Haji Ajmal Shamali, The Loudspeaker and Me

My friend and Afghanistan Presidential candidate Haji Ajmal Shamali is a quietly devout man.  While living in quarters provided by Ajmal in Kabul in 2009, I came to Ajmal as a person who walks quietly, but carries a deep and profound love for his religion and for his country within him.

At the time I lived in a room on the second floor of a house that is situated next to his business office compound.  Next to the office compound is a mosque.  As with all mosques this one has a speaker mounted on a tall steel pole.  The mullah’s prayers are broadcast on the speakers.

The first of five daily prayers take place one hour before sunrise.  The mullah announces his call to prayer loudly via the loudspeaker.  The first night I slept in that room I was awakened at around 5:00 a.m. by what sounded to me like a man standing in my bedroom and shouting at me.

I leapt from my sleeping pallet wondering if I was being attacked.  My first thought was that armalan, my night time bodyguard must have fallen asleep or been knocked out.  Spinning around in the dark room in a ridiculous parody of some Kung fu fighter, I found  nobody there.

Then I realized the sound was outside my bedroom window.  Gazing out I saw a big rusty speaker mounted on a pole at the elevation of my window and seemingly aimed directly into my window.  For the next month, I woke every morning at the same time to the mullah’s call to morning prayer coming to me in a loud thin sound that vibrated as if the loudspeaker were about to come apart.

Then one morning there was no prayer call.  I slept until awoken by daylight, around 6:00 a.m.  The speaker had come apart and was no longer functioning.  When I went down to the office I mentioned to Ajmal that I had slept in because there was no morning prayer over the loudspeaker.  He shrugged and said thank you.  I wondered why he would say thank you, but then I sat at my desk and began my work day, thinking no more about the loudspeaker.

The next few mornings were – for me anyway – blissfully quiet.  I can honestly say I did not miss the loud 5:00 a.m. wake up call. 

Then on a cool morning, with the sky still black and sprinkled by thousands of tiny stars, the call to morning prayer once again blasted into my bedroom.  I again leaped from the floor, but this time I knew I was not being attacked.  On this morning the sound was much louder than before.  The thin tinny quality was gone and I could actually understand what was being said over the speaker.

When Ajmal arrived at the office later, I mentioned to him that the loudspeaker was back to working again.  I told him it sounded louder and much clearer.  My good friend smiled and then told me that Yes he had gone immediately to he mosque and made arrangements for a new and better speaker to be installed.

I smiled and went back to my desk where i buried my mind in the work on the computer screen.  But later that night, as I lay in bed reviewing the day’s activities I smiled once more as I compared Haji Ajmal Shamali’s response to the broken loudspeaker to what my response had been.

Working closely with this man day after day without him ever preaching to me one time, has made me more introspective about my own religious beliefs.