I was in the military from 2010 – 2019 during my time I have been to multiple nations in the Middle East – Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. But my most memorable and life changing tour was in Afghanistan, I was stationed on the outskirts of a city called Mazir E Sharif And though i have thousands of stories I could share I wanted to share my experience with the call to prayer I witnessed. I worked out on the airstrip for most of the deployment and it was right along a chain link fence that separated me from the city, in the mornings I would travel to the gate and pick up Baddar a man I worked with to help reestablish communication and power lines to the Mazar E Sharif airport that we were rebuilding. I befriended Baddar over time and along with him, I would pick up 4 or 5 other Afghani men and work with them all day. I would hear 4 prayers a day, I was generally sleeping for the others, and I would be with these afghan men for 2 of them, the noon and afternoon prayer. Over the loudspeaker the prayer would begin and I would generally give them their peace and not be around them for the occasion sometimes they would kneel but not always, but all work stopped and at the least silence and peace would exist. Baddar never prayed, but that’s another story. The call to prayer was really significant for me, it was my first real taste of this culture outside of just human contact, the prayer, the devotion the consistency of the prayer, it became difficult to really gauge time without hearing it once I left. I hope to revisit the region one day, but I fear it wont be stable enough to casually visit Afghanistan in my lifetime
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Image of Baddar and I