Prostration, astronomy, and a black cat

The prostration (Arabic: sajdah or sujud) is thought to be the most important part of the Muslim prayer. According to the prophet Muhammad, one is nearest to God during prostration. The noblest parts of one’s body are touching the ground, signifying utmost submission and humility in front of God. For some, it is also the most therapeutic part of the entire prayer. 

So, it was for Salma. She would find herself meditating in that pose, in a sort of ecstasy of repeating the Arabic words Subhana Rabbi Al Ala (Glory be to my Lord, the Most Exalted) that she would find herself thinking about God’s image and essence, and all things created in nature, and especially, the mysterious bodies in the sky. And He is the One Who created the day, and night, the sun and moon – each traveling in an orbit (21:33)

In an orbit? From her classes, she had understood that the sun and moon were in a different space than Earth and that they were on this set trajectory of going around–

She goes back to repeating the words of exaltation, in order not to lose her focus. That feeling again. She was being watched… She murmurs the last glorifying sentence and raises from prostration. The feeling persists. Finally, she salutes the prayer and gets up. Turning her head around, she exclaims.

“I knew it was you!” 

The cat kept looking at her without blinking. It was a black cat with yellow eyes.

“How did you get in? Hm? Who let you in? Answer!”

The cat keeps looking as if wanting to tell Salma how stupid she was to ask a cat questions, as it was well known that cats could not speak, let alone answer a whole question. 

Salma was perplexed about how was it possible for this cat to get into the house, and always at the exact same time of the day. 

Even her parents knew of this cat, and called her Salma’s cat, even though the cat was not Salma’s. The cat kept entering the house and staring Salma down.

Salma wondered if she looked long enough into the cat’s eyes, maybe the cat would start speaking or would do something that would tell Salma about the cat’s intentions. 

The cat gets up from its sitting pose and turns around. Starts walking. It had only started walking once it was sure that Salma would follow.

“Wait, where are you going?” 

Salma started going after it. The cat went down the stairs, then through the house library, and finally towards the door. 

“Wait!” Salma yells. 

The cat stops. Turns around, and looks at her. 

“It is getting darker. I cannot go out, it is not safe for me” 

The cat yawns, comes closer to her, and goes around her legs. Seductively, the way cats do. And Salma, of course, starts petting it. 

“What do you want me to do? Ha?! Go with you? With one silly cat?” 

The cat moves away from Salma’s reach and looks at the door. Salma hesitantly opens it, the cat goes through, and Salma follows. 

Distant noises of people conversing and yelling. The neighborhood street was empty, with a few torches lighting the way. Salma looks up to the sky. Vast, with shining stars. She just got her hands on Al Sufi’s The Book of the Fixed Stars and tried to recognize the constellations. And We adorned the lowest heaven with ˹stars like˺ lamps ˹for beauty˺ and for protection. That is the design of the Almighty, All-Knowing (41:12)

A verse that instantly comes up, and she recites it silently.

The cat is also looking at the sky. The darkness had actually made her question how long she was praying Maghrib (the sunset prayer), as it is supposed to be prayed only until dusk. Once the night starts, so does the time for the night prayer, Isha’.

With each street or narrow alley that they left behind, they were also leaving the shining lights of the town. The distant noises were no longer to be heard, and there were less and less torches to show the way through the dark. The cat would turn its head to see if Salma still followed, and each time it did so, it looked as if her eyes were glowing. The cat would turn its head so many times, that the glowing eyes gave the effect of blinking lights. The bright yellow eyes were now the substitute for the torches.

Salma keeps turning her head towards the now distant city and longingly thinks about the adhan that she will miss.

They stop in front of a house. The cat gives her the look to open the door. The house looked abandoned. A simple divan was in the room, with a table, and tall bookshelves that went up to the ceiling. Salma imagined that books once stood on those shelves. 

In the corner, she noticed a prayer rug. Coming closer to it, she realized it was not covered in dust or spider web. Touching it, she discovered it was perfectly clean. 

A meow. 

The cat was no longer in the room with the divan. Stepping into the next room, the meow repeats.

“Cat, where are you?” 

A meow. But, a meow that came from below. The moonlight that was piercing through the cracked windows uncovered an opening in the floor. Salma looks towards the moonlight with a smile. God is the Light of the heavens and the earth… God guides whoever He wills to His light (24:35)

Coming closer to it, she notices a staircase, and the cat’s bright yellow eyes a few stairs below. She starts climbing down. May God help me, she thinks to herself. 

