Balls Deep (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Ramadan - full transcript
Thomas joins a Muslim family in Michigan to fast for the holy month of Ramadan.
[ Man chanting in Arabic ]
**
Since September 11,
almost every third story
in the news
has been about Islam.
Are we at war with them?
Why do they hate us?
Should we hate them?
Who's radicalizing whom?
But for all the Islamamania
in the media,
who knows what Muslims believe?
Like, not politically, what are
their actual religious beliefs?
I've tried reading the Quran,
but got lost a few surahs in.
Confusing explanations
of inheritance law
and cattle transactions.
Also tried to glean
what I can off
Cat Stevens' musical output,
but most of his best albums
are from before he converted.
So, in a last ditch effort
to understand
what a third
of the world believes,
I've come the Muslim-est part
of America --
Dearborn, Michigan --
at the Muslim-est time of year,
the holy month
of Ramadan, to see
if I can finally figure out
what their deal is.
HUSSEIN: You know, when we first
started our softball team,
we brought all of the guys
that we went to school,
like high school
and middle school with,
and that's what the team's
made up of now.
- Is everybody Arab?
- On our team, yeah.
You're all at least
second generation.
Yeah.
Dearborn has been a Mecca
for Arabs in America
since Henry Ford opened
his first auto factory
and hired immigrants from
across the Arabian Peninsula,
most likely in an attempt
to avoid union labor.
Today, Dearborn
has the largest Arab-American
population in the country.
And while not
all of them are Muslim,
a healthy most are,
including Hussein,
whose parents moved here
from Lebanon back in the '70s.
Hey, your dad's here.
Sorry, man.
Other than observing Islam,
Hussein
lives the most spot-on
middle-American life
I've seen outside of TV.
He owns a small business,
he plays league softball
with his work buddies.
- Oh!
- Oh!
He even lives in with his folks
and sister
in the same house he grew up in,
which looks like the house
from "Roseanne,"
but better kept.
Oh. I like
your guys' living room.
- Thank you so much.
- This is sumptuous.
Ramadan is the ninth month
of the Muslim calendar.
Historically, it's the month
during which Allah started
telling the prophet Muhammad
the divine verses
that would eventually be
written down as the Quran,
the central text of Islam.
To observe Ramadan,
all adult Muslims
are required to fast every day
from sunrise to sunset.
So it's like Lent except,
except instead of giving up
one thing like chocolate,
you give up everything
for an entire month --
at least during the daylight.
At night, you stuff face.
So tonight's the last day
before Ramadan, right?
Yeah. What are the rules?
Um, is it --
it's just all food,
or is it food and water?
Food, water, smoking.
You pretty much can't.
- Nothing goes in.
- Nothing goes in.
- Okay, okay, okay.
- In a way, it's supposed
to purify you, make you
like a better person, you know?
It's like I -- I live
a better life while I'm fasting.
- Okay, I see.
- I guess that's the simplest
way to put it and whatnot,
but good luck.
- Thank you.
- You got it?
Got -- Yeah, I've got,
like, the...
Do you guys want to go
to the flea market?
- Yeah.
- Mama?
She's hiding from the camera.
Wednesday it's wild Wednesday.
It's always a sale
on Wednesdays,
and then today, Wednesday
happens to be the day
before Ramadan.
It's just, like,
extremely packed.
THOMAS: This is giving me
flashbacks to the day
before Thanksgiving
at the local Kroger.
Uh, I'm getting Ramadan shopping
done because it starts
at 4:00 AM this morning.
This is the last chance.
**
It's like a football scrum.
Sorry.
It's hard to get through here.
Yeah.
These aisles weren't made
for this many carts.
She's, like, eyeing the deals.
Like -- Like a general plotting
on the map.
[ Chuckles ]
Everybody breaks their fast
on dates and water.
- Okay.
- So any house you walk into,
you're always gonna see
a lot of dates.
Got it.
No?
No?
**
I can't argue with my ma.
During Ramadan, you'd hear
a lot of people say,
"Where's the sahra tonight?"
Sahra is kind of
like the nightly gathering.
Okay.
Where's everyone
hanging out at tonight?
My group of friends,
we're usually up pretty late,
hanging out and whatnot.
Yeah.
What time
do you normally go to sleep?
Oh, I'll get to bed
around 3:00 or 4:00
and wake up
around 10:00 or 11:00.
- Oh, all right, good, good.
- Yeah, like --
So we're --we're gonna be
on the same schedule.
Oh, no, no, no,
I'm really excited about that.
