Muslim man on a prayer mat - Photo: canva.com
Characters
Trevor — a man searching for a special gift
Marie — a young woman in a wheelchair
Jusuf — Marie’s long-time taxi driver and friend
Jack — Marie’s five-year-old son
The Stranger — the man who gives Trevor an unexpected gift
Marie and I wanted to find a special gift for Jusuf.
For many years, Jusuf had transported Marie in his van, taking her to appointments and many important occasions. One particularly memorable journey was to Lawson, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, so that Marie could attend her mother’s funeral. His care for Marie and her five-year-old son, Jack, had always been thoughtful and generous.
I suggested to Marie that perhaps it was time we gave Jusuf something special to thank him. Over several months we talked about what that gift might be. I kept thinking it needed to be more than simply something we bought. Somehow, it should communicate the gratitude and respect the three of us felt for him.
Eventually, we had an idea. Jusuf is a practising Muslim, so perhaps we could give him a beautiful prayer mat.
At Christmas 2025, I was staying with Marie and Jack in Lawson when Marie gave me the job of finding one. Then she raised a rather important point. “I think a prayer mat is a special thing for Muslim people,” she said. “We really don't know what kind of prayer mat he would prefer.”
She was right. So I suggested we buy a gift card instead and allow Jusuf to choose his own. Simple. Except that it was now Wednesday, 24 December—Christmas Eve.
I had absolutely no idea where one bought a Muslim prayer mat, let alone a gift card for one. Then it occurred to me: If anyone knows where to buy a prayer mat, surely it will be the people at a mosque. There were several mosques in Sydney and, according to Google, they were open. One was the Bait-ul-Huda Mosque at Blacktown, not too far from where Marie lived. I typed the address into my TomTom and set off.
About fifty-five minutes later, I arrived. The mosque was closed. Back to Google. This time I found the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque. I tried phoning first. No answer. But I was rather impressed by the name and the photographs of this magnificent mosque. I'll set sail for Gallipoli, I thought. Unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to where I was going. Nor, apparently, did I pay sufficient attention to the TomTom.
I had no idea where Auburn actually was, but after driving for quite some time I suddenly noticed something rather concerning. I was passing the site of Western Sydney Airport. Wow. I must be lost. I stopped, typed the address of the mosque into the TomTom again and set off - this time in an entirely different direction. Eventually, I arrived at the Gallipoli Mosque in Auburn.
It was closed too. I sat outside the Mosque in the car. By now I was beginning to sense that perhaps the great Christmas Eve Prayer Mat Expedition was coming to an inglorious end. I didn't want to give up, but there seemed little else I could do. As I was about to close my phone, I noticed a telephone number listed in the Google information for the mosque. I rang it. A gentleman answered.
I introduced myself and explained that I was sitting outside the Gallipoli Mosque and had hoped it would be open. There was a pause. He wanted to know why I had telephoned him and how I had obtained his number. I explained that his number appeared on Google as the contact number for the mosque. He seemed surprised. His number, he told me, shouldn't be there.
Then he asked the obvious question. “Why are you searching for mosques?” So I told him. I explained that I was trying to find someone who could either sell me a prayer mat or tell me where I could buy a gift card for one. “Why do you want to buy a prayer mat?” he asked. I told him about Marie.
I explained that my daughter uses a wheelchair and that one of her very good friends, Jusuf, was a practising Muslim. For many years Jusuf had gone out of his way to help her, driving her wherever she needed to go and treating her and her young son with extraordinary kindness.
“As a family,” I said, “we want to thank him. We thought a beautiful prayer mat might be a meaningful way of doing that.” There was another pause. Then this complete stranger said something I wasn't expecting. “You are not far from where I live. I have a new prayer mat that I bought only a couple of weeks ago. I would like to give it to you so that you can give it to your daughter's friend.” I told him that I would be very happy to buy it from him. “No,” he said. “I want to give it to you as a gift. I have your phone number. I'll text you my address. I'm only about ten minutes from where you are.”
A short time later, I found myself walking up the steps of a beautiful home and knocking on the front door. A man in his early forties answered. I introduced myself. He disappeared inside and returned carrying a new prayer mat. Again, I offered to pay him. He looked at me. Then he said: “The vast majority of Australians are good people. Please accept this gift.”
There wasn't much more to say. I accepted it. And thanked him. On Boxing Day, Marie, Jack and I gave Jusuf our gift. He opened it. For a moment, he was lost for words. He looked closely at the prayer mat. “This is a very expensive mat,” he said. “One of these costs about five hundred dollars.” “That's okay, Jusuf,” I said. But, of course, it wasn't OK. Because we hadn't bought it.
So I sat down and told Jusuf the whole incredible story: Christmas Eve, the first mosque, the drive towards Auburn, Western Sydney Airport appearing where Western Sydney Airport most definitely shouldn't have been, the TomTom, the second closed mosque, the mysterious telephone number on Google, and finally the stranger who answered a telephone call that was never meant for him.
And then I told Jusuf how I met the man who had owned the prayer mat he was now holding. We had set out to buy a gift for a Muslim man whose years of kindness had touched our family. Instead, on Christmas Eve, another Muslim man—a complete stranger—had given us his own new prayer mat so that we could gift it to Jusuf. Perhaps that is why the mat became something much more than the present we had originally imagined.
One act of kindness had called forth another.
Written by Trevor O’Callaghan
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