This life we live, this same life they are missing

In our direction, I hoped, would appear the Katedrala that Sanadin made our mission to look for. Behind us was the mosque where we were forced to pray on its paved corridor, an experience I value more than my writings would read. With a few more passers-by, we performed our act of submission to the one and only God, consistently declaring His unity without a flinch. It was indeed amazing to think and rethink about; that half a dozen men, strangers to each other, could congregate, organise, and arrange themselves with full discipline and linearity in a matter of seconds. Their legs walked them to the mosques with an appointment- one and the same; a quick but special moment with their common and only Creator, the Sublime, worthy of all praise.

As we walked leaving the mosque, its environ nevertheless was still shrouding us. I might have set my eyes to look for the Katedrala, but my ears were still hearing splashes from the continuously flowing water we used to complete our ablution. Even at times when the mosque was locked, its refreshing water did not stop to flow, like a river during a pitch-dark night. I wonder if it was an act of wasting which the Prophet abhorred us much from doing, or was it merely an extension of the Rijeka Miljacka, running only two dozen metres away from Ali Pasha's tomb.

To spend a moment with God out of the many hours He gave us in a day is something the proud can not appreciate- neither will they. I might have not travelled as far to comment much on this, but Allah has granted me vigilant senses, enough to notice a common trait in remarkably many non-Muslims. At home, when Muslims busied themselves with performing the obligatory evening prayers, they were restless. During long flights, when Muslims went one after another to the lavatories to make ablutions, they stared at the empty air. Muslims schedule themselves to a 5-daily appointments with God, and they wait for a once-weekly 'de-stressing' on a Friday night. Every now and then their hearts lurch, demanding its right from them, but they ignored and neglected it. They could have tuned their ears to listen to the reminders from the Quran, or task their eyes to observe a Muslim, or work their brains to appreciate this way of life- but they tune, task, and work not. Their hearts are blind, sitting in a veil they themselves created- and incessantly defended. They don't dare to walk out of their pride, lest they will lose the sovereignty they wrongly awarded for themselves.

“And We remove whatever rancour may be in their hearts. Rivers flow beneath them. And they say: The praise to Allah, Who hath guided us to this. We could not truly have been led aright if Allah had not guided us. Verily the messengers of our Lord did bring the Truth. And it is cried unto them: This is the Garden. Ye inherit it for what ye used to do.” (al-A'raaf: 43)