the Major Leagues in the USA," Amed noted Omar's interest and continued,
"But what the Saudis did not know was that before this missing journalist went into the embassy he asked a colleague to wait outside for him with a camera. This friend heard a window smash in the embassy and saw this baseball fly out, blood and all onto the lawn in front. He took a picture of it through a gap in the trees. The American journalist never came out of the embassy. But this baseball with signature and blood made the front pages."

"How long ago was this?" Omar asked.

"We have been waiting for a week for the journalist to return. The Americans have launched an international complaint and summoned the Saudi ambassador in London to a meeting with the American ambassador there."

"Well even if they murdered him what has that to do with us, we are from Pakistan." Omar shrugged.

"The Americans are very angry, this journalist was a household name and the Saudis recently cut oil production and are rumored to be working in collusion with Putin's Russia to keep the price of oil and gas high. The Americans are talking in terms of rethinking their alliance with Saudia Arabia and this might just be the incident that pushes them over the edge. The British are siding with them and feelings are running high right now against all Muslims." said Ahmed.

Omar raised his hands in a movement of indifference, palms skyward. "People are always angry at Muslims and we have even more reason to be angry at them. But come on, over a lousy baseball!? Westerners are so shallow, maybe that infidel journalist blasphemed Allah or said something stupid about the prophet."

"Oh, he did that the week before he went in, he quoted Kemal Ataturk saying that the Quran was little better than the 'shallow theology of an immoral Bedouin' in an opinion article in his paper. People from this mosque took part in the protests in fact. I am really surprised you never noticed all this. The journalist was a dual national American - Saudi and he thought that his Saudi passport was the reason why the Saudi ambassador called him for discussions." Ahmed added.

"No, I missed all this. I spent a lot of time studying the Quran and in prayers the last week and I had no time for TV or protests. But I guess the Saudis would not take too kindly to apostates or atheists mocking our faith...Anyway, why is this any of your business?" Omar quizzed.

"Good grief Omar, you really never leave this mosque do you? Surely you know that I am a journalist? That journalist was my friend and I was the one who took the picture. Outside there in the real world, everyone is talking about this." Ahmed pointed out of the entrance to the mosque as he spoke.

Omar processed the information in silence. Then after a pause, he shrugged looking toward the prayer hall, "Zuhr will start soon, we should find a space and get ready. You coming?"


Notes ▼

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