Man Flees From Maghrib

Written by: Hamzah Moin In what was arguably the mosque’s most controversial move, newly reverted Muhammad Smith walked out of Maghrib prayer last Sunday. “I’ve never been so shocked in my entire life,” said one anonymous mosque patron, “it was absolutely disgusting and despicable.”

This would have been a normal situation for anyone however Smith was actually the Imam for the Maghrib prayer which made it very difficult for the other participants of that congregation.

“We wanted to initiate the new convert into our community somehow,” said Abu Bakr Faruqui, a 42 year-old Maghrib attendee, “so we decided to push him up so he can get the feeling of leading us in prayer… you know being a convert and all. Throw him right into the deep end so to speak.”

Smith says he was flattered to be pushed up but pleaded with the other uncles to simply follow one of them out of humility. The uncles didn’t budge and threw the meagre revert to the front. The attendees later found out that Smith refused to lead not out of humility, but because simply nobody had taught him how to pray yet.

“It was very weird,” said another anonymous mosque attendee, “when he was ‘leading’ us he just sort of hummed and started shouting jibberish Arabic. We tried correcting him but he started humming louder.”

Smith hummed his way throughout the first rakaat and when it was time for ruku he went straight into the sujood. The followers of the congregation tried their hardest in correcting him but when Smith refused to acknowledge their corrections, they all succumbed into the sujood as well. They were stuck in this position for 20 minutes when they realized that Smith had quietly snuck out of the prayer sometime before.

“After fifteen minutes I started thinking that Muhammad Smith had died in the sujood but I was too afraid to look up” said Faruqui, who later peeked up and noticed the Imam was gone. Normally in these circumstances someone else resumes the prayer but everyone else was too confused to do anything and remained in the sujood position for an extra 20 minutes.

Another mosque attendee called it the worst prayer on earth. “It was so bad I had to make up this prayer… twice.”

Masjid president Abdul Kareem Zubairi is glad this incident came sooner rather than later. “He was scheduled to be the khateeb this week too.”

Muhammad Smith has been reported missing since the incident.