You guys basically keep the same
hours as I do in New York.
This will be pretty cool.
**
THOMAS: Hussein runs
what he described to me
as head shop,
by which he meant the heads
you put on hookahs,
smoke out of.
His head shop specializes
in doing fruit heads,
which they just
chop up grapefruit,
uh, fill it with tobacco,
and you smoke out of that.
And I guess
it tastes like grapefruit.
We used to smoke out of apples
where I grew up,
but that was
a totally different thing.
'Cause we were smoking weed.
**
Imsak's about to start.
Imsak's at, yeah, 3:50.
So we've got one minute,
basically,
to pound water
and have a last smoke.
Morning.
Ramadan has begun.
We have started our fast.
It's 1:00
in the afternoon, though,
so it just kind of feels
like I've skipped breakfast.
Not terrible yet.
I just think about it
not as 30 days of fasting,
but 30 one days of fasting.
30, like, single days.
Phew.
Brain's already not working.
Salaam alaikum.
- Alaikum salaam.
- How you doing?
- How's it going?
- Good.
- How did you sleep?
- It's good, doing okay.
- Friday prayer.
- Friday prayer, okay.
This is like Sunday prayer
for the main day.
This is like the holy day.
So we're gonna
be headed to mosque.
**
MAN: Salaam alaikum.
Yeah.
Muhammad...
[ Man speaking Arabic ]
There are five daily prayers
Muslims are required to perform,
one at sunrise, one around noon,
one in the afternoon,
one at sunset,
and one right
before you go to bed.
Originally, there were gonna
be 50 prayers a day,
but Moses convinced Muhammad
to talk God down to five
when he visited Heaven one night
on flying horse named Buraq.
As a result, every time
you do one
of the daily required prayers,
it's worth 10 times
a normal prayer.
And during Ramadan,
it's worth even more.
So that takes care of two...
- Of two midday prayers.
- The two midday prayers.
- I'm learning the rest, though.
- You're learning.
Oh, you're -- you're learn --
you're learning very quick.
I got a month.
Okay, thank you.
Let me see if my mom
is just wearing her headscarf,
which I believe she is.
I'm not allowed to come inside if
his mom's... No, she's wearing it.
not wearing a headscarf,
but she is, so...
- Yeah, she is.
- I'm coming in.
- Hi.
- My mom.
How are you doing
with the fasting?
She's not, like,
feeling it much today,
so it's -- it's going good.
Yeah.
May God accept your good deeds.
I hope so.
Huh?
- Oh, this is very tempting.
- I know.
How long have we got, two hours?
We got...
See, two hours!
Look, you made it this far.
Now this this --
Home stretch starts in an hour.
Yeah, okay.
So we're about to break fast.
It's 9:23.
So there's four minutes
left in the daytime.
This is my first time
fasting without water,
which really makes a difference.
So I feel a little slow
and, um, cranky.
Anyway, three minutes
and counting.
I definitely
don't feel blessed yet.
Let's see what's going --
Yeah. You want to
start off with a date?
How do we do -- Yeah, that's
the traditional way.
- Traditional way.
- Date and water, right?
You know, we just usually say, like,
a little prayer before we start.
Oh, well, let's do that, then.
Baba, you say...
[ Speaking Arabic ]
[ Repeating ]
All right, good, good.
- Oh, there you go.
- All right, okay.
**
Feels good to eat
after a long day.
- It feels very good to eat.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Feels like --
- Very long day.
You'd think
it would take a while for,
like, the brain to kick back in,
but it's like instantaneous.
No, no, my brain kicks back in.
- Like, right now --
- Flipping a switch.
Back in right now.
**
Brain's back working after I,
like, broke fast.
We need to do prayers.
It's kind of
like the day's just starting.
I did just have my coffee.
So it is like
the day's just starting.
**
Time for prayer, Thomas.
- We're just gonna do a rinse.
- Oh, okay.
It's just for purity reasons,
you keep, you know...
Water is the ultimate purifier.
Right, yeah.
Every time before you pray,
you're required to do wudu,
which is a ritual washing
of your face, arms,
and feet.
And then I'd grab the water,
pour it into the left hand.
And you want to wash
the right arm.
And then switch over
to the left side.
The order
in which you do it is important
because it's specified
in the Quran.
And you only use your right hand
to touch the water,
because in Arab society,
the left hand
is traditionally
considered unclean
because that's the hand
you wipe your ass with.
And that's it.
Ready -- Ready for prayer.
- How do you stay clean, though?
- There are certain things
that would require
you to redo it.
