The setting of one of my most vivid childhood memories is my local mosque’s Red Room, a very large and windowless multipurpose space named after its rough red carpet. Throughout the year, the room was used as a Qur’an reading room in the daytime, a meeting space in the afternoon, and a makeshift dining area in the evening. It also served as an overflow room for the main prayer hall.
During Ramadan, the Red Room became “the babysitter”. It was referred to just like that, and children wanted both to be there and to escape. Total mayhem. Even at such a young age, I knew not to envy the babysitters hired to keep this enormous playpen under control.
Every night, as parents ushered their way towards the main prayer hall for nightly taraweeh and qiyam prayers, they made a quick detour to the Red Room to drop off their children. One by one, the kids filed through the wooden doors and into the containment room. Either you embraced the mayhem and joined in, or you stood terrified at the door until pickup time.