Mt Roskill
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And God created Mt Roskill. For years this dense Auckland suburb was known as New Zealand’s bible belt, with more churches per head of population than anywhere in the country, the Christian cross rising above a low skyline of red slate roofs. It had its own special weirdness; its powerful concentrations of faith and ecstasy swirled in the air like a mist. Also, you could smell the fear of sex even when you drove through with the windows wound up. You still can, especially on Stoddard Road, where the traffic – freight vans, removal vans, cool-store vans, flatbed trucks, beat-up second-hand Japanese jalopies – runs bumper-to-bumper between the lights at Richardson Road to the east and Sandringham Road to the west.
The only break in the traffic is a zebra crossing that leads to the Masjid e Umar mosque. It used to be the Christian Congregational Church of Samoa; when the building was auctioned in 1996 it attracted bids from a Hindu temple and a fitness centre. It sold for one and a half million dollars to the Mt Roskill Islamic Trust. ‘Very good price,’ the trust’s secretary, Muhammad Moses, said. ‘They’d built it for three million.’
There was a sign at the mosque’s front door. It read SILENCE! THIS IS THE HOUSE OF ALLAH. Inside an office, Muhammad and his brother-in-law Hanif Patel chatted loudly, merrily. ‘Look at all these,’ Hanif said. He scattered wristwatches on the desk. ‘There must be 20 or thirty. Some of them expensive! This one’s a Rolex – maybe fifteen hundred dollars. The men take them off while they’re doing ablutions before prayer, you see. They wash their hands and then forget to pick up their watches. It doesn’t matter. No one ever steals them. That never happens.’
Hanif owned a downtown convenience store. Muhammad said, ‘I worked in a government department for twenty-eight years.’ What department? He lowered his eyes, and answered as though confessing a sin. ‘The Inland Revenue Department. I was an investigator.’ He took early retirement. He is fifty-three. His family arrived from India ‘a hundred and ten years ago’.
There are now an estimated 36,000 Muslims in New Zealand, the numbers boosted by waves of refugees from Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan. ‘We have 41 different nationalities who come to the mosque,’ Muhammad said. Hanif opened a cupboard to reveal stacks of the Koran. ‘So many languages! This one’s in Russian. This one’s Turkish I think…’
The largest population of Muslims in New Zealand is in Mt Roskill. Their road to Mecca is Stoddard Road: build a mosque and they will come, late. As the clock ticked towards one o’clock on a Friday afternoon in winter, the pavement on both sides of Stoddard Road suddenly filled with bearded men in long white knee-length shirts, op-shop checked suit jackets, and lace-up sports shoes. Friday is Jummah, the holy day, the Islamic sabbath. One in the afternoon is its rush hour, the most popular of the five daily prayers. How many people today? ‘Probably two thousand,’ Muhammad said. The car park was packed. A beat-up Mercedes C180 had the licence plate UAE EMIRATES. About a dozen taxis advertised as DISCOUNT, AFFORDABLE and CHEAP. As the clock ticked ever nearer, the men put on their skates, hurried but never ran. Downstairs at the washbasins, watches were torn off wrists.
Prayer was about fifteen minutes. Afterwards, the men slipped their feet back into shoes and relaxed in the bright winter sunshine. Two thousand pious souls, laughing, chatting: Africa and Arabia had come to Mt Roskill, the bible belt was now the Koran catchment. But how much had changed? The fine mist of faith and ecstasy, the fear of sex – it was all still there, wrapped up within itself, as Auckland’s heathen traffic hurried along Stoddard Road, heading east, heading west, dying to get Friday over and done with and enter the temples of home or bar.
The mosque publishes a newsletter. Its author keeps returning to a favourite theme. Sample: ‘Music incites one towards adultery. … The drum and tambourine are forbidden.’ And: ‘Abstain completely from cinema, television. … Do not read love poems or novels.’ Also: ‘Avoid holiday resorts and shopping malls. … They are choking in the toxic fumes of nudity.’ A pretend letter from a reader asks, ‘I have been promoted to a senior position and personally supervise 30 female workers. Most dress in a very immodest or provocative manner. I totally fear for myself. What should I do?’ Answer: ‘Never make eye contact.’
Newspapers are ‘very dangerous … A Muslim home should be free of such material.’ Marouf Ahmadzai, 19, was standing outside the mosque with friends. He said he arrived in New Zealand six years ago from Afghanistan. ‘When you went outside,’ he remembered, ‘you had no guarantee of whether you came back dead or alive.’ What media did he rely on for information about current events in Afghanistan? He was a big strong lad and his manner was confident, very nearly belligerent. He said, ‘I don’t like news. I don’t like bullshit. News is all false, all bullshit.’ What did he miss about Afghanistan? He said, ‘I miss the dogfighting.’
He wore the long white shirt, the tidy neat hat called a topai. Another teenager, Tariq Ahmadzai, looked glamorous with his luxuriant black hair and a purple shirt open at the neck. He was handsome, lithe, charming, ambitious. He said, ‘I’m on the crew at Wendy’s right now, but soon I’ll be shift supervisor.’ Friday night in Auckland beckoned. He talked about sharing a biryani dinner with friends. Nothing more exciting? Hanif Patel, the jovial owner of a downtown dairy, joined the conversation. He said on Tariq’s behalf, ‘He can look, but not touch.’
Touching, though, is good; besides, it’s the Kiwi way. I made the comments in jest. Hanif said, ‘I tell you what sort
