We must learn the virtues of tolerance and investigation before accusation and condemnation
Sure enough, you must be acquainted with the innocent-looking, simple device called the folding stool. It consists of two rectangular aluminium frames loosely bolted in the form of the English alphabet ‘X’, so that these can be brought together and folded. A small piece of rexene sheet stretches to form a seat when it is opened, and folds when it is closed. What you are, perhaps, not aware of is that this harmless, small artifice can create quite a stir among a community of equally innocent-looking, mosque-going faithfuls.
It all started the day I acquired a folding stool to facilitate me in offering my prayers. It was light to carry and could fit anywhere. To tell you the truth, I was a little bashful as I carried it for the first time into the mosque. The greetings I was extended were usual, but the raised eyebrows at the sight of the stool made me feel like Mary whose lamb had followed her to school one day. I set it down in the first row and offered my prayers. Afterwards, I looked around for a proper place to place the stool, so that I did not have to carry it to and from the mosque every day. My eyes caught a small slit of a space between a cupboard and a wall. I slid my stool into it. Nobody made any comments.
Three days later, as I sat on my stool waiting for the prayers to start, one of the senior-most front-rowers rather sheepishly approached me and asked me why I was using the stool. I explained my health reasons, punctuated by his sympathetic nods and further queries. He went away and, as expected, spread the word among his peers.
From that day onwards, it became a routine affair for two to three persons to interrogate me on the subject of whether it was at all permissible in the Shariah to say one’s prayers on a stool. This question of permissibility seemed to entangle everyone. Suddenly, everybody became an authority on the subject. The seething turned into sizzling. Some ventured to make comments such as: “Namaz on a stool is no namaz at all. For proper Sajda (prostration in prayers), the forehead must touch the ground.” The chorus of adverse comments slowly mellowed into advice and suggestions: “People in olden times also had health problems, but they never used stools. We must bear difficulties in the way of Allah for great rewards in Heaven.”
Soon, the whole mosque seemed to be worried about my fate — from the senior, educated elite down to the illiterate odd-job man. I started feeling the stings and arrows of my outrageous fellow-worshippers. Enough was enough. So I started answering back. Yes, I had asked the Qari and had his blessings. The use of a stool was permitted for those with predicaments. I also know that the Holy Quran has, for many rituals, shown leniency for the disabled and the ill, and this applies to Salat also. Baffled by this barrage of answers, my critics withdrew into uncomfortable silence. But much worried as they were, they kept working on the problem of how to save me from the fate I seemed doomed to meet for my sheer foolish insistence on using ‘the stool’.
On the one hand, the Stop-the-Stool Movement (SSM) gained momentum and, on the other, Allah did not leave me alone. Two of my co-worshippers — old timers, of course — came to me one after the other. They asked me the price of the stool and the name of the shop where it could be purchased from. A few days later, another brand-new folding stool found its way into the mosque where there was hardly room for one. Soon after, a third stool appeared. That made a crowd, indeed.
Then one day, a philanthropist donated four sturdy big chairs with foam seats and adjustable front desks — sneering at the critics of the stool. After every prayer, people would gather round these chairs and make all sorts of comments: “I would not allow such a thing in my mosque,” opined a visiting critic. “The mosque will soon look like a Jumma Bazar of chairs,” said another. “How obnoxious! Why does the Qari Sahib allow this?” wondered a third one. To their utter dismay, another set of four such chairs was donated for “those with genuine excuses”, as the Qari Sahib put it. This was too much for the SSM supporters. They had to do something about it, and they did.
One day, one of the stalwarts of the movement sprang a surprise. He brought a Fatwa (a religious decree) from a Mufti (a person competent to issue a Fatwa). Four elderly men caught me and tried to make me see reason and give up the stool. When I gave a lukewarm response, the staunchest supporter of the movement threw the Fatwa in my face. I took it home and gave it a close scrutiny. The learned Mufti had made two points regarding the use of chairs (or stools) for prayers. According to him, a person using a chair should see to it that he does not stand ahead of the row and that he does not put any desk or table to touch the forehead during Sajda. Nowhere had he said that a chair was not permissible for prayers.
The next day, I quietly handed back the Fatwa to my well-wisher and told him that the Mufti had not decried the use of a stool, and that he had only stated the conditions for its use. I pointed to the lines I had highlighted. My well-wisher’s face fell as he pocketed the Fatwa. That day, the whispering campaign died. Three cheers for the folding stool!
The moral of the story: We must learn the virtues of tolerance and investigation before accusation and condemnation.
We must learn the virtues of tolerance and investigation before accusation and condemnation 
