Look outside your window. Do you see that glistening shimmery minaret? The architecture of our faith for centuries.

The minaret close to my home is a tall, slender tower that is a significant feature of the mosque. It is surrounded by one or more projecting galleries from where the muezzin, the person who chants the call for prayer, announces the prayer to worshippers.

Born in a religious family, we had our religious tutor come to our home every day.  Completely mesmerized by the minaret since I first laid eyes upon it, I asked my Qari Saab to take me there when I finish the first reading of the Quran. Every night, I would go out on the balcony to just look at the minaret, it mollified me.

That minaret was much more to me than a tower. I don’t know how to describe it, but if I had to. This is how I would:

If there was a thunderstorm, a waterspout, an ocean storm, I would feel like my boat will stay grounded. It gave me peace. I might drown, but I’d drown with peace.

So my Qari Saab kept his word and told me the day I was going to see the world around from that minaret.

The day came, I was ready. When I entered the mosque, I looked up and I felt so small. It was a bridge for me. A bridge between Allah and me. All I could think of was if this minaret makes me feel so small, the skies will make me feel non-existent. For the age I was, the top felt thousand steps up high.

I could not believe my eyes. We could see everything, the world seemed so simple. Everyone looked the same, small and human. From up there you can’t even distinguish their faces, their clothes and houses.

Among all the azaans that my brain has archived from the past years, I still go back to the azaan of the same day in my head. The call for prayer from that day is engraved so deep in my heart and soul. I could see people with differences come for prayer and humbly beg for the atonement of their sins.

That is the day I fell in love with the idea of religion. A place where nobody was better. Everyone was equal. To me that minaret was the sign of the divine, the merciful and the forgiving. The top of the house of Allah, felt so chastening.

The golden rays of the sun illuminate the minaret till this day. As a child the glory of the minaret kept me ignorant from the chaos that the floor of that mosque is capable of bringing.

It breaks my heart that the ones who stand up there, have started looking down upon us. That the minaret that shimmered like gold when the sun shines upon it can be a place from where hatred, injustice or bigotry stems from.

It breaks my heart, the minaret which is a symbol of peace and refuge, is a place from where decrees of antipathy are announced.

I still believe in the divine, the merciful and the forgiving: Allah. But do not burn the bridge.

To the ones standing at the top of the minaret, look up, the skies are still higher above!