"His throne was on water"

The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca is the largest mosque in Morocco and the third largest in the world. When you get off the train station in Casa, the mosque doesn’t seem all that impressive. In fact, it looks a lot like the many other mosques dotting the horizon. And about the same size. But then you start to walk there. And you keep walking. And as you walk, you realize that the minaret you thought was a few hundred meters away is actually much farther. The many roads that lead to the colossal structure are small and run down, exhibiting yet another paradox in the Moroccan capital of industry. The blue and green tiled minaret towers above it all: the satellites that populate every rooftop, the skyscrapers that are such a shock after a month in Rabat, and the cranes that dot the horizon. Hassan II is not only impressive for the height of its minaret, but also for its girth, two thirds of which juts over the Atlantic Ocean. I found myself, as I stood there craning my neck and blinking in the wind, thinking about the other religious monuments I’ve visited. Notre Dame de Paris came to my mind first. For me, the mystical and powerful quality of Notre Dame lies in its age - in the number of people that have passed through its doors and poured their souls into its confessionals, altars, and pews. The stairs that lead up to the cathedral are worn away by the footfalls of millions and the building is alive with their prayers. Unlike Notre Dame, upon which construction began in the mid-1100s, Hassan II was opened in 1993. And yet, as I stood there, so buffeted by the wind off the ocean that I could lean forward without falling, I found myself awed by a similar sense of power. Perhaps the mosque has had less time than Notre Dame to accumulate prayers, but the prospect of building such a structure requires an equal amount of dedication.

Now that it is on my mind, I see this dedication everywhere I look. It was present in the way the woman in the bathroom at the train station retied her head scarf, peering into the mirror to ensure that the pin fell just right and that sides framed her face perfectly. And then again as another woman on the train did the same thing. She had no mirror, but did it by heart, her gnarled fingers familiar with the manipulation of the fabric, swooping her hair back into the green scarf with an unassuming grace. A few minutes later, still on the train, I watched a young boy reach into the pocket of his black Reebok wind pants and pull out a 2 dirham coin. He shyly crept out of his seat and placed it in the hand of a woman in a spotted headscarf who was asking each passenger to spare her some change. It’s always something small: the press of a young woman’s hand into that of the blind man on Rue Souika as she guides him across a puddle, the orange the man at the fruit stand hands to the giggling toddler, the schoolgirl reaching down to pick up the vegetables that have fallen off a vendor’s cart. Even in the case of the giant mosque, it is the individual mosaics, tiles, fountains, and columns that combine to inspire such awe. And so, with a little over three days left in my month in Morocco, I am reminded of the importance of minutia in the face of a structure into which St. Peter’s Basilica could fit with ease.