The Fall of Faith

Everyone is unique! That's what we're fed since we're born. And it's not necessarily wrong. Yes every person has their own way in the world, but there are some of us who are divided from others by understanding. There is a certain sadness that engulfs those who comprehend how the world works, or how the universe work.


I don't mean understanding law or economics or politics.I’m talking about those who look at flower and understand why it blooms, they look at the human eye and know how it sees. They know why the stars sparkle and why a muscle twitches. Those who have seen the building blocks beyond the Ding an sich.

The ones who have chosen to unveil the mystery of the universe and look at it nude almost erotically. There's a beautiful sadness among them.

Those who know that there is no magic, there are no miracles, there is no order to the universe. For us the beauty of things fades into grey. But there's beauty in that greyness itself. The mechanics of life start to click in your ears as you walk down the street and you feel the cogs hitting one another in perfect harmony. When you smile or you lend a hand to a friend, you don't lend that hand in hope of a reward from a higher power. You lend that hand because there's something innately inside of you that pushes you to be good, to be beautiful, and then beauty befalls you. Grey beauty. Melancholically poetic and poetically melancholic. Sadly to the outside observer only the greyness is seen and the beauty fades to black.

" Your father has cancer in his lungs and bladder, " Said the doctor inapporpriately laconically "He'll need a miracle to survive."

" A miracle, Doc there is no such thing."

My old man had always been a fairly simple dad. Nothing really special about him, he had a job, he put food on the table, he watched news in the evening and reprimanded us when we had bad grades. He did use to, when he had time which was not often, tell me a lot of stories.

He told me epic tales of brave men like Robin Hood and Ali Baba and his thieves. He told me stories about Muhammed and his super powers, about Aladdin and his magic lamp and about Cinderella and that bitch of a stepmother she had.

Admittedly I did enjoy the stories. What can I say? I was three years old and I let my imagination run wild. I used to imagine that I was flying next to Aladdin on his magic carpet. Or that I was in the middle of the desert and then Muhammad came and made a cloud float over me and then made water appear out of his hand. And then we would go and find infidels together... Wasn't really sure what those were in the first place but they were his archenemies.

I loved all these stories equally, they all were magical and yet I believed that they were all true. I truly believed that we lived in a magical world. Maybe some part of me wanted to believe because the alternative is just too dull.

One day when I was 4 my dad wanted me to go with him to this place called a 'Mosque' "A lot of my friends are gonna be there, you should come I'm sure they'll love you". That's odd, I thought to myself, I didn't really think of dad as having friends. To me he wasn’t a person like me, he was this mysterious figure that appeared in my life every now and again and gave me food. When we walked in the mosque it was packed! I quickly noticed that it was all men and that the place smelled like cigarettes and old socks. I sat down next to my father and then this random man started to tell the same stories my dad told me. Except he was only talking about Muhammad and this character called 'Allah'.

Allah immediately became my favorite fictional character. He was like the genie but he gives unlimited wishes. “ If you ask Allah for something sincerely, there's nothing he can't do.” The man said. When I heard that I honestly thought  "Even the genie had rules... This is awesome."

I tried to ask questions but my dad shushed me. Then when the man was finished talking everybody stood up and my dad told me to mimic him. When I asked why, he shushed me again. I don't remember my father shushing me before, it was very strange. After I finished mimicking my dad, which looked to me a lot like the exercises my family members do everyday, I was walking out of the mosque and I asked my dad if I can ask him questions. He said of course the more merrier.

When I asked him why were we doing this 'Sala' exercise, he said that it’s what Allah told Muhammad to tell us to do and that if we do it and ask Allah for things he will give them to us. "Wait wait.... We know where Allah's lamp is? And we can ask him for wishes? Why didn't we do it when mommy broke her knee last month? She was really sad."

" No son, no one knows where Allah is, he lives in heaven and he's the ruler of the universe."

" So like the genie but hiding?"

" NO! Allah is real. Those other stories are just...... " My heart fell to stomach for a minute. Somehow I knew what my father was about to say next and it send chills down my spine "Fairy tales." He said. I was so relieved, I thought he was going to say the were lies.

" What are ‘Fairy tales’?"

" They are stories we come up with to challenge our imagination son. But Allah is real, and he's all powerful and all good."

" So how many stories are real and how many are fairy tales?"

" They're all fairytales, except the ones about Muhammad."

I didn't ask any further questions that day, not because I didn't have any, but because I was just so sad and confused. How come only that specific story is real and not the others? If people can ask wishes from Allah how come so many people were so sad and not like Aladdin who won the princess and danced with elephants?

As I grew older and started learning more and more what a fairy tale is and what religion is, I just couldn't shake the feeling that those religious stories seemed like the ultimate fairy tales. The magic, the characters, the plot..... It seemed perfectly fantastical. But everyone around me seemed to believe it. I started wondering if everybody thinks the story was real. Then  I remembered that Muhammed used to battle infidels. The problem was everytime I asked questions I got the same answer 'Because Allah willed so.' I got in trouble in school when I answered all the test questions with 'Because Allah willed so.' Which was unfair because everyone taught me that was why things happened.

I remember my dad was drinking coffee and splashes of it were on his thick black and white mustache. "Did Muhammed kill all the infidels?" My dad almost did a spit take when I asked that. "No," he answered "There are still a lot of them alive today."

" Wow! How many? Where are they? Are they the 'America' with the the bad TV shows that as you said ‘tries to poison the youth of Islam?’ "

" They're everywhere son, and they're always trying to steal our land and attack Muslims."

" So are they bad? Should I hate them? Are they all gonna burn in hell?"

" We can't say who's going to hell and who's not. But Allah did teach us that those who do not believe in him will be severely punished and burned."

" So how many of them are there?"

" About 6 billion."

The second he said 6 billion I started crying immediately. I cried and cried over all these people that will burn forever. But I was also crying for myself, what if I had died before my dad told me that this one about Muhammed was the only fairy tale that wasn't a fairy tale. And that if you thought it was you will burn forever. I didn't understand forever but it seemed like it's a long time to be in fire.

And then there was the moment I knew that even those who really believed in fairy tales still felt somewhere deep within that it was just a tale. My grandmother was on her deathbed and I was ecstatic for her. Finally she gets to go to heaven and live with unlimited wishes. But then I looked at my mom and I saw her tears. Which made no sense to me, why do you want her to stay here in pain rather than going to heaven and living her real and eternal life?

She was acting as if she's never seeing her mother again. He's not going to a better place, he’s just going. Her life, her real life, her only life, was about to end.

And today I stood in front of my father as he took his last breath. My mom crying on his side, my sisters crying on the other one. And I heard him say the last thing he ever said. "I'll see you all in heaven." My mom wailed when he took his last breath, her wail just assured me that there's something deep within her, inside her very being that knew.. She knew in her heart of hearts that fairy tales are just what they are... Fairy tales.

I laid a hand on his shoulder and I whispered to myself " No you won't man. But thanks for the stories."