A Jordanian Journey: Eid Mubarak!

Hey Everyone,

This post is all about Eid. The last time I posted, I said that I wanted to tell you about the massive holiday happening in the Muslim world right now, but I was sick. This is the real deal. Get ready.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I will likely get a lot of things about the holiday wrong in this post. Sorry.

This Eid (celebration) is all about the Hajj to Mecca, a pilgrimage Muslims are required to do once in their lifetime. It's a big deal. Everyone watches it on TV, including my family. If I understand it correctly, the Hajj involves one day in which everyone doing the pilgrimage spends a day standing on a mountain about 10 kilometers from the Ka'aba in Mecca. Those that aren't in Mecca fast. I didn't because I was sick, and my mom didn't, because she didn't want to. Watching it on TV was really interesting. The soundtrack consisted of Allah Hu Akbar (God is great) over and over and over and over and over again, and I actually got into it. According to the english subtitles on the bottom of the screen, about 50,000 people tried to get into Mecca without the proper permits from the Saudi government, no massive health crisis had emerged yet (although free food, water, medical care was being provided--thanks oil money).

The morning after the fast, the holiday begins. In America, we think that massive national holidays mean parades and public celebration. You sleep in, relax, sit in the park, etc. In Jordan, it works a bit differently.

Mosque With Mama - This section will talk about my experience going to mosque with my host mother. Goys, you won't understand a lot of it. Sorry I'm not sorry.

I woke up at 6:30 to go to mosque with my mother. As a person that has been raised knowing that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all believe in one God, this was a really cool opportunity to practice that. I put on my traditional thob and my mom put a hijab on my head. I looked in the mirror at a girl I had not seen before. In the badia I wore a hijab but it didn’t feel genuine. It felt like I was putting on a costume. This time, for some reason, I didn’t feel like I was wearing a costume.

Me and my host mom outside of the mosque

My mom and I walked into a room that had maybe 20 people in it. Allah hu akbar was blasting over the speaker. On repeat. While Jews daven for a good hour to warm up into the service, Muslims use this mantra to get them into the right mindset. I kind of liked it. I asked my mom if it would be OK if I didn’t participate, and she said that there would be no problems—or that I could do as she did. Mush Mushkilah.

There were about 300 people in the room, organically organized in rows with about three or four feet between each one. Regarding dress, for prayer, I learned in the badia that women must cover everything except for their hands and faces. Women that were wearing a nikab before entering were showing their faces, but nothing else. At a few points, I noticed women adjusting the scarves of women in front of them to ensure that the skin on the back of their necks/upper backs weren’t showing. For the first time in Jordan, I actually felt that I looked as though I belonged. I was dressed as everyone else was and wasn’t getting weird looks for being an American. It was kind of nice.

At 7AM sharp (the only time anything has happened on time in Jordan), the voice on the speakers changed. Over the speaker, a man’s voice was singing what I assume was koranic verses. Like doing a sequence of yoga poses, the women in the room brought their hands to their heads seven times saying allah hu akbar, and then bent at the waist, continuing to say allah hu akbar. As I didn’t want to stand out, I decided to go through the motions with my host mom.

As I did so, I was thinking a lot about monotheism. If Jews and Muslims are praising the same god (Allah/elohim), is there a problem with me praising god in a different way? I don’t understand the majority of Hebrew language in prayers, so why does it matter if I don’t understand what they are saying in Arabic? Allah hu akbar—I agree—god is the best. Let’s praise god!

I bowed at the waist, knelt to the ground and put my head down, listening to the singing of the voice over the speaker. It was a really cool spiritual experience. It felt like a guided meditation, but my guides were simply the women around me. I did as they did, and I loved the kinesthetic experience of praying. I thought about the problems that the American Jewish community is facing with people not feeling any connection to ritual life and realized that Muslim prayer solves that problem. Not only is it a meditative exercise, but it was over in less than 15 minutes. I loved it. I felt very whole, very content spiritually, and as though I had had an awesome experience—and I didn’t say a word.

The only issue that I had with it is that the women responded to a male voice that rang out through a speaker, absent of a body. It was an uber mechitzah. This didn’t bother me until after the prayer was over and the sermon happened.

