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from LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2020
Mariatu felt a sharp and sudden pain on the bottom left side of her belly. She turned on her other side, careful not to awake her husband sleeping beside her. This must have been a good decision for she soon fell asleep. She was startled from her slumber a few hours later, not sure whether it was by the call to prayer or by the pain, this time in her lower back. She got up all the same.
She wrapped a towel around her waist and breasts as she tip-toed out of the room. With the aid of the light from her cellphone, she filled a bucket with water from the large metal drum in a corner of the parlor. Outside, in the detached pebble-floored washroom, as the first lights of day prepare to peek through the predawn veil, Mariatu cleansed herself in preparation for the fajr prayer. Back in the room she draped herself in a silken mulafa. She then oriented herself on the crimson prayer rug in the direction of the qibla, adjacent to the wall decorated with pictures of the Via Dolorosa, the Madonna and Child, and of her husband receiving his First Communion. Mariatu performed two sunnah rakats, then the obligatory two. ‘As Salam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu’ to the right; ‘As Salam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu’ to the left. ‘Peace be unto you and so may the mercy of Allah and His blessings!’
Of late, this required act of her faith has become somewhat of a travail for Mariatu, though she still finds genuine pleasure in it. Very soon, she thought to herself as she got up and folded the rug, she would no longer be able to do the bowings and prostrations of the five daily prayers. She found solace in the knowledge that other options were available to the pregnant believer. God is merciful!
She removed her mulafa and donned a light flowery cotton kaftan. She returned to bed, as has been her custom of late.
‘Going back to bed after praying? You are becoming too lazy, Mariatu. Whatever happened to your motto “the early bird communes with the worm”?’ Her husband chided her playfully, making more room for her in the bed as he did so.
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