'Croatophobia'

Zadar airport where we landed wasn't impressive. It was the smallest one I've been to in my whole short life, and we got through the passport checks rather easily, although the Croatian security officers weren't too friendly. This is maybe my biggest fault: I'm exceedingly judgmental to these people. How can I not do so when they have hurt my brothers and sisters so badly in 1993? However hard I tried to ignore it, I still appeared very vivid to me. Croats and their atrocities. Croats and their aggressions. Croats this, and Croats that..

Despite this self-celebrated phobia that I had, I managed to make friends with some Croats while waiting for the bus to Split. Ficky and Anna are both Anglicized Croats; they were born in the Balkans but prefer to spend their lives in English speaking countries, if not England. The four of us settled at a foodstall, with our luggages abandoned very untidily around us. After a short while the two Croats ordered alcohol- it quickly rang in my mind the belief in Malaysia that even sitting with drinkers is haram. I browsed through my mental library for a hadith to support such opinion, but in such an important situation, found none. The hadith prohibiting drink, sales or any help in selling alcohol was definitely there, and I didn't see how it would prohibit us from sitting with these Croats. After all I have all these worries about the Croats slaughtering us Muslims, and at that time wasn't in any way ready to give our Islamic identities up. Even then I was sure that they could 'smell' Islam from our reactions..

The night was getting late, and we haven't performed our obligatory prayers- an action that would announce to the whole residence of Zadar that we were Muslims. If we only refrained from drinking or eating pork, it doesn't make an absolutely clear indication of our religion. As far as I know, some strict Christians and many Jews would do the same. But praying is different. Only Muslims would pray at a time when nobody else does, only us would humbly set our foreheads on the ground. No sane men would perform such rituals just anywhere, especially in difficult times, or at times you do not know what to expect. We knew nothing about the Balkans except for the brutal, wicked war. We had two options; to obediently worship Allah there and then or wait until we reach our hostel in Split to pray there. On second thought, the second option itself is very vague and uncertain- we never knew what will happen in the middle of a 3 hour journey. And we never knew what was going to happen in Split, especially with us arriving in the deep hours of the night. Eventually we decided to brave the first option, and Allah did not make it hard for us. We could never be sure of our safety, but we were confident that Allah's protection is above any other powers the world could ever muster.

After the prayers, we rejoined the two Croats. It was easy to tell from Anna's eyes that she had suspected us to be Muslims. On the other hand, Ficky was oblivious. Maybe she didn't know much about Islam or the Muslims. But how could she not know, when the media has been shouting everywhere about these 'merciless terrorists'? I waited and waited for an immediate reaction from them, but nothing to that effect surfaced. In fact they continued to help us around to find the right bus to take, until we were safely on board. "Maybe everything about them was only my imagination", I thought to myself. "Hvala Anna and Ficky, and sorry for my ill thoughts," I said to myself quietly.