Tales of Benshasha
Created | Updated Jun 26, 2011
But I don't think that is quite what either of the Good Books actually meant
Religion
Just as the first building you see - almost the only proper building - is the mosque, it is right and proper that anything said about Benshasha should be prefixed by a word or two about its religion. Actually not exactly about the religion, but the way that the religion is interpreted and how that influences so much of people's day-to-day existence.
So – Bismillah. (Essentially: 'For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful', or grace, but also said before reading (from the Koran) or making a speech.)
It is impossible to live in any Islamic country without being aware of the way that Islam impinges on daily life. In Benshasha it rules everything, for the simple fact that the call to prayer is the nearest thing that there is to a clock anywhere in the village. You know when it is time to get up, you know when it is lunchtime and when it is time to go back to work in the afternoon. You also know when to stop work in the evening, and you know when it is time to go to bed. It really is very good.
An additional bonus is, that the prayer calls are far more musical than anywhere I have been, and Abdul Jaleel sings Allah Akhbar, to what sounds remarkably like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and it does no harm at all to be reminded of God's existence in such a melodious way.
None of these comments are written against Islam in any way at all. I happen to have read 'the Book', just as I have read the Bible, probably more so as I have actually read the Koran from cover to cover. I respect it, and I believe in the same God. By a quirk of fate, I also happen to have designed fifteen mosques and this, to the average Muslim, is enough to get me straight to heaven, including passing 'Go' and collecting £200 on the way.
When I married Fatima, I had to become a Moslem – technically – it is the law in Morocco. To me this was no problem and the process is entirely pragmatic. It does not insist that I have to grow a long straggly beard, wear a crocheted hat and a midi-length dress. It does not even insist that I pray five times a day. I was asked little more than that I believed in one God and that Mohammed was his prophet. Absolutely no problem there and in doing so, there wasn't anything that said that I had to give up my right to question how man has interpreted the religious texts.
Having been brought up as a Christian (from a long line of Anglican priests), I have exactly the same problem with that religion - the way that man interprets the book and then says, 'You must believe this.'
But, to start in an entirely positive way, the Benshasha Imam, is actually a really nice man, although he does not - needless to say - come from Benshasha. I both like and respect him and just wish that I could actually talk to him, rather than exchange meaningful grunts. As far as I know he preaches a very gentle form of Islam, honesty, kindness, generosity and above all a belief in one God. He also helps people and is the nearest Benshasha has to a resident psychologist or psychiatrist.
Now, drinking alcohol in Morocco is a perfectly legal occupation and there are shops where, if you are over the age of eighteen, you can buy whatever you like and can afford, quite openly and without the need of the license or permit that you require in most Islamic countries
Actually this is not 'quite' true. Strictly speaking, alcohol may only be sold to non-Muslims. The law is there and may be used as and when needed. For the rest, Moroccans can buy what they like, as and when they like - other than during religious holidays when the bars and offies are closed. There are bars aplenty and these are open to all and sundry. In addition, if you do drink, you are supporting the indigenous industries, as Morocco produces its own beer and wines, and very good they are, too. You are also being loyal and patriotic to the monarchy, as the king just happens to own about 50% of that particular business.
There is but one 'enforced' rule and that is do not drink in public, so (generally) the bars do not have tables actually on the pavement.
On the other hand, smoking hashish or kif is illegal, very illegal, as is the buying or selling of it, and to be caught doing either is likely to end up with a trip to the nearest callaboose without collecting £200 when you pass 'go'.
If you smoke wacky-baccy, you are also, as it happens, supporting a thriving local industry, albeit an illegal one and one that the Royal Family neither supports nor approves of.
Now - if you live in Benshasha you would be forgiven for thinking that the exact opposite is true. More than half of the men and a good percentage of the women smoke substances not normally obtained from the tobacconist. The men make little or no pretence of hiding what they are doing and at any time of the day or night you will find groups of them sitting around, smoking quite openly. Unfortunately, they also make your floor dirty as they spit the residue on to it and, if for no other reason than this, it is a habit that I forbid anywhere within my house.
However, if you want to have a drink, it is a totally different matter altogether. This must be done inside a locked, barred and bolted room inside a locked, barred and bolted house, inside a locked, barred and bolted compound and if anyone does come so much as near it, everything, the glasses, bottles and the lot, must all be hidden away and you must brush your teeth and spray yourself all over with deodorant before opening the door. This is not just because they don't want to offer the visitor a drink, it is because it is considered 'wrong' to be drinking at all. Neither is it because they are all such devout Moslems that they are all teetotal. Virtually all of them drink - given the opportunity - but they will only do so 'secretly' and pretend that they never touch the stuff. Those few that do drink and don't pretend otherwise are regarded as worse than child molesters and are treated, almost, as social outcasts.
