The Taxi Driver who missed his calling

The Taxi Driver missed his calling. Literally.

Actually, he should’ve BEEN the calling … e the voice of the muezzin, summoning the faithful to prayer.

Not just because he loved God – though that was obvious.

But because his voice was pure.

Clear, cutting, like the call of a hawk across a wide, open sky.

It didn’t just rise – it reached.

We met for the first time that day.

A taxi ride, just a few minutes on the map – but he carried a whole world with him.

A world of music, of language, of listening closely.

He told me he never studied at university.

“My sisters are the smart ones,” he said, not bitter, just proud.

“I learn things on the street. Languages, too.”

And he did. He learned them like songs—by ear, by feel, by rhythm.

He loved Arabic with a deep reverence, almost like it was alive.

“Arabic has over twelve million words,” he said.
Then, with a grin: “But sometimes two villages five minutes apart can’t understand each other.”

Silwan. Shuafat. Sur Baher.

To the untrained ear, these neighborhoods might seem close enough to blend.

But the words people use in each place — those small, everyday choices — are wildly different.

That’s what he loved.

The richness.

The proximity of difference.

“But when I went to Morocco,” he told me “thr languwge was impossible for me to understand — Arabic woven with Berber, dipped in French—
I had to switch to fusha, classical Arabic, just to be understood.”

We talked about Hebrew, too.

He told me it has maybe 75,000, maybe 85,000 words.

“But even though the Jewish people,” he said, “have existed for thousands of years, they were only rarely as rulers. Mostly scattered. In Poland. In Yemen. In Iraq. In Spain. And a language, like a person, needs time in one place to grow into itself.

“It’s special,” he continued, “to see Hebrew coming back to life.”

Then he looked at me through the mirror.

“I’m a Muslim. I love Palestine. But I also believe in the Bible. And this is your home, too.”

He paused.

“Would you like to hear what fusha sounds like?”

“Of course.”

And so he began:
“Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim…”

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

His voice didn’t just fill the car.

It opened the space around us.

For a moment, we weren’t on the road.

We were in something ancient and intimate—
A story older than either of us, carried in syllables and silence.

And his voice, pure and soaring like a hawk’s,
Lifted it all.

As we neared my stop, the sun had started to dip, softening the city’s edges.

It was nearly Shabbat. The hour when Jerusalem begins to quiet, when ovens are warm and candles wait to be lit.

And soon, it would also be the end of Ramadan —
the final days of fasting giving way to feasts and prayers, to sweetness after restraint.

Two sacred rhythms, overlapping.

Two different ways of reaching toward light.

He turned to me, hand resting lightly on the gear shift.

“Peace be upon you,” he said.

And I answered:

“And upon you, peace.”