The Comfort Call

In Sami's opinion, prayer time always came at exactly the wrong moment.

It came just as his marble run was nearly finished. It came just as the den in the living room got its roof. "Sami! Time for salah!" Baba would call, and Sami would groan, "Not now, Baba! I'm in the middle of something!"

Then came the worst Saturday ever.

It was a grey, drizzly Glasgow morning, and the pitch at the park was more puddle than grass. Sami's team lost two goals to one. Right at the end, the ball rolled straight to Sami's feet in front of the goal, and he missed. Completely.

"You lost us the match!" shouted his friend Callum.

"You never even pass to me!" Sami shouted back.

They stomped off without saying goodbye.

At home, Sami slumped on the sofa with a face like a thundercloud. Baba wasn't much happier. He was on the phone to the garage about the clanking car, and his forehead was crumpled like an old crisp packet.

"Right," said Baba, putting the phone down. "Dhuhr time, son."

Sami made wudu and prayed beside Baba, but only his body was on the mat. His head was still on that soggy pitch, missing the ball again and again. He finished just as grumpy as before.

But Baba sat a little longer, quiet and still. When he turned round, the crumples had gone from his forehead. His face looked like the Glasgow sky when the sun finally pushes through.

"Baba," said Sami, "how come you're not cross any more? The car's still broken."

Baba smiled. "Because I've just had a rest."

"A rest? You were standing and bowing and everything!"

Baba laughed. "You know Bilal, who called the adhan? The Prophet ﷺ said to him, 'O Bilal, call iqamah for prayer: give us comfort by it.'"

"What's the iqamah again?" asked Sami.

"The second call, just before the prayer begins. Now listen. The Prophet ﷺ didn't say, 'Give us a rest FROM it,' as if prayer were a job to get over with. He said, 'Give us comfort BY it.' The prayer itself is the rest, the comfort."

Sami thought about that. "But prayer always comes in the middle of things."

"Maybe," said Baba gently, "that's so we can have a rest in the middle of things. When I'm on the mat, the car can wait outside. For a few minutes, it's just me and Allah."

When Asr came, Sami didn't groan. He made wudu slowly, and the cool water felt lovely on his hot cheeks. He stood beside Baba, and as Baba said the iqamah softly, Sami remembered the words of the Prophet ﷺ: give us comfort by it.

He let the match wait outside. He let Callum wait outside. And as he raised his hands for Allahu Akbar, everything inside him hushed, like the moment rain stops drumming on the window. Then he said each word carefully.

Afterwards, the lost match still felt sad, but smaller. And Sami could see that losing wasn't all his fault, and the shouting wasn't all Callum's. They had both been unkind.

"Tomorrow," he told Baba, "I'm going to say sorry to Callum."

Baba squeezed his shoulder. "That sounds like a rested heart talking."

That night, after Isha, rain pattered softly on the window as Sami snuggled under his duvet. Tomorrow there would be a sorry to say, muddy boots to clean, and five prayers, like five little resting places dotted through his busy day.

But all that was for tomorrow. Sami gave a big, slow yawn and drifted off to sleep.