Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Iftar with Farook

Farook called me Tuesday night a little before midnight. I was asleep, but saw the missed call, and called him today.

‘I have appointment yesterday with Saudi Emir and want you join me, but you no answer. You join me iftar today?’

‘Yes, I’d like that.’

‘I be in my office all day. You come before iftar.’

I made it to Farook’s at 4:30 p.m. Farook, of course, wasn’t there. Outside his office was a large box, of the sort Ikea furniture comes in, and his door was open, so I went in.

Shortly after I arrived, another box like the one outside his door arrived and was set down in front of me. Inside were about 40 iftar dinners. All had an inscription that a property company (not Farook) had donated them.

Farrok arrived, and asked me if I knew what Zakat was. I do. Muslims are required to donate 2.5% of their money to the poor during Ramadan, and this is called zakat. He explained that the meals were zakat, and one of them was for me. He had this month’s secretary hand it to me.

Quite a few people arrived between 4:30 and 5:30, and all got one or more of the zakat iftar dinners.

Then Farook said, ‘We go,’ and we left. He dropped me somewhere in Karama.

When I finally straggled home, it was about 5 minutes after iftar, and I opened my iftar box.

It consisted of a ½ pint box of juice, four dates, an apple, Arabic pita bread, fried chicken parts, and spicy goat fried rice, called biriani.

Farook invitation to iftar did not mean iftar with Farook.

But I ate everything except the goat.