Those being urinating,
using number two.
- Got it.
- Breaking wind.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Yes. So you break wind,
you have to redo it.
What if you don't realize
you've broken wind?
Are there provisions
for that or...
What do you mean
if you don't realize?
- Like if you...
- One sneaks out.
Do people call each other on it?
I -- Sorry.
Is that...
If you know that
you physically broke wind --
If, like, your friend --
like, or like an older
gentleman, like...
- If it sort of just --
- Sometimes it kind of slips out.
Do you tell them
so that they know?
I mean, if they don't know,
if sort of they break wind
and don't realize, I...
Don't realize.
- You know, who's --
- I guess you're good to go.
It's like if a tree falls
in the woods.
Exactly, I mean...
**
THOMAS: With the exception
of a few travel days,
I've been fasting
for the last three weeks.
Mostly in New York.
I realized as soon as I left
that, I mean, you're doing it
without a bunch of people
supporting you
and going through it
at the same time.
It's much harder.
Soldiered through.
Tried to keep up
with the prayers.
But they're a lot harder,
mostly just 'cause
of the hours you have to keep.
[ Speaking Arabic ]
I realized, like,
just to be a not even
a great Muslim,
I think a decent Muslim, really
rearranges your entire
day-to-day schedule.
[ Speaks Arabic ]
Allahu Akbar.
You basically
have to set your clock
according to Islam or one
of these Islamic phone apps.
**
We're just back in Dearborn now.
Tonight's Laylat al-Qadr,
which means the night of power.
It's essentially the night
where Muhammad started
dictating the Quran,
and it's like
the holiest night of Ramadan.
So it's --
Wow, it's a scene here.
The same way
that Christianity
works on an economy
of sins, Islam kind of works
on this economy of blessings.
So you do good acts and you hope
they just counteract
what you've done wrong.
When you do that during Ramadan,
your blessings
are worth that much more.
And if you do them
during the night of power,
they're worth thousands
of times more.
So what people do is
they come to the mosque,
and they spend all night
here just praying.
Whatever it takes just
to get in all your prayers
for the year, 'cause
they're worth a lot.
You learned a lot.
Like, when I --
I noticed, when I was reading,
you were pretty much,
you knew what to say
without even hearing me say it.
- I'm pretty --
- I've been saying it
at least five times a day, so...
That's awesome.
- But it's kicking in.
- Oh, thank you --
Like, that -- that's awesome.
ZEINAB: Yes, Thomas, you're
gonna help us cook, right?
Yeah, what's -- what are
you guys making tonight?
So, tonight,
my sister-in-law
is actually making empanadas,
but she's doing that
part at her house.
Oh, okay.
And then we're gonna make tacos
over here.
Is it traditional
to eat Mexican food
on the last night of Ramadan?
No.
No, that's just something
that they were craving.
- Yeah.
- Ah, okay, I see.
Helping Hussein's sisters
make tacos for our last iftar
together made me realize I'd
spent almost the entire month
hanging out exclusively
with guys.
I'm already a little maladroit
around non-Muslim ladies,
but Islam's strictures for women
create an entirely
different minefield
for me to navigate.
I don't have to be super careful
not to touch you 'cause of,
like, skin contact?
Is that a...
I mean, if you
accidentally touch me
and it's not intentional,
nothing's wrong with that.
- That's fine.
- Yeah.
But, yeah, technically,
no skin contact should be...
Brothers, uncles, grandparents.
- Grandparents.
- Anyone who you cannot marry...
Mm-hmm.
Can see you
without your headscarf
and can have
skin contact with you.
- Oh, I see. Okay.
- Exactly.
How do you decide
with the, um...
And I'm sorry I don't know
the term of the scarf.
- The hijab.
- Headscarf.
- Hijab? Okay.
- Headscarf.
How do you decide
whether or not to put it on?
I -- I put my scarf
on before I turned 11.
Oh, wow.
And my parents had no idea
I was gonna do it.
Like, you can't
force it on anybody.
If they're ready
to put it on, they put it on.
If they want to put it on,
that's their decision.
- It's everyone's choice.
- Yes.
And whether they're ready
to commit or not.
- Ah.
- I think it's a big commitment.
- Yeah, it is a big commitment.
- It definitely is.
We're five sisters.
Three of us wear
the headscarves, two of us --
two of them don't.
Okay.
THOMAS: Wearing the headscarf
isn't required by the Quran,
but it's a traditional way
for women to fulfill
the Quranic idea of hijab,
which literally means curtain,
but is more conceptually a sense
of modesty or discretion
between the sexes.
