Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [32]
The Arab way was the Islamic way, I told myself, and nodded. The qari then began to teach me how to gutturally pronounce the three Arabic letters most difficult for an Urdu speaker to master: the ein, the ha, and the qaf. After half an hour of lessons, I was instructed to go sit near the wall and practice saying those three letters for the remaining eight hours of the schoolday. From time to time as the hours passed, Qari Jamil, with laughter in his voice, said my name loudly to the class.
Abir ul Islam.
Like it was a joke.
Urine caused tremendous concern to all Islamic worshippers and was an object of great disdain at the madrassa. In fact, after I learned the pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet, my second major lesson had been about liquid excrement.
The first principle of urine was that you couldn’t ever let a single drop get on your clothes, because that would immediately render them impure and you wouldn’t be able to make prayer without changing clothes.
The second principle of urine was that you couldn’t ever let a single drop get on your skin, because every part of your body that urine had touched would have to be burned in hellfire before you could regain purity.
The third principle of urine was that you had to recite a certain prayer before going to the bathroom, because if you didn’t, you allowed jinns to take over your spirit. This happened because jinns were particularly active, and your defenses were particularly weak, when urine was flowing. The prayer read: Allahumma inni aoozo bika min al khubusi wal khabais: “O Allah, I seek refuge with you from all evil and evildoers.” There was also a prayer for when you finished urinating. I was required to memorize that as well.
The fourth principle of urine was that you could touch your penis only with your left hand, because it was the devil’s hand.
The fifth principle of urine was that you had to wash up with water afterwards, an act called istunja.
The final principle of urine was that you couldn’t urinate standing up, because that increased the likelihood of the first and second principles being violated. The proper way to urinate—the way I was taught at the madrassa—involved getting down in a squat, spreading your legs, keeping your shalwar out of the way with your right hand, and directing your stream by holding your penis with the left. Then you used your right hand to pour water on your organ as you rubbed it clean with your left. Afterwards you washed your hands, saying a shorter prayer as you scrubbed: “O Allah, I seek refuge with you from the devil.”
When I began at the madrassa, I heard and practiced the lessons about urine with great fervor, making a dedicated effort to avoid getting even a single drop on my clothes or skin. I drank as much water as I could so that I could practice the squatting technique.
Mastering the art of urination wasn’t easy, but it was the way of Islam and therefore I had to know it.
Back in class we learned about a method for memorizing the Quran based on the architecture of the Holy Book.
Each of the Quran’s thirty juz—volumes—were split into fourths. The first fourth was called arba; the second fourth was called nisf; the third fourth was called salasa. Each fourth was composed of four sections called rukus.
A student began memorizing the thirtieth juz first, because it contained the shortest verses. Then he went to the twenty-ninth juz, where the verses were a little longer. After a student had perfectly memorized the last two juzes, he began memorizing from the first juz onward. Memorizing the entire Quran in little quadratic sections like this could take anywhere from two to eight years. The average was around five.
My class was split between part-time and full-time students. Full-timers studied from dawn till night with breaks for prayer