God is God

Many many years ago, the first time I stepped foot in Cairo, I met someone called Ibrahim. He wore a suit and tie, had a shortly clipped beard and moustache and, with his precise enunciation of every English word, sounded more Indian than Egyptian. He was one of those people who had the ability to talk at length about any subject even if he knew next to nothing about it – a skill that is even more impressive in a language that is not your first. He would speak to anyone for hours on end about any number of things and his English, along with his grooming, was impeccable. On top of that, he was the only local I had met who was not a chain-smoker. He was well travelled, perceptive and had many things to say that were worth hearing.

And then there was his friend Medhat, who was like a roll of sticky tape whose end could never be found. Such a peculiar soul. So many different people rolled into one body.

The day I met Medhat, I had been sitting in Amira Coffee Shop (which no longer exists) deeply engrossed in conversation with Ibrahim who, although I had met him only the day before, already considered himself to be in my inner circle of friends. That’s what it’s like in Egypt… strangers in the morning, close friends by evening.

“Medhat,” said Ibrahim as he introduced us, “can read your palm.” So I shrugged and held out my hand. Medhat called over the waiter and asked for a pen, which he used to scrutinize my hand without having to touch it and possibly cause offence.

More than two hours passed before Medhat dropped his pen and declared he had finished. "You are an open book to me. You think you have secrets, but I see everything. I see thoughts you do not even realize you are having." Okay.

Talking about life and fate and choices, our conversation soon steered towards their religious beliefs. Medhat and Ibrahim wove their words together as though they were one person, finishing each other's sentences with ease, each picking up the other's explanations and elaborating on them.

The cornerstone of their life, they said, is their unquestioned belief in one God. For them this was not just a belief but an undeniable fact. Alternatives were never pondered. "Christians use the word God, Jews use the word Yahveh, Muslims use the word Allah," said Ibrahim. "They are just three different words for the same being."

Just as water is still water whether you call it water, maya, agua, eau or something else. It doesn’t change what it is. Water is water. And God is God.

“God,” said Ibrahim, “is still the same God, no matter what name you use, no matter what religion you follow."

I asked them many questions, and for each one they had a detailed and eloquent answer. “Islam,” Medhat stressed, “is not just a religion. It is a way of life. If you accept that you also accept that Allah controls the fate of the universe and everything in it.”

“So there’s no freedom of choice?” I asked. Maybe this helped explain the general laissez-faire attitude I had seen around me.

“Everything that will happen is already written,” said Ibrahim. “But people are still free to make their own choices.”

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend Adora a few days ago, about how difficult it is to marry these two concepts of pre-destiny and free choice together. We came to the conclusion that perhaps it could be that while the destination is already written, the journey you take to get there is your free will and depends on the choices and decisions you make along the way.

Growing up, Islam had always seemed so complicated and inaccessible; a strangely cultish religion that had no point of familiarity for me. Years later, when I met these people, I realized that the source of my impressions had been nothing more than a knowledge gap.

The more they told me, the more I understood the way my new friends lived their lives. When you see Paradise and Hell as tangible places and know to your core that the true rewards come after death, it’s not difficult to forfeit a little in this life. The promise of no earthly limitations for eternity makes any restrictions during the physical years seem a small price to pay. And yet around me I still witnessed a sense of general restlessness and frustration. The belief that fate is decided for you in advance by a force that surrounds you, watches you and, it seems, inhabits your very soul, seemed to often manifest as a lack of purpose and searching for anything else.

But obviously I was seeing them through my eyes - and it made me wonder how I was viewed through theirs.