Mosques

It wasn't anything like the scene from the classic movie The Omen when I first got near a mosque. It didn't pull my mum's hair or shout in inexplicable anger. It was just the feeling of discomfort and a sense of not belonging there.

Of course, for the first couple of times, I did not mind being there but it all started when my mum asked me to join the Koran course during a summer break. It' not that she was a die-hard Muslim. She just wanted me to do what was popular in the neighbourhood.

When the lesson started I was extremely uninterested in the Arabic language and the shapes in front of me. The instructor was wearing clothes that certainly did not belong to this century and as a teacher myself I can tell now that he did not know anything about how to teach kids other than make them memorize things without any context. Wait, I'm not going to criticise the way he was teaching - at least that's not my concern.

I believe it was the second or the third time I went to the course when my mum realised that my ears were turning red and extremely hot after I came back from the mosque. She asked me what was wrong and I was glad to tell her that I felt a huge amount of stress when I was in that mosque room. Afterwards, she did not insist or anything and just left things as they were.

Since then, I only went to mosques as a tourist. I did not feel any stress or anything like that. I don't know the reasons for it but I guess it was the fear that as a kid I was exposed to. Fear God! He's watching us!

Being in a mosque felt like being in an exam room with 5 invigilators watching only you. For fuck's sake I'm not doing anything wrong and I know you're watching ME!!

I don't think I'll ever go to a mosque as a believer again.