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Wanderlust
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At some point, I realized that all attention was on me. They wanted to know about me, about why I was there, what I was looking for. They wanted to know my faith, and I answered honestly that I wasn't sure. They pointed to the shrine of the Sufi saint and asked me if it was like the shrines of Catholic saints. I answered yes, in Europe and Latin America there were such places of pilgrimage. They gestured around the courtyard and asked if there were places like it in the West. I looked at them, and I said no.

I've come to realize in the years since that I was wearing rose-tinted glasses that afternoon, that in every culture, there are men and women engaged in a tradition and committed to the search. But for me at that moment, it was a window into a reality that I had only dreamed of. It looked perfect, and it felt pure. Their eyes were open to life, and they seemed to want to see. They seemed to revel in the devotion to he who created us all, to Allah, and his prophet Muhammad, and to the revelation of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran. Trimmed beards, gleaming white teeth, the melodious sounds of chants and questions, it all was as it should have been.

And what more could anyone want? In college, I was used to discussions about how much 150-proof vodka an average male could drink before going into shock, yet here were men slightly older than me asking about God's will. I was accustomed to the bored looks of other students when philosophers and thinkers were debated in class, yet in front of me were a dozen faces utterly focused on the imam and the text and the real questions: Why are we here, what does it all mean? That was immensely appealing, and seductive. Just to my right lay the body of a mystic who had passed a life dedicated to drawing near to God, to touching the ineffable. Just in front of me sat a group of men trying to walk the same path. And there I was, and they were inviting me to walk with them.

"Why do you not believe?" one of them asked.

"But I do," I replied. "I'm just not clear about what tradition feels most right to me."

"Why not the way of Islam?" another suggested. "You could start now. It's easy. You simply state your belief, and we will go and write your name down in the book."

I was stunned. It hadn't even occurred to me. Convert? There and then? On the spot, impulsively? But then again, was Paul impulsive when he was struck on the road to Damascus? Was Muhammad impulsive when he heard the thunderous voice of God and was told to recite? Was Buddha? Was anyone who had an intense, unexpected, wrenching experience of conversion and belief? Who was I to say what was impulsive and what was the moment beckoning me? What if I missed the opportunity to respond? What if that moment, that singular once-in-a-lifetime moment were presenting itself to me and I refused to embrace it? Maybe it was all as simple as it seemed.

Next page | "So all I do is recite the shahada?"