Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim

by Ziauddin Sardar

The Director read the letter carefully, wrote something on it and asked Shaikh Abdullah to take it to a particular window outside the building. The window was actually a small opening in a very large wall. It was about eighty by fifty centimetres, protected with five iron bars some ten centimetres apart. Through them about a dozen individuals were simultaneously trying to pass files and talk to the man inside. My heart sank at the spectacle: forget the visa, I thought; we won’t even get near the window. Shaikh Abdullah sensed my thought and gently tapped me on the shoulder. ‘I know my job,’ he said with some confidence. ‘Now, stay back and watch.’ He counted off a number of paces from the crowd surrounding the visa window like a fast bowler preparing his run-up. At about twenty metres from the crowd he stopped, turned and shouted for two or three people standing between him and the crowd at the window to move out of the way. He then pulled up the bottom half of his toupe, his long white outer garment, and tied it around his waist. Finally, he looked at me and grinned, revealing the gold tooth at the bottom corner of his mouth. Suddenly Shaikh Abdullah yelled, ‘Ya Allah,’ in a dreadful voice and charged the crowd with the look of an Afghan Mujahid running into battle. The people gathered at the window turned in horror, unable to believe what was about to hit them. Shaikh Abdullah jumped on top of the crowd, walked at lightning speed on their heads and shoulders and placed h...