A Muslim girl walks into a Church and has an Epiphany.
By: Zinnia Bukhari - De Sousa
Tags: The Lion King 2019, Islam, Style, Christianity, Religion

Photo by the Author, but not from the baptism this piece is about

You’d think that one would arrive well in time to observe an infant’s purification and initiation into the fold of the Catholic Church, but you’d be wrong. I was, religiously in keeping with my personal tradition of being fashionably late to everything, tardy on this occasion too. I kept my head down as I rushed into the nave of Saint Stephen’s Roman Catholic church in Milburn, New Jersey; my efforts to make myself as unobtrusive as possible failing miserably.

Amplified by the emptiness of a chamber meant for 950, the sound of my heels clacking on the marble floors echoed down the aisle. As I slid into one of the pews in the back, I remember thinking ‘I bet this is why Muslims never wear shoes inside mosques — so you can sneak in late without causing hundreds of admonishing heads to swivel in your direction. Crafty.’

This wasn’t my first time in a Church — far from it. I spent hours in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, musing over whether I was literally walking in Lady Diana Spencer’s footsteps; on whether she had tread exactly where I walked as she became the Princess of Wales. I had quietly slipped into Saint Thomas on 5th Avenue last August to say a quick prayer and light a candle for my father on the occasion of his fifth death anniversary. I had found myself walking past it and it had seemed apt in that moment. This was, however, the first time I was attending a baptism for a member of my own family — a family that had recently expanded through marriage onto not only another continent, but also into an entirely foreign religious tradition.

One of the first things I noticed were the numerous copies of the Bible and prayer books in the slots behind each pew. To do such a thing with the Quran would be considered sacrilegious by many Muslims. In some parts of the world, heads would roll at a display of such blatant disrespect for a book Muslim deem as holy as the God whose words are contained within it A book that one should never pick up without performing a ritual ablution, a book that a menstruating woman is never supposed to touch and a book that is to be stored in the highest shelf in a room so one never unknowingly points their feet towards it while sleeping. So, to see a collection of dog-eared Bibles, some falling apart at the spines, crammed into the backs of furniture that people sit on would be unheard of in the part of the world that I come from.

What is strikingly similar though, is the existence of rites and rituals that determine the religion of a child before they are even old enough to say the word God. In Islam, when a child is a few hours old, a male member of the immediate family recites the Azaan, the Muslim call to prayer, in the child’s ear. The Arabic words, exalting Allah and testifying to his oneness, become one of the first sounds that a Muslim infant hears in this life. Some parts of the call to prayer literally translate into ‘Come towards prayer and success’ and after it is said in its entirety the child is believed to be an official member of the Muslim faith. Now, a newborn that has just left the dark, quiet shelter of its mother’s womb does not enjoy having anything chanted into its ear. As was apparent by the number of crying babies in the church, an infant doesn’t enjoy having a fully-clothed bath either. Perhaps babies just don’t appreciate anyone staking a claim over their immortal soul before they’re sentient enough to decide for themselves.

Photo by the Author

For the Greeks, water was the first of the elements and the beginning of all things. In alchemy, it is the primal liquid underlying existence. In magic and esoteric tradition, water is the domain of the archangel Gabriel and is associated with emotion and intuition. In religion, it is purifying and a catalyst for spiritual regeneration. For the Hindus, water is the elixir of immortality; one of the panchamahabhuta (5 great elements of nature). The River Ganges is sacred, worshipped as a goddess who cleanses the sins of all who bathe in her - regardless of caste or creed. In Buddhism, water is the final offering given to a monk, placed in a bowl before the dead. In Judaism, total immersion is performed in ‘living water’ such as that of a sea or spring, to restore the body to a state of purity.

In Islam wudu, the ritual ablution is performed 5 times a day prior to prayer to cleanse the body of its physical and spiritual grime. Muslims have their own version of Holy Water stemming from a spring that flows under the Kaaba in Mecca, called Aab-e-ZamZam. It has flown for thousands of years and its origin is explained by a parable that is just as ancient. Ishmail, the infant son of Abraham, was lost in the desert with his mother. As he cried from thirst and kicked his heels on the arid earth, the ground cracked and a spring miraculously burst forth and is still flowing to this day. Pilgrims to Mecca gather it by the bucketful to drink and bathe in.

Baby Catherine, my husband’s niece and one of the stars of the show, was up in front in the pews reserved for the Corso* family, fussily squirming in her mother’s arms. As I watched her aunt and godmother-to-be try to soothe her, I realized that either of my sisters would never be eligible to be godmothers for my children. Despite my utmost conviction that they would go to ends of the earth for my children should something happen to me, they would never be accepted as legitimate guardians by the Catholic Church because neither of them are Roman Catholic. I watched my husband’s 4-year-old godson sleeping in the pew next to him, and I wondered if God cared as much as men do about differences, distinctions and divisions.

I found myself thinking about the only other time I’d seen an infant being held aloft for the heavens and the earth to behold — the opening scene of The Lion King. Half listening to the vicar talk about how a soul needs to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I had an epiphany. In a scene shrouded in religious symbolism, I realized that Rafiki, the animal kingdom’s resident shaman, anoints Simba with coconut oil. He then holds him aloft as the clouds part and a solitary ray of sunshine falls on the new baby, marking him God’s chosen one and monarch to his kingdom on earth. I shared this realization with my Roman Catholic raised ex-alter boy husband, who was baffled that the metaphor had escaped him his entire life.

Real-life, compared to reel life, is almost as if not more so theatrical, especially in matters of religion and ritual. One cannot ignore the grandiosity of such an occasion. It is apparent in the pristine white and gold robes of the priest, in the boom of their voice as they project it to every corner of the church and in the reverent hush of those in attendance. It is clear in the ceremonial lighting of the Godfather’s candles and the collective gasp as a child is held aloft after being baptized. I had hoped for an ethereal choir to complete the reverence of the experience, but there were no cherub-cheeked children in floor-length robes to be seen.

A very young family went right before it was Catherine and the Corso* family’s turn. It was a baptism for their first-born — that was apparent in their excitement, their beaming smiles and the radiance on the mother’s face. She was wearing a white lace dress to match her daughter’s christening gown and was positively beaming with pride and joy. For her, this occasion was as much about her as it was about her daughter — a milestone achievement as a both a dutiful mother and a good Catholic.

I wondered if baby Catherine would celebrate this occasion for her children with as much fervor as her parents did. Would she send out invitations weeks in advance with her sleeping baby on them, inviting friends and family to come see her son or daughter being admitted into the Catholic Church? Would she have a dress made to match her son or daughter’s gown? Would she, like so many parents in the church, take home a vial of the holy water in which her child was reborn in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? And I wondered, at the end of the day, was any of that really so different from the cherished vials of water that pilgrims to Mecca take back home with them to keep as a memento of their visit?

I’m not certain if my children will ever be baptized, but I definitely don’t see myself passing up the opportunity to put a toddler in a little christening gown; because if there’s one thing I can appreciate, it’s a beautiful dress. I know one thing for certain though. For the next baptism I attend, I’m wearing more sensible, and quieter, shoes.

*Names have been changed to protect the family’s privacy