I Sleep in Hitler's Room (33 page)

You didn’t answer my question.

“I didn’t.”

Why not?

“I don’t know.”

You are supporting an institution that believes in a God that you don’t believe in, an institution that holds the view that women should stay in the kitchen and that they should cover their bodies, practices that you’re against, all this while you are, as you just—?

“I want to believe in peace, I want to believe that—”

—all those good things that you know have no basis in reality?

“Yes, maybe.”

Because?

“People make mistakes, it’s human.”

To support a system that believes in what you don’t?

Gitti gives no answer. She just stares at me.

I met quite a few people like you: White, intellectual, freedom-and-peace fighters, who for some reason support Islamic institutions that preach the exact opposite of what they believe. I am trying to understand why.

“I can’t stop now!”

Shukaryeh, a single Turkish woman looking for love and company, shows up. What does she think are the reasons behind Gitti’s involvement with the mosque?

“Maybe it makes her feel good, because what she does makes people love her.”

So, purely egotistical reasons?

Gitti, she tells me, is also working for the mosque. She is a member of the council. But she’s no Muslim. “I should have been the member of the council . . .!”

As the evening moves forward, Nurcan enters. A thirty-year-old Turkish German, she is dressed “modern,” with arms and shoulders showing, and of course she doesn’t wear hijab. Nurcan works as an Integration Officer for the city of Duisburg. She is feisty, full of life, beautiful, funny, and very sharp.

Tell me, Nurcan, are more women in your community wearing hijab this year than in years past? I mean, is the trend growing?

“More hijab, much more.”

Do you have any idea why?

“The first generation of Turks in Germany were religious people. The second generation, like my generation, is much less so, but the third generation is even more religious than the first.”

Why are you living in this country and not in Turkey?

“My brother passed away in Turkey, in a car accident, and I went there. I wanted to stay in Turkey, because I didn’t want to leave him alone. But then I decided that living in Germany was better.”

Why?

“It’s safer in Germany.”

What do you mean?

“In Turkey, when you go to the bank they don’t even look at you when you talk to them. When I was in Turkey and I experienced it, I wanted to shoot them.”

One bad experience in a bank and you judge Turkey?

“It’s everywhere. They don’t care about human life there, unless you have money.”

What are you talking about?

“In the hospital, you have to bring your family member to watch over the sick or the sick will die there.”

What do you think about the leaders of Turkey?

“Erdogan is the second-worst person after Hitler. We have recordings of what he’s said in the past, and now he says totally the opposite. He’s a man who tries to provoke people and make one faction hate the other.”

Is there a difference between you, a Turkish German, and other women of your age who are German German?

“A Turkish German woman of my age appreciates her life here more and has wider horizons than the German German woman does. I know Turkey and I saw poverty there. I appreciate my life in Germany more, because here it’s different. A Turkish German has more ways to look at the world, because she has another culture as well.”

Do you think that the German Germans look down to you?

“Yes.”

Do you look down to them?

“No. I used to look up to them, but not anymore. Now I work with them and I know them better . . .”

So what do you think of Marxloh?

“People say that even the police won’t come here, but I like Marxloh.”

Adolf Sauerland is right. The Turks are a blessing to his city.

I am so impressed with Nurcan that the next day I go to meet three generations of Turkish families, all living in one building.

Hamiyet, a young mom, leads off the encounter. She’s of the middle generation, a hospital nurse by profession, and she’s proud to be who she is: Turkish Muslim. Right off, I have no clue why, she’s on the attack. It is strange, since I’m here to join them for lunch, and hospitality is normally the name of the game.

“Why did you Jews reject the sabbath when Allah offered it to you? I want to know!”

What is this woman up to? What den of what animals have I entered?

“I just want to know why you Jews did that! Why? Why?”

Yes, I am familiar with this thinking. After all, it’s the Muslim’s belief that Allah first gave His Book to the Jews but they falsified it. But why this question now? Whatever happened to hospitality? Forget hospitality, what happened to human behavior?

What is this attack?

I try to calm the storm and answer her. I start by saying that the three Abrahamic religions base their faith on similar stories but that there are differences.

Hamiyet cuts me off.

“No,” she says, “it’s all the same.”

Take the binding of Abraham’s son, for example. There are major differences between the way it’s told in the Quran and the way it’s told in the Bible.

“No, it’s the same.”

Well, let’s look at the name of that son. In the Bible it’s Isaac, in the Quran it’s Ismail.

“Isaac and Ismail are the same!”

No, they’re not.

“How do you know, are you a specialist in this? You don’t even know the Quran and you just talk!”

Well, I’ve got news for you: I am a professor of Quran.

I have no idea how this title crosses my mind, but why not? In Coburg, I met that professor of sports, and if that woman could be professor of sports I can be a professor of Quran.

Don’t ask me to explain this to you, but Hamiyet believes that I really am a professor of Quran. She says: “As a man who knows—you are a professor—why can’t you see the truth?! The Truth of the Quran?! There are differences between religions, that’s true, but Allah made one final version, the Quran. That’s it. No more!”

You believe it, and that’s fine, but not everybody does. Can you accept this?

