The Mosque

By German Kuznetsov-Valin

In memory of my mother, Khafiza Abdulonova, the blacksmith's granddaughter

One day my friend and I were caught in a cloudburst and soaked to the skin. His friend, Akhmet, who lived nearby, let us come in to dry out and gave us a warm welcome. The first thing I saw was a large color photograph on the wall in an expensive frame.

“Do you like it?” said Akhmet “They call it the Rashida Mosque. There are two very interesting stories about it. But first, let's sit down. Let's get you warm and dry.”

As we drank tea flavored with buckwheat honey, Akhmet told us the stories.

The mosque graces the bank of the river Medyanka, which flows by the village of Medyana in the district of Nizhny Novgorod. That's where Akhmet comes from.

The first story happened long ago.

For Akhmet and his fellow-villagers, the Rashida Mosque serves as a monument to Ismail the local blacksmith and to the heroic deed of a young Russian soldier whose life is linked with his memory.

Ismail Khairetdinov was a wonderful blacksmith. He was known throughout the area. He could make anything, and not just out of metal. There was no job he could not do. People came from far and wide to ask his help. He never turned them down.

One sad day, Ismail was found dead in the smithy. His heart had failed. The village was cast into deep grief. Grown-ups wept. The children were quiet. Everyone turned out for his funeral. A long procession made its way toward the cemetery on the other side of the little river. In summertime the Medyanka is calm and flows quietly. Now it was in full spring flood. Overnight, ice and water had washed out all the bridges, and further down, rushed over rocks and rapids. They thought they found a way.

The men struggled to build a temporary crossing out of beams and planks but it looked extremely dangerous to try to carry the bier across.

The shrouded body was tied firmly to the bier. Two men carefully crossed over to the other bank. Pulling on a rope attached to the bier, they tried to drag it across the bridge. When it was half way over, disaster struck. The rope, slippery from the cold, got away from their numb fingers. The bier slithered on the icy planks and slid onto one of the sheets of ice floating downstream. The current took hold of the ice-sheet with its sad load, and carried it away. The rapids were waiting.

People ran after the bier along the bank, shouting in Tartar and Russian. They had no idea what to do. A young Russian soldier heard the cries of the Tartars and realized what was happening. He peeled off his greatcoat and leapt into the icy water. The ice-sheets knocked the rescuer off his feet, almost crushing him. The current dragged him towards the rapids. But the soldier managed to grab the rope tied to the bier. He pulled the whole ice-sheet to the bank. The villagers rushed up and hauled the soldier out of the icy water. Then they dragged the bier, bearing Ismail's body, safely up onto the bank.

The soldier's face and hands were streaked with blood. His clothes began to freeze. Women threw his greatcoat over the soldier and took him away to get warm in a nearby hut. There they left the hero in the care of an old woman and returned to the funeral procession.

It was pointless to try to take Ismael's body across the river to the cemetery that day. They left the bier with the body in the old tumbledown mosque. A group of leading citizens went back to the hut where the soldier had been left to thaw out. They were anxious to thank him for his good deed, but the young man was gone. The old woman said, "The soldier was called Fyodor. He had hair as fair as flax and eyes as blue as God's heaven." When he took off his undershirt to wring it out, she had noticed that he wore a cross on a string around his neck. He had said he was going to see his mother. What was his surname? Where, precisely, was he going? The old woman had never thought to ask! What more could she tell them? His leave was nearly up. He had got warm and dry and then gone on his way. Next day after the funeral, the Muslims went to all the surrounding villages trying to find the Russian soldier. He was not to be found.

The second story is how the new mosque was built. The old mosque had been in bad shape for years. There was too much trouble and not enough money to build a new one. Finally, things got better. The Muslim villagers collected enough money for materials and invited anyone who could to help with the construction. All kinds of people worked together to build it. While the work was going on, you would hear the distinctive chatter of Muscovites, Ukrainians,

Belorussians, and people of the Caucasus. Everybody was friendly and nobody bothered about anyone's nationality. A man won respect according to the work he did.

They professed different religions, but they all lived together as one family. After surviving repression, war, and hunger they came together to build a house of prayer for their fellow villagers of the Muslim faith.

Vasis, a local businessman who had donated a great deal of money toward building the new place of worship was asked to name the new mosque. He called it "Rashida" in honor of his mother.

At the opening ceremony, Vasis declared that the mosque was a gift to the mothers of the village of Medyana. Thus the mosque, bearing the name of one mother, became a symbol of the love that all those sons had for the mothers of the village. Muslims see the Rashida Mosque as a tribute to the love which sons have for their mothers. To many, it means more: it also commemorates the selfless help given by people of one nation to another and it honors the faith which people have in each other.

For Akhmet and his fellow villagers, the Rashida Mosque also serves as a monument to Ismail the local blacksmith and to the heroic deed of a young Christian Russian soldier whose life is linked with Ismail's memory.

The tales had been told. The storm was over. It was time to go. Before I left, I looked around the room once more. A beam of sunlight set the Rashida Mosque in the photograph glowing with all the colors of the rainbow.

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Discussion Questions

1. How did the fellow villagers feel about the death of Ismail? What were they feeling when the Russian soldier saved Ismail’s bier?
2. How was what the young Russian soldier did extraordinary?
3. In what ways are the acts similar of the soldier and those of the people who came together to build a new mosque?
4. Why is it important that people of many different ethnic backgrounds and faiths came together to build a place of worship for people of only one faith?
5. Have you ever had a chance to build something with other people? What feelings and behaviors did your cooperative effort bring?
6. What feelings do people who build mosques evoke in you? Did you ever witness the construction of a mosque? Does that mosque have its own history?
7. Did you ever sacrifice your health and time helping other people?
8. What feelings and thoughts does this true story evoke in you?

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