Has a social circle; does more than just work and play football
I came to be shocked at how many men this simple clause would exclude.
I was dreaming by now and let my imagination, my hopes and my heart run away.
Interested in reading, travelling, and generally a charming, interesting person. Wants to change the world and make it a better place. Vision and some sparkle. Cool and hip. Oh yeah, rock on!
I sighed. There he was, my perfect man. I wanted to just will him into existence. My heart told me that of course such a man was out there waiting to be found. My head wondered how he would be discovered. I held back on making my list longer. The voices of the Aunties in my head told me to rein in my desires. A girl should not be so demanding. How shameful!
I was fortunate. My family understood my description and were eager to cross-check their findings with me. It felt like we were a team working towards my happiness. I couldn’t imagine looking for the most special person in my life without their support and encouragement, and they wanted to put all their resources into finding the person who would contribute to me living a happy and fulfilled life.
Their wisdom and experience forced them to temper my optimism with a dose of reality. They had read through my list and they had feigned seriousness about how they were to find this angelic hero.
‘Are you expecting a man to fall from heaven into your lap?’ my parents had asked. ‘Perhaps you could find him for sale in Woolworths,’ they teased me.
I pulled a mock face of horror. ‘You couldn’t think of somewhere more upmarket?’ I gasped. ‘What about made-to-measure from Harrods or Harvey Nichols?’
‘We got you from Woolworths,’ they reminded me, laughing affectionately. That was how they had explained where babies came from when I was a very young child, and the joke had stuck. ‘Woolworths would be a good match.’
Partners do not come made-to-measure. My parents’ description of Prince Charming being off-the-peg was much more accurate. There would always be something on the list that he would lack. But which qualities would I be willing to give up? When my father said ‘pick four qualities’, how would I know which two were dispensable? I refused to accept that I should downgrade my selection standards, so his wise and fatherly advice fell on deaf ears. Over time, his guidance was to settle for only three out of six. Finally his resolve weakened and as we entered the darkest hours he downgraded the requirement to only two out of six. ‘You can’t be too fussy,’ he would tell me. Helpfully and realistically he would temper my expectations. ‘Even two will be a blessing, beti,’ he would counsel. ‘We just want you to be happy.’
The search threw up the dentist from Birmingham, the doctor from South London, a lecturer from Bristol, various IT consultants, businessmen, pharmacists and other unmemorable professionals. They were defined by the jobs they did. The higher up the professional rankings the matchmakers judged them to be – which didn’t always reflect reality – the more they oohed and aahhed in honour of the prospective match.
The community liked pairing up well-labelled people. When certain engagements were announced it was like drawing numbers at bingo. ‘Two doctors, how lovely, what a good match.’ ‘Two dentists, how nice, they will set up their own practice together.’ ‘They are both so fair and good looking, they will have such white and handsome children.’
On the whole, I would be the one to say no. The family generally presumed that the boy would take a shine to me. ‘Who wouldn’t?’ asked my mum. ‘You’re beautiful, intelligent, nice, religious.’ I would blush. ‘You’re my mum, of course you’ll say that,’ I would laugh at her. Every so often, it was I that would be turned down, and we would furrow our brows in surprise. Why would anyone turn me down? In this competitive world of finding a partner, modesty was a dispensable quality.
Funny Valentine
Faith and religious practice were an integral part of my life. I had been brought up as a Muslim from birth and nurtured within a Muslim household. I prayed. I fasted in the month of Ramadan. I gave money to charity. I read the Qur’an, the revealed scriptures of Islam. I wore the hijab. I tried to be good to my parents, contribute to my community and live a good life. I hoped one day to travel on the hajj, the once in a lifetime Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. In short, you might describe me as a practising Muslim and one that was happy to be so. My life was centred around my beliefs and on the efforts to be a good human being as seen through Islam.
As a child, the choices that were made for me were based on an Islamic ethos as understood by my parents. Their Islamic principles guided them towards trying to live a good life and helping themselves, their children and their community to succeed in the here and now, materially as well as spiritually. Belief in a Creator, and a life after death, underpinned these ideas.
Even as a young child, I learnt to exercise choice based on these principles. Some were specific to being Muslim. Instinctively I knew I shouldn’t eat pork or bacon, as this was forbidden by Islam, and I understood by the time I was four that I shouldn’t eat sausages at school. They were made of pork. I also refused the shepherd’s pie on the grounds the meat was not halal. The rice pudding I rejected on the grounds that it was disgusting.
Other principles were common between Islam and other codes of personal morality, such as caring about others, giving charity and respecting elders. The more I read, the more I listened and the more I learnt, the more Islam seemed to offer a holistic view of the world that made sense to me. It was concerned about my life and about showing me how to be happy. So despite the fact that I was born a Muslim, I made an active decision to be a Muslim because it made sense to me. It offered me peace and direction in a world that felt overwhelming and confused. It inspired me to excel, explore and discover. It pushed me to investigate myself and everything around me. It encouraged me towards success, which could be measured in affluence as well as contentment.