When I first went there I was surprised rather than shocked by this, but I didn't think there was anything wrong in Fatima and me having a drink in the privacy of our own quarters. Most of the family, both male and female were wont to join us but even they managed to do so whilst imparting a sense of deep disapproval. The ones who don't drink were outwardly disapproving. At first those who wanted a drink would sit in an inner room and have a convivial time. It did not take me long to revise this and, in the end, it was just easier to stop drinking at all.
It was the hypocrisy of it all that really angered me, though. It would be fair enough to complain, were one to sit outside the mosque swilling a bottle of gin, and generally abusing the people on their way to pray. I could understand being asked not to sit in the equivalent of one's front garden, drinking a bottle of wine, but I take exception to being told not to drink in the privacy of my own house, especially when the person telling me, does so whilst smoking kif.
It totally defies logic. I could begin to understand it if all of them were total abstainers and had signed the pledge, but more than 50% of them do drink, given the chance. Smoking kif is both wrong and illegal and at any one time, there are half a dozen local residents locked up in the chokey for doing just that. But that is somehow OK - everybody does it, and nobody ever says anything against it.
I could understand it a little better if they were against drink because it rendered people incapable of work, but in this respect kif is just as bad, if not worse, and half of the men are incapable of doing anything at all as they are bombed out of their brains from the moment they get up in the morning.
But somehow, because the interpretation of their religion says that drinking alcohol is 'haram', it must be done secretly and because the same religion does not! say that smoking kif is wrong – then it is OK.
The same logic- or lack of it - applies to eating pork. If you have had the misfortune to live in Saudi Arabia, about the second thing to strike you is that it is damnably hot. If you are doubly unfortunate to live there without a fridge, you would have found that meat goes bad as soon as you look at it. If, in these circumstances, you were daft enough to keep pork for longer than about 30 seconds you would likely as not be laid low with Rashid's Revenge or something terminally worse. Thus, the Good Book, written just a little before Thomas Carrier took out his patent for the heat exchanger in 1894, takes the sensible line of saying that eating pork is haram for the simple expedient that it was bloody dangerous. Were there to have been chickens about at that time, I'd bet a pound to a penny that it would say the same about them but, like kif, they were not as they were still all happily in India and thus the Koran didn't feel the need to say anything against them, and eating them, laced with salmonella or not, is therefore OK.
But, not content with not eating pork, somehow the pig itself is haram. This actually had a small advantage to me, as I possessed one thing that I could guarantee would not be stolen, which was a pigskin jacket. In fact, if you wanted to make your house absolutely secure it would be sensible to keep a pet pig, as nobody would come anywhere near it.
What does make me wonder, is just what the Good Book had in mind with regard to the necessity for washing feet, and one can only come to the conclusion that the Saudi Bedouins must have had the most awful smelly feet.
Now I have absolutely nothing against anyone washing their feet, and having shared a room with an elder brother for some years in my childhood, I can remember thinking at the time that there ought to have been some rules there governing such things. But in Benshasha, the interpretation of the rule 'that you should wash your feet before praying' is taken totally out of context and the importance of it is out of all proportion.
One would be forgiven for thinking that washing your feet is the only thing that is important. Unfortunately this means that the only water container that has to be clean, is the one that you use for this chore. As far as I am aware, e-coli is difficult to ingest through your feet and I would prefer that the containers used to store drinking water were cleaned occasionally.
But the fact is that they do pray, although I cannot help wondering what goes on in their minds when they do it. It is most certainly not asking the Almighty to help them to lead good, honest lives and treat other people as they would have them treat themselves.
I was reminded of my Grandmother who was well into her 80s and senile. Her doctor, for some inexplicable reason, had put her on a very strict, fat free diet. One morning my mother found her in the kitchen, tucking into a hearty breakfast of fried eggs and bacon and said 'Grandma, what about your diet?' to which she replied with absolute logic and conviction, 'Oh, it's alright, I've eaten that.'
In Benshasha, it is just the same with Islam. Anything is all right as long as you have been to the mosque. You don't actually steal from your neighbour on the way to the mosque, not because it's wrong but because you have washed your feet. I suppose, in that respect it is similar to Catholicism where anything's OK as long as you go to confession afterwards!
But I don't think that is quite what either of the Good Books actually meant.
That said, there is a lot to be said for the religion and what it does in the community. In many ways the mosque is very like the church in rural England up until relatively recently. The mosque is very much the centre of the village and the call to prayer serves as the village clock. Until the school opened, a few years previously, the mosque was the only place where children had a chance to learn to read and write. The mosque serves as a meeting place - albeit only for men - and the Imam attends every single family occasion from birth to death, including coming and saying prayers when you have built your house and want to move into it. Being the son of a country parson, I can see huge similarities between the Imam and my father when I was a child. The Imam acts as priest, psychologist, confidant, and village policeman. He is the single most important person in the community and by far the most influential with regard to anything remotely legal. Thankfully the Imam in Benshasha appears to be sensible and wise and takes his social responsibilities seriously.