She kept going down and down, and the cat would occasionally meow. The horrifying part about climbing down was that there was nothing to grab onto, and the echo of water dripping nearby, told her that she was descending from a dangerous height. The darkness and the steepness made her even more disoriented and imbalanced. Indeed, God is with the patient (2:153)

With another steady step, her foot finally touches the ground. Praise be to God! 

Going after the cat, the air was damp and cold. 

In the distance, she saw light. Rushing towards it they come across a part lighted with torches. There was no sight of the ceiling, which made her think how deep underground she was. 

The size of the place was breathtaking. The two walls facing one another were so far apart when one would find themselves at either of them, the lights of the opposite one were mere blinking dots. Its size was worthy of a hippodrome. Every other brick in the walls had a cat engraving, with distinct yellow eyes. The cat had also observed these drawings with Salma.

She continued following the cat.

Traveling further along the eastern wall, they come across a door.

Another staircase, but this one was going up. This looked like a dug-out tunnel, as it was quite narrow, with barely enough space to spread out one’s arms. No light. Now, she started hearing noises. They were muffled. At top of the stairs, another door. She opens them. 

A place the size of her bedroom. A few torches were burning, and it was way warmer. Walls were covered with Quranic inscriptions, along with cat drawings. Shelves with numerous books, each marked with the already familiar cat symbol. Candles in form of cats. Someone was quite fond of cats. 

Now she heard a recital. 

The recital seemed to come from the ceiling. The melody. That sounds like the adhan. Was now the time for Isha? 

Where was she, and what was above her? 

The floor of the room was covered with a carpet (of course with multiple cat-themed embroideries) which seemed to have been precisely cut for this room. In the corner, there was a spiral staircase.

She goes up the staircase, and the recital is getting louder. Now, she was sure this was the adhan. A door above her. She tries to open it, but it was too heavy. Pushing with both hands, she is able to lift it up. 

It was the great mosque, that was only a few streets away from her house. She was in the back. The imam had already taken his position. The mosque was partially full, and everyone was turned with their back to her. 

In the first rows, she noticed her father. So, her mother was probably there as well. 

She closes the door and finds the cat sleeping on the pile of prayer rugs. 

“Cat! Wake up! Cat!” She shoves the cat a bit, but nothing. What was she to do now? 

The prayer of the congregation had already started and captivated by the imam’s voice, she decides to pray along. As they lower themselves into the first prostration of the prayer, she once again finds that calmness. As each rak’a consisted of two prostrations, with each one, she starts losing track of the imam’s voice and loses herself in the meditation on God. 

The imam’s voice is now muted, and only words glorifying God coming from Salma’s mouth are to be heard. She always imagined that the ground she was murmuring these words into, was being enriched by some spiritual purity. 

Raising up from the last prostration, she gives her blessings and salutations. 

Traveling back to reality, she hears purring. 

That brought a smile to her face.

“We have a pious one here”

She gets up. She feels her knees shaking. Turns around. 

A man. With almost black eyes. He was sitting on one of the divans, with the cat in his lap. 

“I did not want to interrupt, not that I could… You see, I was coming down the stairs, and you did not even move. You were in prostration. The imam had finished with the prayer, but you were someplace else. That is truly praiseworthy that we still have people like you, who pray in such a way. If one is to believe the narrations, that is the type of approach the Prophet had towards the prayer” He continues petting the cat, and judging by how the cuddled up the cat was in his lap, this was not their first meeting. 

“Where am I?”

“In a secret place, unknown to the rest” The large set of teeth made his smile upsetting. 

“Why am I here?” 

“You have to do something for us.”

“Us?” A simple necklace with a cat pendant around his neck was the only thing on his entire body that was not black.

“Yes. There are more of us. What? You think it was just me, and this wonderful cat, who made this magical room that peeks into the great mosque?” He was full of gestures. “A mosque where even the caliph prays…” He went into a bit of thinking. He continues. 

 “I think you are smarter than that… Anyways, what you have to do is make sure that your father comes to the mosque eleven days from now”

“Why would I do such a thing?” 

“Because I ask you to”

“What if I refuse?”

“I believe that is an option as well. But, I think you will not like its consequences”

“Consequences?”

“Your mother sleeps upstairs in your palace-like house. Room left of yours” His tone did not change a bit, nor did his smile. “She has a cat named Nasira, that likes to follow her around the house. A cat, almost as wonderful as this one” He gives the cat a kiss.