“The Message of Allah ends with Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu ‘Alaihi wa Sallam. Why can’t you accept this?”

Let me ask you: How do you know that what you say is right?

“It says so in the book!”

Hamiyet wouldn’t like to know this, but she talks word for word as Orthodox women in Israel do. And both wear coverings over their hair. They actually look the same, talk the same, and walk the same. The similarities are frightening. I can see a Hasidic woman in front of me, not a Muslim. Or, equally so, Muslim women who are actually Hasidic . . . like my own sister, an Ultra-Orthodox woman who talks exactly like Hamiyet and thinks almost exactly like her. Just exchange Muhammad with Moses and you have the same thing. “How do you know the Bible is true?” “It says so in the Bible.”

Bingo.

But there’s no time now to contemplate these similarities.

Samide, Hamiyet’s sister, doesn’t get it either why this professor is not yet Muslim.

Samide adds that she knows what the Bible says. I cannot play games with her.

What do you know that the Bible says?

“That all Prophets were sinless.”

Who said that?

“It says so in the Bible.”

Did you read the Bible?

“No.”

Then how do you know?

“My sister read the Bible and she told me.”

It’s a hot day in Marxloh, about 40 degrees Celsius. And these ladies wear hijab.

Why are you wearing hijab?

“So as not to tempt men.”

Do you think your hair will tempt them?

“The Quran says that women should wear hijab so that they won’t be raped.”

This is a strong argument.

We finally sit at the big table in the kitchen, ready to start the meal.

And Hamiyet says that the Quran says that the Jews want to make trouble and war.

You think so?

“Yes. That’s why there’s conflict in the Middle East.”

Is she talking about Israelis or Jews?

For her it’s all the same. “Jews killed Jesus!” she shouts at me.

But Jesus was a Jew too, wasn’t he?

“Jesus was not a Jew. None of the prophets were Jewish.”

Time to change the subject.

What are your thoughts about the Gaza flotilla?

“What are yours?”

I wasn’t there and I don’t know.

“If you don’t know, if you are dumb, you shouldn’t write a book. The people there were innocent but the Jews killed them. They killed one guy, a nineteen-year old, they shot him. Then they shot him again. And again. And again.”

I heard this line often during my travels in the Arab world. Jews shoot and kill, then shoot the dead body again, and again, and again. Why? Because Jews love to see blood.

I don’t buy their accusations, but I admire their honesty. They go straight for the meat: the Jews. They don’t play the game of “I’m highly critical of Israel but I love the Jews.” No, they don’t do that. They say what they think. They have a faith, they have ideals they believe in, and they don’t shy away from saying out loud what they think.

Hamiyet, you said that the Quran says that women have to wear hijab—

“That’s true.”

You read it in the Quran?

“Yes, I did. You want me to show you?”

That would be great. Please.

“Should I go bring the Quran?”

If you don’t mind.

“Yes, I will bring it.”

I have it on my iPad, if you prefer.

She loves this! The professor of Quaran carries the Quran with him wherever he goes. We check the electronic Quran but don’t find any hijab there.

“I have to bring my Book.”

Hamiyet brings the Quran and puts it on the table.

“Right here!” she says; the book still closed.

Thanks. Can you show it to me inside?

“You know the Quran on your own, don’t you?”

Yes, of course. But I don’t remember this particular verse.

“You want me to show you?”

Yes.

“It’s in Sura Al-Nisa.”

That’s a long sura. Can you tell me what verse?

“Yes, I can. You know, when I started reading the Quran in Turkish, I didn’t understand anything. I knew it in German. It was the first time I read it in Turkish.

Interesting.

“Then I read it again—and still didn’t understand it.”

Interesting.

“But on the third try, something happened.”

You read about hijab . . .

“Hijab?”

Where is the verse about hijab?

“Inside the book.”

Where inside?

“I am very tired today, I still have to go to work.”

One of the sisters intervenes, “You can Google!” she says. And she does. She finds it through Google. I tell them that we have to check it in the source, in the Quran itself. We open the Quran, to the sura and verse that they got from Google, but don’t find the hijab commandment in the original. A two-hour discussion follows, with the sisters passionately shouting statements about their faith. I take a moment with beautiful Samide.

Samide, tell me: Would you like to be a Virgin Bride in paradise?

“Who wouldn’t!”

Hamiyet, who hears this, immediately interrupts. She raises her voice at me.

“Why are talking about this, are you trying to mock us?!”

Hamiyet speaks loudly unto her sister, in Turkish so I won’t understand. But she uses some Islamic terms I am familiar with. Samide, on orders of her older sister, changes her previous statement. She wants to go to heaven to meet Allah, no Virgin Bride. And then, without any warning, she goes ballistic on me.

“I don’t like what you do. I am upset with you!”

I calm her down. It takes some time. At the end, we hug and embrace.

Good night, love!

Morning comes and it’s breakfast time at Mustafa’s mom’s. The food is excellent and I announce my intention to come every morning. When we finish our Turkish coffee, mom turns her cup upside down on a plate. The neighbor, a coffee reader, will tell what will happen . . .