Without a person appearing in the room, a sheikh/imam/spiritual leader’s voice rang out over the speaker and spoke in Arabic. My problem was not so much that it was a man speaking to a room full of women—that’s called the world. Male leaders talk to women all the time. My problem was that the speech was from an omnipresent voice, without a body that we could see, the implication being that women should listen to a male voice, regardless of where it comes from.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t understand what the guy was saying. I was, however, able to pick out a few key phrases. Firstly, the word Salam (peace), was said a million times. He mentioned Mohammad, Ibrahim, Ishmael, etc. At one point, He said impassionately that he hoped that allah would bring peace to Syria, Palestine, Somalia, Kenya, and a lot of other Muslim countries. I was loving it. And then I got scared—I heard him say yehud a few times.

I asked my host mother later what he was talking about. Apparently, he mentioned that some Jews had entered the al aqsa compound and desecrated it by praying with their shoes on there. I know that the Jews didn’t enter the mosque, but I hate the idea of using prayer as a political statement. I also really dislike that the omnipotent voice said Jews and not Israelis, as I have noticed that in the Arab world there is often a lack of knowledge about the distinction between these too groups, but whatever.

Sheep Slaughter Time

The hajj is tied to the story of the binding of Ismael. As it says in the holy book(s), Abraham takes his son up a mountain and nearly sacrifices him--but instead, he sacrifices a sheep that god sends. Afterwards, Abraham essentially left his concubine Hagar and their son Ismael in the desert in the middle of nowhere. This place is said to have been in a spring in Mecca. I'm not sure on the details, but I'm gonna go with it, in addition to not disputing whether Abraham/Ibrahim almost sacrificed Ishmael or Isaac.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the fact that Muslims commemorate this event by LEGITIMATELY SLAUGHTERING A SHEEP.

There are roadside places where families can pay about 300 JD ($400) to have a person slaughter the sheep in a hallal way, sheer it for them, etc. 1/3 of the meat goes to the family, 1/3 to relatives, and 1/3 to the poor. Many people can only eat meat on Eid because of the third of the animals that goes to the poor. I asked my family if we were going to do this, and they said no for financial reasons, but when I said that I wanted to see it, they decided to take me after mosque.

It was gruesome, but I actually really liked it. Here's why.

I think that the most ethical way to eat meat is to understand the process from which an animal goes from being a living being to a delicious thing on a plate. Watching the alive to dead process will make the eater appreciate the source quite a bit more. The second picture here shows a man that had just slaughtered the sheep holding it, making sure that it suffers as little time as possible. Seeing him emotionally respond to taking the life of the sheep was heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time.

Furthermore, they use every part of the animal to ensure as little as possible goes to waste.

Eid: Visiting Family/Sitting Around

After this, we went home, had breakfast, and then sat at home for the day as various members of the family stopped by. That's what the day is about--family visiting family. Whenever people showed up, parents gave cash to the kids and dished out copious amounts of chocolates, deserts, etc. It was kind of fun to see so many people throughout the course of the day. I thought it would be more exciting, but it's OK. The night god interesting, because Eid was also my host sister's 21st birthday.

21st Birthday Party

Eid was my sister's 21st birthday. They don't drink booze (and the legal age is 18), so it's not really a big deal. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she didn't say anything, so I asked my mom--who said buy some sweets or pastries or something. My brother Ahmed and I I decided to buy her a birthday cake.

On the way to grandma's house, we stopped at the bakery, and purchased a cake. The baker put it in a box and into a plastic bag, and my brother picked it up--promptly turning this beautiful cake on its side. My mother and I laughed, gave it back to the baker, and he salvaged it as much as he could. When he was done, my brother picked it up, walked out the door, and promptly dropped it.

It was possibly the funniest thing I've experienced in Jordan with my family, mostly becuase for the first time, I wasn't the butt of the joke. When we told the family the story, they laughed and laughed--AND IT WASN'T AT MY EXPENSE! It's cruel for me to say this, but it was really nice to be in on a joke with my family about someone else.