Eid al-Fitr is the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, during which observant Muslims around the world fast from dawn to dusk. Eid al-Fitr was celebrated April 10, with prayer services at the Lewiston Armory and at Longley Elementary School. All names in this story are pseudonyms.

April 9, 2024

“Airplanes can fly.”

For some reason our whole discussion began with this simple sentence.

“Can Maria fly?” I asked, gesturing toward a young Angolan woman.

“No,” came the unanimous response.

“Why?” I asked.

“She doesn’t have wings. She has arms.”

“Yes. That’s great,” I said.

“But she can fly on a broom,” joked Pedro, another Angolan.

We all laughed.

After I made sure that everyone understood what a broom was, I asked what kind of hat witches wore.

“A cone” came the answer. (A great vocabulary word for an intermediate English language learner to use.)

Then someone asked about wizards. Another student brought up the subject of magic. Someone else mentioned sorcery.

“Does anyone believe in magic?”  I asked.

Only one person, Pedro, raised his hand. He explained that in his opinion magic was the work of the Devil, but that miracles were the work of God.

“Magic is bad; miracles are good,” he added.

Then I asked for some examples of miracles.

“Jesus rose from the dead,” said Pedro. “Jesus walked on water,” offered another Angolan.

Since several of the students in the class were Muslims, I wanted to broaden the discussion, to move beyond Christianity, and to include examples from Islam as well.

“Are there miracles in Islam?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” said Abdul, a tall, thin man from Afghanistan who had worked on a U.S. military base in Kabul. “Allah gave the Quran to Mohammad.”

“God gave the Quran to an angle to give to Mohammad,” he explained. “He gave it to the angle Gabriel.”  (“Angle” and “angel” are just the kind of words that are easy for English language learners to confuse.)

Then Lara, a young nurse from Angola, asked if God had given the Quran to Mohammad as a book or whether God had inspired Mohammad with ideas and then later human beings had written the book.

Abdul said he thought that God had inspired Mohammad.

At that point I suggested a comparison between Allah giving Mohammad the Quran, on the one hand, and God giving Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, on the other.

“What were the Ten Commandments?” I asked.

“Honor your father and mother.”

“Don’t kill.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Don’t have more than one wife.” (Here I decided to introduce a new vocabulary word: “adultery.”)

With that it was time to stop.

After class, Antonio, an Angolan oil engineer with a deep voice, came up to me to share a concern. He thought that our topic was too sensitive to deal with in class. He sensed that Abdul had been a little upset with my comparison between the Quran and the Ten Commandments. I  thanked Antonio for mentioning that to me.

As I was driving home after class, I saw Abdul walking down one of the Tree Streets. I honked my horn and waved to him; then I pulled over and got out of my car. I told Abdul that I hoped he hadn’t been upset by our discussion of Islam and Christianity.

“No, of course not,” he replied without hesitation. “All religions have their good and their bad.”

I felt a great sense of relief.

We gave each other a big hug, and as Abdul walked away, I wished him “Eid Mubarak!” “(May you have) a blessed Eid!”

This important Muslim holiday would begin that very evening with the sighting of the new moon, the same moon that had just inspired thousands of people with the long thin shadow it cast across all of Maine and across the whole United States.

Loring M. Danforth is a long-time Lewiston resident who has taught English to refugees and asylum seekers for many years.

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