Islam had quite a few rules. Every human being has their own rules. Once they are part of your life, you don’t notice them anymore. Outer rules always reflect inner meaning. I wondered if I had understood some rules properly, given I was fixed in time and place. Was it me, was it us, was it the here and now that was the problem in understanding? I thought about the intense conviction of Europe in the Middle Ages that the world was flat. Or how Einstein had created a new theory. Or how the notion that there is nothing left to discover never holds true: there are always new discoveries waiting to be made. I thought about how modern science had created a paradigm that had been unimaginable before. Wasn’t that likely to happen again? And again?
I didn’t start from the premise that the rules were archaic. The basic principles of being good, standing up for equality and justice and being kind and compassionate were sound. Instead I started to question which areas had become fuzzy with culture, power and mis-interpretation. Human beings like to twist things to meet their own selfish ends. They would mutate things for their own benefit and then claim this was The Truth. It was the challenge of the fresh eyes of each generation to re-examine and re-visit the truth of the principles that were accepted as universal.
I found it exhilarating that every part of my life was important and significant enough to warrant spiritual guidance. The delicacy and complexity of the layers of meaning and hidden depths hinted that a microcosm lay inside me, waiting to be discovered. I learnt about the map of my esoteric world through Islam. Through parables, sayings and teachings, the landscape of a human being and her soul was described. I needed a partner to accompany me on this journey, and if I was to have a travelling companion, he would need to share the same map as me. How else could we journey on the same path?
My first Valentine’s card was from a man who was not a Muslim.
I found it pinned to the door of my university dorm room early on the morning of Valentine’s Day. I ripped open the envelope and devoured the contents. Inside was a handwritten poem, penned with traditional calligraphy. I read it slowly and then smiled. The poem
had humour, rhythm and perfect rhyme.
Even though there was no name, I knew straight away who had sent it. I was very flattered. He was an intelligent, charming and generally well-liked young man. How delightful that someone could like me enough to send a Valentine’s card with a poem he wrote himself!
Powerful emotions can be evoked with the turn of a phrase, an expressive manner, the run of elegant words that conjure up an image, or a feeling. Poetry was the ultimate path to seduction, and I was vulnerable to its magic spell like generations of women before me. I often thought that this was why the Qur’an was composed of poetry and poetic prose. Poetry is designed to inspire love, and Islam is about falling in love with the Creator of the Universe. The Arabic is simple and rhythmic and has layers of meaning that reveal themselves to you each time you return. The Arabs of the time were so taken aback by the elegance and mystery of the words, they called the Prophet Muhammad a magician. They recognised the power of ideas and eloquence to seduce the soul and create a revolution.
I saw the sender of my Valentine’s Day card later that day. He was sitting with a large group of mutual aquaintances out in the garden, including my circle of close female friends. It was a beautiful early spring evening and the night sky was clear and full of twinkling stars. I walked along the gravel path, admiring the snowdrops and crocuses beginning to poke their heads bravely into the world. I had spent the afternoon smiling quietly to myself, wistfully imagining what might happen. The romantic teenager in me had sprung into life and asked the same questions I had asked at the age of thirteen about John Travolta. Was he interested? Would he become a Muslim? As always, the prerequisite was that he should be a Muslim. But the sender was nice, I thought, and I should explore these enormous questions of faith, belief and soul and see where we found ourselves. Even with the careful boundaries of modesty in place in our interactions, we could still talk. We could still see where life would take us.
I walked towards the group. I felt that courtesy demanded that I should acknowledge his actions. It must have taken much courage on his part to express his feelings. And of course the little voice of romantic destiny kept whispering, what if … what if … what if … he becomes Muslim?
‘Hello,’ I said to him.
‘Hello,’ he answered.
I smiled.
‘Finished your essay?’ he asked seriously.
‘Thank you,’ I answered incongruously.
‘Thank you? For what?’ His lips curled up cheekily at the edges.
‘The card.’
He grinned. ‘Will you have a cup of tea with me then?’
He knew I was different, and I think he liked that. He knew that I didn’t drink alcohol, that he couldn’t take me to the pub for a drink. He also respected my modesty and at the same time saw past my hijab to the person I was. Through later years I came across many Muslim men who were put off by the headscarf. It was something they just couldn’t get past. They couldn’t see me or want me for who I was. All they saw was a walking book of religious rulings, a miserable turgid caricature. But here was a young man, not Muslim, who was drawn to me. To me.
‘I’m sitting out here right now, aren’t I?’
We both smiled nervously, and silently enjoyed the night, surrounded by our friends, as the chatterings immediately around us carried on.
I looked up at the sky, breathless from the sheer beauty of the stars. It was magnificent and indescribable. I wondered what lay beyond. But these were just physical things. What then was the Creator? Unimaginable, incomprehensible in majesty, the ultimate aesthete for creating these extraordinarily beautiful universes. I forgot that I was in company, and was lost.
Was it out in the sky that I should continue my search, where I would find the answers to who I was and what it all meant? Human beings for thousands of years had been mesmerised by the stars and heavenly bodies, even believing them to be gods. To me they were creations, beautiful breathtaking creations, which meant they had a Creator. That’s how the Prophet Abraham talked to the stars. Were they gods, he had asked? As they faded away with the night, he knew that there was something greater. Was today’s science like that? Did the twinkling light of scientific discovery hide from us the Creator behind it? Or did science actually reveal the wonders of God’s creation and so reveal God Himself? That was to be my search, my journey – to know and love the Creator – and perhaps on the way I would get lost in the stars and their milky twilight.
