An imported Imam ruined my friend and my evening, his arrival left me worried about our community’s children.
It was an odd hour for my friend Raihana to call me. It was late at night. We generally speak in the afternoon during lunch break from work. Evenings are busy with home chore. We both are busy with our children, making dinner and sending kids to bed. Then, cleaning up and getting ready for the next day.
Something Is Wrong
I was sure it must be something important and hoped all was well. Raihana and I had been friends for a long time. We lived close by so we helped each other whenever the other was occupied with work or had an emergency. Our children were in the same schools and were close friends.
As soon as I heard her voice on the other side of the line, I knew something was wrong. She requested me to pick her children from school and take them to my home. She had a conference to go to in the evening. Her husband Ali who worked late that night was unable to help out.
Airport Run To Bring An Imam!
He had been asked by one of the local Mosques -through a friend- to go to the airport. He had to pick up the new Imam coming from Pakistan to teach children at that Mosque.
What was most disturbing was not that Ali was called in at the last minute. It was rather that they had to send someone all the way to the gate of the plane, to escort the Imam out and help him with the immigration. The Imam did not converse in English and probably could not even read English.
Shocked: Alien Imam in Alien Land
We were both shocked that an Imam who is coming to America, invited with a work Visa to teach at an American Mosque did not know English. He did not even enough of the modern world to be able to get himself through immigration without someone’s help.
I went to bed wondering . . . how would American Muslim children relate to an imported Imam? How would they connect with someone who does not know American culture, or language? I also wondered what it would be like for him to live here. I was very concerned because I was sure the children he would teach cannot relate to an Imam so foreign to their world.
Protecting My Children
Maybe, I thought to myself, it would be a breach of privacy if I asked Raihana which Mosque is this Imam going to work at. I wanted to make sure that it’s not our Mosque where our children goes to for Sunday school.
This thought didn’t help much since even if it won’t be our children, it’s still was disturbing that we cannot have Imams taught and trained in America. People who shared the same experiences as us, who can be role models for our children.
In theory, at least, those educated in America are more likely to know what’s it like to be an American Muslim. And probably, what an American Muslim needed, rather than the needs of someone back in Pakistan.