Sayings of Delight, Respect, and Service

I will sacrifice myself for you.

I will be your alcohol waiter.

Local Oral Tradition

These two local sayings are used interchangeably for the same kinds of situations. Locals might proclaim one, or both of them, when they are expressing delight at seeing someone dear to them, or when they see a cute child. They might also use them as a very warm affirmative to a request, such as if you ask them if they would mind helping you understand how to pay your water bill. And when you see your mother’s third cousin’s teacher walking through the bazaar and you engage in the expected blast of honorable words to “outdo the other in showing honor,” these phrases will also then undoubtedly come out.

The first one about being your sacrifice is dramatic, for sure, but understandable. The person is using this hyperbolic saying to proclaim that they would (hypothetically) do anything for you, even die for you. There are still animal sacrifices in our Islamic context, mainly connected to religious feasts. Some would understand them as securing some kind of forgiveness of sin, but most see it simply as a religious tradition meant to bring joy to the family (through feasting on the meat) and care for the poor (since a portion of the sacrificed meat must be given away to the less fortunate). Unlike Christians in the West, every local has experience with what an animal sacrifice actually looks, feels, and smells like. They’ve seen their grandpa or uncle ritually slit the cow or sheep’s throat and seen its blood spill out all over the courtyard tiles. Many have also ceremonially stepped over the blood as it drains away in the street gutters. So even though they don’t mean it literally when they say they’ll be your sacrifice, it’s still a saying that can carry some real weight, depending on how it’s being used.

The second saying about being your alcohol waiter is a bit more mysterious. How did this come to be such a common and respectful saying in an Islamic context where alcohol is supposed to be forbidden? First, alcohol was definitely around over the centuries (and still is today) even if it’s supposed to be off-limits for good Muslims. A historic presence of Jews and ethnic Christians meant that Muslims could, and did, often buy alcohol from these communities. Second, quite the drinking culture emerged among the men during the second half of the twentieth century when our region was heavily influenced by secularism and modernity. Third, there’s always been areas of uneasy tension between the older indigenous culture of our people and certain Islamic laws and customs. Alcohol seems to be an area where some locals view the mainstream Islamic policy of teetotaling as a foreign imposition at odds with the traditional freedoms of their people.

But how did offering to be someone’s alcohol waiter come to be a proclamation of respect, service, and affection? This is quite the mystery, both to me and to my local friends. Regardless, I have seen old Muslim women who would never drink nor condone anyone else doing so saying this to my children as they kiss their cheeks. The resulting irony is hard to miss. A Muslim grandma is offering to be the alcohol waiter for an underaged child whose family is with a Christian missions organization with a no-alcohol policy – yet everyone is smiling and feels valued and respected. Language is such a strange thing sometimes.

All of this means that if Chick-Fil-A ever opens a branch in our area, their workers will have quite the range of local equivalents for their required response of “my pleasure.” And some of most polite among these would be, “I will be your sacrifice” and “I will be your alcohol waiter.”

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