Hell Is a Hospital

Early evening crowds thronged the neon-lighted sidewalks of the Spui (The Hague's Broadway). Many of them were moviegoers, eagerly getting down from busily clanging streetcars to see Song of My Heart, Fallen Idol, or Till the Clouds Roll By. A few, however, drifted unobtrusively towards a second-floor meeting room of the bleak Cafe de Kroon. They were searching for peace of soul and were willing to see if two bearded, 32-year-old Moslem missionaries could show them the way.

Hafiz and Bashir are missionaries for the Moslem Ahmadiyya sect,* whose 1,000,000 members have made proselytizing one of their major works. Ahmadiyya Moslems already have mosques in Paris, London, Berlin and Chicago.

Islam's missionaries to Holland, however, have not had easy going. First schooled in their own soft Urdu, they had to learn the harsh Dutch language. Then they tirelessly passed out leaflets (20,000 a year) at big city railroad stations, beaches and among downtown shopping crowds.

Five times daily, Hafiz and Bashir spread their prayer mats and, facing toward Mecca, go solemnly through the Moslem prayer ritual. "Sometimes," says Bashir, "we get awfully homesick; then we work very hard and pray to forget it."

Standing before his middleaged, white-collar audience in the green-walled Cafe de Kroon, Bashir struggles valiantly to answer such questions as: "How do Moslems treat their enemies?" A railroad worker wants to know, "How about Sundays?" and a shaggy-haired schoolteacher declares with Calvinist indignation, "Your Ahmad hasn't realized the importance of sin."

At times, Hafiz shakes his green turban sadly at all the misunderstandings. Some of his converts have tried to help him out. Nervous Archivist Piet van Wijk, 41, made a glowing speech about the beauty of Islamic prayer. Suave, mustached Zeno de Lyon explained that Islam always taught the middle road. "With their system," said Zeno, "one can avoid both communism and capitalism."

Hafiz and Bashir denounce the doctrine of original sin. "How cruel," says Hafiz, "to think a newborn baby is a sinner." Bashir adds cheerfully: "Islam says Heaven is eternal, but that Hell is only temporary. Hell is like a hospital, a place where people get better."

In two years, Hafiz and Bashir have made ten Dutch converts (four of them women). About 40 people attend their monthly meetings. Yet Hafiz and Bashir are sure all Holland will be Moslem in 100 years.

*Founded in 1879 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, a village in the Punjab, who claimed to be the promised Mahdi (Leader of the Faithful) as well as the Messiah.

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