Hence, mosques
having a separate,
though not always equal, space
for men and women to pray in.
Hijab is supposed
to apply to both sexes,
but in practice,
the lion's share
of the burden falls on women.
Why do guys not have
to cover them?
- There are some beautiful men.
- I feel that --
- There are some beautiful men.
- Of course.
And I like your question,
why don't the men cover?
If you put a man and a woman --
who attract the most?
The woman.
Woman is another definition
of beauty.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
**
MAHMOUT: Ramadan is over,
so tonight's the last night.
- Back to reality.
- Yeah, back to reality.
Oh.
Okay.
Ah, thank you.
Glad it's over, Thomas,
it's over.
It's over.
Eid al-Fitr.
Excited.
**
THOMAS: It's crazy to think
a third of the world does this.
This is like the level
of religious commitment
that most faiths
ask of their monks
or nuns, you know,
not just the average layperson.
It's fairly shocking.
[ Chanting in Arabic ]
**
Grandmas everywhere have this --
these seat covers.
Oh, no way!
So that's --
MAN: Oh, this is
every grandma's house?
This is the classic grandma's
living room right here.
Yo! Oh, so that's the --
Okay, she's just
a little bit loud.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Salaam alaikum.
HUSSEIN: Long live the name.
In Arabic.
**
- Cigarette?
- Hey, how are you?
- Yeah, this is my father.
- This was your father, or...
Oh, I see.
You guys have similar noses.
THOMAS: Visiting
the cemetery on Eid
isn't just to remember
dead loved ones.
You're supposed to go there
to pray for Allah's blessings
on their departed souls,
which in Muslim belief are still
lying inside their graves.
Sorry if this is heavy,
but what -- what happens
when you die?
We believe in like
a purgatory-type life
between this life
and the day of judgment.
What's it called?
- It's called Barzakh.
- Okay.
Where God decides
the fate of everybody.
So it's not
until then that, you know,
we're ultimately decided
whether you're gonna go
to Heaven and enter.
Oh. And that's like the day
of judgment
in Christianity, when it's
like the end of the world?
- Exactly.
- Okay.
There's one shortcut to Heaven,
which bypasses Barzakh,
and that's dying in the service
of Allah or Islam,
AKA martyrdom.
MAN: Around 10:45 this morning,
the first shots fired --
four marines were killed
on the scene.
At least
three others were wounded.
The alleged shooter,
now identified as 24-year-old
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez
took off.
The FBI is working the case
as a potential terrorism
investigation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
Every single time
something happens,
it's like the first thing
that kind of goes
through my mind,
which is I pray to God
that this guy was somewhere
that he doesn't end up
coming out with a Muslim name.
Most of the attacks in America
have been, like, converts.
That's what it is, usually.
You look at it,
it's like some whacked out guy
with some whacked out ideas.
And he said, "I'm gonna kill
some people in the name of Islam
since this religion says
it's okay to kill people," when,
in reality, the religion doesn't
say it's okay to kill people.
The only thing
I used to watch was Fox News --
not because I believed
in anything they said,
but I just used
to watch Fox News
so you kind of know
what everyone is thinking.
If I wasn't Arabic, if I did not
live around Muslims,
if I wasn't a Muslim,
and I was to only
watch Fox News,
excuse my language
I'm about to use,
I would fucking hate Muslims,
I would fucking hate Arabs.
Like, I would -- I would not
even want to give 'em a chance.
Because why would you want
to give 'em a chance?
This is all you see
is them slaughtering each other.
What's going on
in the Middle East,
you're talking about a couple
hundred thousand
extreme whack jobs.
That's not even 1%
of the Muslim world.
It's -- it's -- it's said
that this is what people look at
and this is
what people fixate on.
...if he is not
your brother in faith,
he's your brother in humanity,
so regardless, no matter what,
whether you believe in it
or whether you don't,
you're my brother.
- Okay.
- Because you might not be
my brother in Islam, you might
not be my brother
in Christianity, you might not
be my brother in Judaism,
but you're my brother as -- as
human beings, we are brothers.
**
THOMAS: While Hussein's beliefs
speak to what I feel
is the real nature of Islam,
they have a hard time
competing for attention
against the louder,
more bellicose voices
that you see on the media.
While the last 30 years
has given
fundamentalist Islamic groups
like al-Qaeda and ISIS
center stage,
there's an increasing push
among moderate Muslims
to clear Islam's name
in the eyes of the world
and make average Muslim life
look like the Muslim
lives we saw in Dearborn --
which is to say, very pleasant.