“Nasira accompanies your mother when she drinks her tea or when she reads one of her many books from your house’s library” 

Why did she have to follow the damn cat? Now she will get both of her parents killed by this big teethed lunatic. 

“How do you know this?”

“I think I am the guilty one” He lifts the cat up in his hands, and puts it in front of his face. 

“This cat knows everything. She is our spy”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to bring your father to the mosque that sits above us. Eleven days from now. Around the time of the evening prayer. Do you understand?”

“Yes”

“If we don't see him, we know where your mother sleeps. You will never get the chance to pray in peace again” 

The cat jumps from his lap. He gives it a snack. 

“Follow the cat back to your house”

Salma looks up to the ceiling. He notices that. 

“You cannot go through the mosque. I know it's way closer, but they lock the mosque for some reason. It is private property, and not the property of the people. If you want to pray, you need a key. Ha ha” The laugh seemed forced “This is what we came to change” The smile disappears. “Go back with the cat, and sleep well, Salma bint Yahya” 

She turns around to take one last look at him and goes with the cat. 

How could any of this be real?

Sneaking into the house, the torches were still burning, with some candles. 

“Salma”

She finds herself in the arms of her mother. 

“You know how much I worry about you. Where have you been?”

She had the urge to cry. 

“I told your father that you were sick, and that was the reason you could not come with us to the mosque. Ah, you brought your cat with you! Salma’s cat” Salma turns around and notices the cat. 

“Is it hungry?”

“It is not!” 

“Salma… it looks very thin, and it comes here because it is quite attached to you. Come, let's feed it together, and you will tell me where have you been” 

“Have you been staring at the stars again, and then got lost in it all?” Her mother asks as she pets the cat, which was munching the food. 

“Something like that. You know me” 

“Salma … You know if that happens again I will put the guards back again in front of your bedroom. They will be watching you even when you pray, and you will not have any privacy.  You will not be able to move around as you please. Do you hear me?” 

“Yes, I am so sorry” Salma starts crying. 

“Shhh… What is the matter with you? Calm down” 

Through the tears, Salma can again feel the heaviness of that yellow-eyed gaze. 

***

The day had come. 

“Whenever I am reading, or having a cup of tea, that beautiful cat of yours is looking at me. As if she were looking after me. You have to give it a name” 

Salma had grown to hate it. 

“I will think of it” 

“Come, let's pray Maghrib together, then we will go with your father to the mosque for Isha” 

The meditative prostrations were long gone, along with the inspirational verses. She could focus no longer, and the cat never left her side. After each sunset prayer, the cat would be waiting for her with a new note around its neck. 

The eerie notes would consist of some threatening sentence or a reminder. 

One more day; If you say something, we have ears; If you do something, we have eyes. 

As they were being brought to the great mosque, through the window of the carriage, Salma saw many of the city’s esteemed astronomers gathered for the sighting of Ramadan’s crescent moon. Many predicted it would be sighted either that night or the next one. 

She prayed to God endlessly for some miracle, and above all, mercy. 

As they were to enter the mosque, her mother says “Ah, that must be the new muezzin. They never fail to choose a great voice” 

The cat fanatic! Up there, on the minaret! Calling her and everyone else to pray. 

Once inside the mosque, Salma anticipated chaos to unravel. 

She had seen her father once again take a place in the first row. She also saw the muezzin enter the mosque to pray. Her heart starts beating faster. He takes a position right behind her father. As if knowing, he turns his head and gaze up at her. 

Each prostration was now pure torment. It was the only position in the prayer that did not give her the view of her father. Each rising from the prostration was more terrifying, as each time she always expected to see a disaster. The cat was peacefully laying in one of the corners of the mosque. 

Nothing had happened. 

Leaving the mosque, Salma noticed the cat seductively going around her father’s legs. Turning around to find the fake muezzin, multiple black cats on the roof of the mosque catch her attention. Some were sitting, and some taking a stroll. There were more of them on the minaret. 

Another group of black cats was coming from inside the mosque. They were now around people. Black cats everywhere! 

Seeing him just a few steps behind her father, she starts running. 

Sudden shrieks. She stops.

“They have seen it, they have seen the moon! Ramadan has officially started!” 

Looking at the crescent moon, it takes the shape of a black cat. 

“We do not harm anyone during Ramadan, even though it is allowed. See you on Eid, pious one” The cat fanatic whispers into her ear. 

“Salma, are you alright?” Her father asks while holding the black cat in his arms.