‘How did you know it was me?’ he asked shyly.
‘I just knew, maybe I have good intuition.’
‘That’s cool. You’re cool.’
I blushed, and tried to change the subject. I wasn’t very good at this.
‘Aren’t the stars beautiful?’ I asked. ‘Thousands of them, twinkling so far from us, yet so near. Who knows what it’s like out in the universe where they are! What an incredible creation! I can’t breathe when I look at them. I bet somewhere out there we could understand what life is really about and find a bit more meaning to bring into this world.’
I was lost in awe. There was a long silence and I forgot he was there.
A few minutes later I spoke again. ‘They make me feel like there is something bigger than me. I feel like they hold so many secrets, so much to be explored and found. I feel a sense of divine, whether that is with a small “d” or a capital “D”.’
I looked at him, wondering if he understood what I was asking, what I was revealing about my quest for the sublime. Would he have provisions for the journey?
I was looking at him framed by the mystical crystal sky. The night was clear. The moon was bright. He paused and I smiled in anticipation. I waited for his charismatic description of the layers and veils of the universe and the unknowable yet tangible beauty of the stars and planets that shone mysteriously above us. I wanted to hear about his quest into his own soul, his fascination with the complexity, the enormity, the simplicity of it all. I wanted to know.
I asked finally, ‘What do you think when you see the stars?’
He looked at the mysterious sky and said: ‘I imagine joining the dots.’
Groundhog Day
Chez Shelina the ritual of the suitor’s visit gradually reached a crescendo of perfection. Over weeks and months we worked our way slowly and methodically through a line of potential princes. I was able to be patient and give each man his due time and consideration. We had perfected the process: our family, his family, me and him; some tea, sweets and conversation. The morning-after call always came – from the matchmaker of course. Sometimes there would be a second meeting. More often than not it was a case of being philosophical and moving onto the next one. He must be out there. He must be. I told myself to make sure he was the right one. Finding the right man was important.
The suitor hot seat was filled week by week with an unexpected range of princely bottoms.
He was nicely built and good looking. The son of a friend of a friend, called Samir. I was immediately worried when I heard that he hadn’t completed his university education, but I kept an open mind. Chemistry could sparkle in the most surprising places and between the most unlikely people. A variation in education was a minor point, perhaps even of no significance. Tick-box matchmaking on the basis of paper compatibility had its merits, and often worked, but it was the magic of the unexpected that produced the most interesting relationships in my view.
Samir had dropped out of school to set up his own business and was now an entrepreneurial meteor. He strode in and installed himself in my father’s comfy chair. My father had given me his usual advice before Samir had arrived: if you are looking for a partner with six qualities and if you find four, that is the best you are likely to get.
Samir was full of confidence. He didn’t bother to make conversation, responding curtly to questions posed directly towards him. Otherwise he stared uninterestedly out of the window at my father’s beautifully tended garden. My father exchanged pleasantries with Samir’s uncle, spending a mandatory ten
minutes establishing their family connections. Eventually they found a second cousin on one side married to a great aunt on the other.
Slightly nervous as always, I made my entrance, smiling and nodding my head and saying salam to everyone present. I sat in an empty armchair opposite the boy, my hands clasped, my breathing a little uneven. This time the vase was filled with scented crimson roses. He turned to stare disdainfully at me, and then turned back to stare disdainfully at the wall.
After a few minutes of polite conversation, I got up to make the tea. It was a welcome relief to have something to do. I returned with the correct distribution of teas and coffees, as well as the essential must-have home-made sweets. Again, I sat opposite the boy. My father and the chaperone flung open the patio doors and swept dramatically into the garden, leaving Samir and I sat abruptly facing the lawn, and awkwardly facing each other, like budho budhi, old man, old woman, staring at their garden in the autumn of their shared lives.
He looked indifferently at me and then at the ceiling-to-floor bookshelves that occupied the corner of the room. They were laden with books of all shapes and colours, so full that each shelf had books stacked up on top of each other and some were two rows deep. His eyes misted over at the overflowing reams of literature. He was mesmerised.
‘Whose books are all of those?’ he asked, in what I thought was wonderment and awe.
I smiled conceitedly. ‘They are all mine,’ I boasted.
He turned and looked at me witheringly and said, ‘I hate books, I hate all books. I never ever read and I don’t like people who like books.’
My friends Sara and Noreen were also looking for their own Mr Rights. They had grown up with me and were at the same stage of the marriage process. They too were university graduates, and were about to begin professional careers. Like me, they were involved in community affairs. They had similar stories to recount to mine. Sara, who wore hijab too, described the story of Fayyaz who came with the Imam who had recommended him. His biodata was promising: well-educated, religious, good family, wanting a woman who wore hijab, good job, liked to travel. He had his own flat already and so he was ‘domesticated’ and independent. His references were also impeccable.
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