**
Since September 11,
almost every third story
in the news
has been about Islam.
Are we at war with them?
Why do they hate us?
Should we hate them?
Who's radicalizing whom?
But for all the Islamamania
in the media,
who knows what Muslims believe?
Like, not politically, what are
their actual religious beliefs?
I've tried reading the Quran,
but got lost a few surahs in.
Confusing explanations
of inheritance law
and cattle transactions.
Also tried to glean
what I can off
Cat Stevens' musical output,
but most of his best albums
are from before he converted.
So, in a last ditch effort
to understand
what a third
of the world believes,
I've come the Muslim-est part
of America --
Dearborn, Michigan --
at the Muslim-est time of year,
the holy month
of Ramadan, to see
if I can finally figure out
what their deal is.
HUSSEIN: You know, when we first
started our softball team,
we brought all of the guys
that we went to school,
like high school
and middle school with,
and that's what the team's
made up of now.
- Is everybody Arab?
- On our team, yeah.
You're all at least
second generation.
Yeah.
Dearborn has been a Mecca
for Arabs in America
since Henry Ford opened
his first auto factory
and hired immigrants from
across the Arabian Peninsula,
most likely in an attempt
to avoid union labor.
Today, Dearborn
has the largest Arab-American
population in the country.
And while not
all of them are Muslim,
a healthy most are,
including Hussein,
whose parents moved here
from Lebanon back in the '70s.
Hey, your dad's here.
Sorry, man.
Other than observing Islam,
Hussein
lives the most spot-on
middle-American life
I've seen outside of TV.
He owns a small business,
he plays league softball
with his work buddies.
- Oh!
- Oh!
He even lives in with his folks
and sister
in the same house he grew up in,
which looks like the house
from "Roseanne,"
but better kept.
Oh. I like
your guys' living room.
- Thank you so much.
- This is sumptuous.
Ramadan is the ninth month
of the Muslim calendar.
Historically, it's the month
during which Allah started
telling the prophet Muhammad
the divine verses
that would eventually be
written down as the Quran,
the central text of Islam.
To observe Ramadan,
all adult Muslims
are required to fast every day
from sunrise to sunset.
So it's like Lent except,
except instead of giving up
one thing like chocolate,
you give up everything
for an entire month --
at least during the daylight.
At night, you stuff face.
So tonight's the last day
before Ramadan, right?
Yeah. What are the rules?
Um, is it --
it's just all food,
or is it food and water?
Food, water, smoking.
You pretty much can't.
- Nothing goes in.
- Nothing goes in.
- Okay, okay, okay.
- In a way, it's supposed
to purify you, make you
like a better person, you know?
It's like I -- I live
a better life while I'm fasting.
- Okay, I see.
- I guess that's the simplest
way to put it and whatnot,
but good luck.
- Thank you.
- You got it?
Got -- Yeah, I've got,
like, the...
Do you guys want to go
to the flea market?
- Yeah.
- Mama?
She's hiding from the camera.
Wednesday it's wild Wednesday.
It's always a sale
on Wednesdays,
and then today, Wednesday
happens to be the day
before Ramadan.
It's just, like,
extremely packed.
THOMAS: This is giving me
flashbacks to the day
before Thanksgiving
at the local Kroger.
Uh, I'm getting Ramadan shopping
done because it starts
at 4:00 AM this morning.
This is the last chance.
**
It's like a football scrum.
Sorry.
It's hard to get through here.
Yeah.
These aisles weren't made
for this many carts.
She's, like, eyeing the deals.
Like -- Like a general plotting
on the map.
[ Chuckles ]
Everybody breaks their fast
on dates and water.
- Okay.
- So any house you walk into,
you're always gonna see
a lot of dates.
Got it.
No?
No?
**
I can't argue with my ma.
During Ramadan, you'd hear
a lot of people say,
"Where's the sahra tonight?"
Sahra is kind of
like the nightly gathering.
Okay.
Where's everyone
hanging out at tonight?
My group of friends,
we're usually up pretty late,
hanging out and whatnot.
Yeah.
What time
do you normally go to sleep?
Oh, I'll get to bed
around 3:00 or 4:00
and wake up
around 10:00 or 11:00.
- Oh, all right, good, good.
- Yeah, like --
So we're --we're gonna be
on the same schedule.
Oh, no, no, no,
I'm really excited about that.
You guys basically keep the same
hours as I do in New York.
This will be pretty cool.
