I had the great honor of being one of six Christians invited as observers to the Seattle area celebration of Eid al-fitr which marks the end of Ramadan. The celebration itself is an opportunity for muslims after a month of fasting to rejoice for the blessings they have gained during the fasting and is often a time to focus on charity and giving in thanks for those blessings. The gathering at the Washington Convention Center today brought together somewhere between 5000 and 8000 muslims from the region to pray and celebrate together.
People arrived in a steady steam for the event starting just before 9am. It was a bustle of activity as people greeted friends and family and found their way to a spot in the vast convention hall. As my small group of invited guests gathered in the lobby listening to the Adhan blaring through the loudspeakers calling everyone to prayer, we were quickly spotted by the press as outsiders and approached for interviews. They asked the obvious questions about the Mosque near ground zero and the pastor in Florida who might burn a Quran and what we might say to him. I appreciated one of my colleagues who simply asked that the pastor read the gospels again and see what it tells him. It was a nice chance for us as Christians to lift up our view, which is not always the one that gets portrayed and to be clear about our support. For me it was a chance to talk about shared beliefs and values like love of neighbor and peace as fellow children of Abraham and as “People of the Book,” a message which was reinforced by the speaker about an hour later. The call to prayer lasted for nearly an hour as they tried to get people into the hall and organized. As they made the call to line up for prayer (the iqama) we were ushered in to sit on a raised platform off to the side and near the back. It was an interesting perspective for us and gave us a view out over the entire hall. There was no mention of who we were or why were there, but people seemed to know anyway or at least to sense (and notice) that we had been set apart.

The prayer began around 10am and it was beautiful to watch as thousands of people prayed, bowed and prostrated themselves in unison. The men were in front and the women in back, a sea of colorful hijabs and flowing gowns, in near perfect lines moving up and down like waves. There is no jostling for position and even as late comers rushed to join in they were either melded into a line or they quickly formed a new one and got into the rhythm of things. The joyful exception to the lines were the hundreds of adorable children dressed in their best; some trying to partcipate and others just absorbing the atmosphere. For those who haven’t experienced it the prayer is not long but it can be powerful; especially in a vast hall with thousands all focused on one God together. In some places on Eid the prayer is followed by a message about unity or something along those lines while in others people simply pray then go off to be with family. Today’s message was about being the best neighbor you can be (this sounded oftly familiar to me as my own faith tradition teaches me the commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself”). The speaker talked about Moses and Jesus and told a story about a Jewish neighbor reinforcing in numerous ways an ethic of love and compassion. He was clear that he was addressing a muslim audience, but the message rang out well beyond in it’s scope and as I said before it could have been given in many a church or synagogue without much change.

During the message many of the people got up to leave and we were overwhelmed, sitting on our raised dias, by the numbers of men, women and children who came over to thank us for being there and to express their sincere welcome and appreciation. I told one of my colleagues that it felt like Sunday after church when my church members file past me to shake my hand and to give their greetings and thanks for the message, only this time I hadn’t really done anything or at least I didn’t feel like I had. Obviously though to many of those gathered having us show up really was something. It was a precious moment as parents brought their kids to shake our hands and they offered us a message of peace and unity. It was after all why we were there. It wasn’t so much about witnessing the event, it was about simply being there to say, “we care, we support you and we are your neighbors” (keep in mind what we say about our neighbors).
I am profoundly thankful for the opportunity to be there and in a world where there is much that is misunderstood I am thankful for a chance to be clear even if just by my pressence. I have often said that it is much harder to hate someone when you know them and I think it is critical that we find ways to be together as individuals and as faith communities so that hate and ignorance can be defeated. All this weekend there are many more showing of love than hate going on and I hope those are what gets lifted up. We are neighbors and we all need to (as the speaker said) be the best neighbors we can be.