Showing Love in Muslim Communities

By Erik Tryggestad

A wind from the north, called the harmattan, paints the West African sky beige with sand from the Sahara Desert and coats Maiduguri, Nigeria, in a fine layer of grit.

Muslim women in the northern Nigerian city were wary of a group of Christians who traveled there to teach them to salt meats and preserve pineapples for the long dry season. But when the Muslims were called to prayer, the Christian women didn’t just stop the lessons—they laid out the Muslims’ prayer mats and swept away the harmattan’s dust.