**
THOMAS: Hussein runs
what he described to me
as head shop,
by which he meant the heads
you put on hookahs,
smoke out of.
His head shop specializes
in doing fruit heads,
which they just
chop up grapefruit,
uh, fill it with tobacco,
and you smoke out of that.
And I guess
it tastes like grapefruit.
We used to smoke out of apples
where I grew up,
but that was
a totally different thing.
'Cause we were smoking weed.
**
Imsak's about to start.
Imsak's at, yeah, 3:50.
So we've got one minute,
basically,
to pound water
and have a last smoke.
Morning.
Ramadan has begun.
We have started our fast.
It's 1:00
in the afternoon, though,
so it just kind of feels
like I've skipped breakfast.
Not terrible yet.
I just think about it
not as 30 days of fasting,
but 30 one days of fasting.
30, like, single days.
Phew.
Brain's already not working.
Salaam alaikum.
- Alaikum salaam.
- How you doing?
- How's it going?
- Good.
- How did you sleep?
- It's good, doing okay.
- Friday prayer.
- Friday prayer, okay.
This is like Sunday prayer
for the main day.
This is like the holy day.
So we're gonna
be headed to mosque.
**
MAN: Salaam alaikum.
Yeah.
Muhammad...
[ Man speaking Arabic ]
There are five daily prayers
Muslims are required to perform,
one at sunrise, one around noon,
one in the afternoon,
one at sunset,
and one right
before you go to bed.
Originally, there were gonna
be 50 prayers a day,
but Moses convinced Muhammad
to talk God down to five
when he visited Heaven one night
on flying horse named Buraq.
As a result, every time
you do one
of the daily required prayers,
it's worth 10 times
a normal prayer.
And during Ramadan,
it's worth even more.
So that takes care of two...
- Of two midday prayers.
- The two midday prayers.
- I'm learning the rest, though.
- You're learning.
Oh, you're -- you're learn --
you're learning very quick.
I got a month.
Okay, thank you.
Let me see if my mom
is just wearing her headscarf,
which I believe she is.
I'm not allowed to come inside if
his mom's... No, she's wearing it.
not wearing a headscarf,
but she is, so...
- Yeah, she is.
- I'm coming in.
- Hi.
- My mom.
How are you doing
with the fasting?
She's not, like,
feeling it much today,
so it's -- it's going good.
Yeah.
May God accept your good deeds.
I hope so.
Huh?
- Oh, this is very tempting.
- I know.
How long have we got, two hours?
We got...
See, two hours!
Look, you made it this far.
Now this this --
Home stretch starts in an hour.
Yeah, okay.
So we're about to break fast.
It's 9:23.
So there's four minutes
left in the daytime.
This is my first time
fasting without water,
which really makes a difference.
So I feel a little slow
and, um, cranky.
Anyway, three minutes
and counting.
I definitely
don't feel blessed yet.
Let's see what's going --
Yeah. You want to
start off with a date?
How do we do -- Yeah, that's
the traditional way.
- Traditional way.
- Date and water, right?
You know, we just usually say, like,
a little prayer before we start.
Oh, well, let's do that, then.
Baba, you say...
[ Speaking Arabic ]
[ Repeating ]
All right, good, good.
- Oh, there you go.
- All right, okay.
**
Feels good to eat
after a long day.
- It feels very good to eat.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Feels like --
- Very long day.
You'd think
it would take a while for,
like, the brain to kick back in,
but it's like instantaneous.
No, no, my brain kicks back in.
- Like, right now --
- Flipping a switch.
Back in right now.
**
Brain's back working after I,
like, broke fast.
We need to do prayers.
It's kind of
like the day's just starting.
I did just have my coffee.
So it is like
the day's just starting.
**
Time for prayer, Thomas.
- We're just gonna do a rinse.
- Oh, okay.
It's just for purity reasons,
you keep, you know...
Water is the ultimate purifier.
Right, yeah.
Every time before you pray,
you're required to do wudu,
which is a ritual washing
of your face, arms,
and feet.
And then I'd grab the water,
pour it into the left hand.
And you want to wash
the right arm.
And then switch over
to the left side.
The order
in which you do it is important
because it's specified
in the Quran.
And you only use your right hand
to touch the water,
because in Arab society,
the left hand
is traditionally
considered unclean
because that's the hand
you wipe your ass with.
And that's it.
Ready -- Ready for prayer.
- How do you stay clean, though?
- There are certain things
that would require
you to redo it.
Those being urinating,
using number two.
- Got it.
