On the surface, Gambians are a very religious people. It is heartwarming to see young people trekking into mosques or performing the ablution and saying their prayers at every sound of the adhan. In every work place, when it is time for prayers, people leave their desks and tasks and answer to the call of Allah. On Fridays, practically everyone wears a haftan or grand boubou as a sign of respect for one of Islam’s holy days, and makes it a point to attend jumu’ah prayers. Meanwhile, our social media outlets are overflooded with Friday greetings of peace and goodwill – Jummah Mubarak and Jummah Kareem! At every opportunity, people say long prayers for each other and wish each other well in WhatsApp groups, naming ceremonies and other events and private occasions. Praying for each other is certainly a good thing, and Gambians are adept at the practice, which in essence, should not be frowned upon.
Many Gambians wear clothes that are understood to be associated with a sense of religiosity. Some of our brothers sport a goatee, wear copoti hats, short haftans and three-quarter pants as a sign of their adherence to the faith. Others wear large boubous and even carry prayers beads around their necks or in their hands and pockets, wherever they go. Our women, especially the younger ones, take pride in wearing the hijab, covering their entire bodies as a sign of religious decency. A few women cover their bodies so well that only their eyes and their fingers are visible. In offices, banks, stores and other work spaces, women with kind looking faces wear the hijab as they serve their customers. Men with the zebiba – the black mark of piety and evidence of sustained prostrations on the prayer mat – on their foreheads and with smooth faces and handsome beards also sit behind counters as they serve their customers. The sad reality is that all these outward signs of piety do not always translate into behaviour that is in line with the teachings of Islam. The hijab is certainly no longer a sign of piety or religious adherence for many who wear it. It is now more of a fashion symbol than a religious dress. And the short haftan, the copoti, the goatee and the zebiba – these are no longer signs of piety for many people. Similarly, praying at every possible opportunity and saying lots of prayers for each other also fall short of what is required for us to be good Muslims.
It is a sad, even tragic reality of our times that many Gambians do not appreciate and live by the fact that Islam is not merely a matter of outward appearances, practices and utterances. Islam is a complete way of life; a life built around the virtues of humility, mutual respect, kindness, empathy, sympathy and a charitable and forgiving disposition, among other lofty human virtues. It takes little observation to notice that most Gambians who bear these outward signs of religiosity are far from being actually religious. Their behaviour is often in stark contrast to the teachings of Islam.
A good place to start showing how fake many of us are in our religious practices is in our traffic. People drive as if they are the only ones on the road, with absolutely no care about their fellow drivers or road users. They drive not with their minds, but with coarse arrogance and ugly bravado, and with their egos and a clear determination to show how manly or womanly, or even how cruel, they are. Some people with trucks drive to show that they have a bigger vehicle than the other person. And some people with fast cars go out of their way to show how fast their cars are. We experience recurrent traffic nightmares at places like ‘Sukuta Traffic Light’, ‘Turntable’ and the Senegambia Strip not because there is not enough space for everyone, but because we insist on being mean, arrogant, intolerant and rude towards each other. If everyone took their time and displayed the level of discipline required by basic traffic rules, human decency, humility and the teachings of their professed religion, we would experience fewer traffic nightmares and accidents on our roads. But no. Right out of the mosque or from the prayer mat into our cars and onto the roads, we forget all about the required discipline and kindness of our faith and go all out to show how mean and cruel to each other we could be!
And it is the cruelty of Gambian against Gambian that is the most painful to watch. Behind bank and store counters, ladies in pious hijab act in rude and cruel manner towards their customers, each determined to show that they could be cruel and hurt you and nothing will come out of it. In offices and other work places, people who had just finished their prayers and are waiting for the next prayer session behave in ways unworthy of their faith. Many people go out of their way to be dishonest and unjust, and to treat their fellow human beings in cruel ways, totally forgetting that moments before, they were kneeling on their prayer mats, invoking the mercy and kindness of God, or that during Ramadan, they do not miss a single day of fasting, or that judging by their appearances, they could be counted among the most pious of the pious! The stark contrast between religious appearance and religious practice in Gambian society snacks of a level of hypocrisy and moral decadence that is truly frightening.
And of course, on social media, people who pride themselves in dressing like pious Muslims, sporting a pious goatee, or wearing a beautiful hijab or fasting during Ramadan routinely engage in making cruel and unwarranted utterances against their fellow human beings. In general, it is a sad reality of Gambian religiosity that most of us are far from being good Muslims. It might help for some of us to pause for a moment, re-evaluate our professed faith and its teachings, weigh it against our actions, and see if we are not in fact doing the exact opposite of what our religion teaches. And having so considered, to think very carefully about the possibility that with every act of cruelty against our fellow human beings, we are getting farther away from the peace of mind and paradise we seek with our endless religious practices and pious appearances.
