Having grown up in an Islamic country, there's something reassuring about seeing a mosque or a headscarf or a songkok in a foreign land. A few years ago, when I was studying in a government - and therefore, Islamic but masked by the word 'Malay' - college, my teachers and friends had told me that it was wrong to greet them in the Muslim way. Looking back on those years, I'm disgusted at my naivete for having thought it acceptable to say such things and horrified that it happened in my very backyard as it were. Isn't such exclusivity the cause of today's many conflicts?
Today, I greeted the imam of the mosque with an 'Assalamualaikum.' He smiled at me and replied, 'Waalaikumsalam.'
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