MOUNTAINS TO HEAVEN
Walking towards my hostel in Camp Wamako, you notice the green mosque on the opposite side of the road, it’s the only complete religious building on the camp, which is not surprising considering that the camp is in a state called “The Seat of the Caliphate”. The first thing I noticed about it was the tower that was a feature of mosques, usually ending with the symbol of the crescent moon and a star. I’m a weirder person these days, why is it that out of all the things to notice when I’m busy trying to get to the hostel early for some rest it’s a spire symbolizing a religion that’s not even mine?
It’s not only the towers of mosques that catch my attention, churches with towers also make me think deeply about the claims of religion. I’ve come to admire nature than I ever have before, and the way nature is displayed in religious buildings gives me pause for wonder. Where I come from, symbols aren’t taken as much, modern ignorance of symbols and their powerful uses has taken deep root in Nigeria, functionalism reigns king, and this mindset, unfortunately, is ridiculously engrained in Nigerian Christians, protestants especially, church buildings may be important, but not in the way it was originally important. Church buildings are basically a container to hold a meeting with God, rather than a symbol of the people who are meeting God, who cannot be contained in buildings. But that is a topic for another day, let me show you what I saw.
I saw in that mosque tower a mountain touching the sky, man ascending to the moon and stars and bringing down the commands of God. The Muslim calendar, as with many religious calendars, is a lunar calendar, with feasts at certain points of the lunar cycle, these feasts commemorate history, giving them divine significance. In a sense, in these historical events commemorated, Deity himself becomes historical, not that he was always distant, he was always there, but now he makes himself “visible”, revealing himself.
People view commemoration of these events as the command of God, and they time their commemoration by watching the sky, which is in a sense, the “Home” or “dwelling place” of Deity. If the sky is the dwelling place of Deity, then what the sky tells us can be considered the words of Deity, telling where and when to commemorate these events.
What you see in these religious buildings, and what I saw when I stopped to stare at that mosque, is a picture of obedience. The tower is a picture of Man’s ascent to learn God’s commands from the heavenly bodies, and his descent to obey them, a picture of heaven and earth in union.