- Breaking wind.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Yes. So you break wind,
you have to redo it.
What if you don't realize
you've broken wind?
Are there provisions
for that or...
What do you mean
if you don't realize?
- Like if you...
- One sneaks out.
Do people call each other on it?
I -- Sorry.
Is that...
If you know that
you physically broke wind --
If, like, your friend --
like, or like an older
gentleman, like...
- If it sort of just --
- Sometimes it kind of slips out.
Do you tell them
so that they know?
I mean, if they don't know,
if sort of they break wind
and don't realize, I...
Don't realize.
- You know, who's --
- I guess you're good to go.
It's like if a tree falls
in the woods.
Exactly, I mean...
**
THOMAS: With the exception
of a few travel days,
I've been fasting
for the last three weeks.
Mostly in New York.
I realized as soon as I left
that, I mean, you're doing it
without a bunch of people
supporting you
and going through it
at the same time.
It's much harder.
Soldiered through.
Tried to keep up
with the prayers.
But they're a lot harder,
mostly just 'cause
of the hours you have to keep.
[ Speaking Arabic ]
I realized, like,
just to be a not even
a great Muslim,
I think a decent Muslim, really
rearranges your entire
day-to-day schedule.
[ Speaks Arabic ]
Allahu Akbar.
You basically
have to set your clock
according to Islam or one
of these Islamic phone apps.
**
We're just back in Dearborn now.
Tonight's Laylat al-Qadr,
which means the night of power.
It's essentially the night
where Muhammad started
dictating the Quran,
and it's like
the holiest night of Ramadan.
So it's --
Wow, it's a scene here.
The same way
that Christianity
works on an economy
of sins, Islam kind of works
on this economy of blessings.
So you do good acts and you hope
they just counteract
what you've done wrong.
When you do that during Ramadan,
your blessings
are worth that much more.
And if you do them
during the night of power,
they're worth thousands
of times more.
So what people do is
they come to the mosque,
and they spend all night
here just praying.
Whatever it takes just
to get in all your prayers
for the year, 'cause
they're worth a lot.
You learned a lot.
Like, when I --
I noticed, when I was reading,
you were pretty much,
you knew what to say
without even hearing me say it.
- I'm pretty --
- I've been saying it
at least five times a day, so...
That's awesome.
- But it's kicking in.
- Oh, thank you --
Like, that -- that's awesome.
ZEINAB: Yes, Thomas, you're
gonna help us cook, right?
Yeah, what's -- what are
you guys making tonight?
So, tonight,
my sister-in-law
is actually making empanadas,
but she's doing that
part at her house.
Oh, okay.
And then we're gonna make tacos
over here.
Is it traditional
to eat Mexican food
on the last night of Ramadan?
No.
No, that's just something
that they were craving.
- Yeah.
- Ah, okay, I see.
Helping Hussein's sisters
make tacos for our last iftar
together made me realize I'd
spent almost the entire month
hanging out exclusively
with guys.
I'm already a little maladroit
around non-Muslim ladies,
but Islam's strictures for women
create an entirely
different minefield
for me to navigate.
I don't have to be super careful
not to touch you 'cause of,
like, skin contact?
Is that a...
I mean, if you
accidentally touch me
and it's not intentional,
nothing's wrong with that.
- That's fine.
- Yeah.
But, yeah, technically,
no skin contact should be...
Brothers, uncles, grandparents.
- Grandparents.
- Anyone who you cannot marry...
Mm-hmm.
Can see you
without your headscarf
and can have
skin contact with you.
- Oh, I see. Okay.
- Exactly.
How do you decide
with the, um...
And I'm sorry I don't know
the term of the scarf.
- The hijab.
- Headscarf.
- Hijab? Okay.
- Headscarf.
How do you decide
whether or not to put it on?
I -- I put my scarf
on before I turned 11.
Oh, wow.
And my parents had no idea
I was gonna do it.
Like, you can't
force it on anybody.
If they're ready
to put it on, they put it on.
If they want to put it on,
that's their decision.
- It's everyone's choice.
- Yes.
And whether they're ready
to commit or not.
- Ah.
- I think it's a big commitment.
- Yeah, it is a big commitment.
- It definitely is.
We're five sisters.
Three of us wear
the headscarves, two of us --
two of them don't.
Okay.
THOMAS: Wearing the headscarf
isn't required by the Quran,
but it's a traditional way
for women to fulfill
the Quranic idea of hijab,
which literally means curtain,
but is more conceptually a sense
of modesty or discretion
between the sexes.
Hence, mosques
having a separate,
though not always equal, space
for men and women to pray in.
Hijab is supposed
to apply to both sexes,
but in practice,
the lion's share
of the burden falls on women.
Why do guys not have
to cover them?
- There are some beautiful men.
- I feel that --
- There are some beautiful men.
- Of course.
And I like your question,
why don't the men cover?
If you put a man and a woman --
who attract the most?
The woman.
Woman is another definition
of beauty.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
**
MAHMOUT: Ramadan is over,
so tonight's the last night.
- Back to reality.
- Yeah, back to reality.
Oh.
Okay.
Ah, thank you.
Glad it's over, Thomas,
it's over.
It's over.
Eid al-Fitr.
Excited.
**
THOMAS: It's crazy to think
a third of the world does this.
This is like the level
of religious commitment
that most faiths
ask of their monks
or nuns, you know,
not just the average layperson.
It's fairly shocking.
[ Chanting in Arabic ]
**
Grandmas everywhere have this --
these seat covers.
Oh, no way!
So that's --
MAN: Oh, this is
every grandma's house?
This is the classic grandma's
living room right here.
Yo! Oh, so that's the --
Okay, she's just
a little bit loud.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Salaam alaikum.
HUSSEIN: Long live the name.
In Arabic.
**
- Cigarette?
- Hey, how are you?
- Yeah, this is my father.
- This was your father, or...
Oh, I see.
You guys have similar noses.
THOMAS: Visiting
the cemetery on Eid
isn't just to remember
dead loved ones.
You're supposed to go there
to pray for Allah's blessings
on their departed souls,
which in Muslim belief are still
lying inside their graves.
Sorry if this is heavy,
but what -- what happens
when you die?
We believe in like
a purgatory-type life
between this life
and the day of judgment.
What's it called?
- It's called Barzakh.
- Okay.
Where God decides
the fate of everybody.
So it's not
until then that, you know,
we're ultimately decided
whether you're gonna go
to Heaven and enter.
Oh. And that's like the day
of judgment
in Christianity, when it's
like the end of the world?
- Exactly.
- Okay.
There's one shortcut to Heaven,
which bypasses Barzakh,
and that's dying in the service
of Allah or Islam,
AKA martyrdom.
MAN: Around 10:45 this morning,
the first shots fired --
four marines were killed
on the scene.
At least
three others were wounded.
The alleged shooter,
now identified as 24-year-old
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez
took off.
The FBI is working the case
as a potential terrorism
investigation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
Every single time
something happens,
it's like the first thing
that kind of goes
through my mind,
which is I pray to God
that this guy was somewhere
that he doesn't end up
coming out with a Muslim name.
Most of the attacks in America
have been, like, converts.
That's what it is, usually.
You look at it,
it's like some whacked out guy
with some whacked out ideas.
And he said, "I'm gonna kill
some people in the name of Islam
since this religion says
it's okay to kill people," when,
in reality, the religion doesn't
say it's okay to kill people.
The only thing
I used to watch was Fox News --
not because I believed
in anything they said,
but I just used
to watch Fox News
so you kind of know
what everyone is thinking.
If I wasn't Arabic, if I did not
live around Muslims,
if I wasn't a Muslim,
and I was to only
watch Fox News,
excuse my language
I'm about to use,
I would fucking hate Muslims,
I would fucking hate Arabs.
Like, I would -- I would not
even want to give 'em a chance.
Because why would you want
to give 'em a chance?
This is all you see
is them slaughtering each other.
What's going on
in the Middle East,
you're talking about a couple
hundred thousand
extreme whack jobs.
That's not even 1%
of the Muslim world.
It's -- it's -- it's said
that this is what people look at
and this is
what people fixate on.
...if he is not
your brother in faith,
he's your brother in humanity,
so regardless, no matter what,
whether you believe in it
or whether you don't,
you're my brother.
- Okay.
- Because you might not be
my brother in Islam, you might
not be my brother
in Christianity, you might not
be my brother in Judaism,
but you're my brother as -- as
human beings, we are brothers.
**
THOMAS: While Hussein's beliefs
speak to what I feel
is the real nature of Islam,
they have a hard time
competing for attention
against the louder,
more bellicose voices
that you see on the media.
While the last 30 years
has given
fundamentalist Islamic groups
like al-Qaeda and ISIS
center stage,
there's an increasing push
among moderate Muslims
to clear Islam's name
in the eyes of the world
and make average Muslim life
look like the Muslim
lives we saw in Dearborn --
which is to say, very pleasant.