“You okay?” Wells asks quietly, leaning over.
“Yep.”
Am I overreacting to nothing?
I don’t know anymore.
* * *
“Did you do something different to your hair?” Sarah asks me as we wait for the bus. Wells has soccer practice followed by an hour at a recording studio—paid for by Jack, of course—so I’m on my own for getting home.
“Not really. I haven’t done much to it at all recently.”
“That’s what it is,” Sarah says, snapping her fingers. “Your roots are kinda brownish. You stopped dying it red?”
My bus comes, and I stand. “Time for a change.”
Sarah does debate, so she’s good at controlling her emotions, but something fleeting passes across her face—a flicker of the brow, a widening of the eyes.
I’m dressing a little differently at school, too. While normally I’d wear a short, flouncy, flippy dress, recently I’ve been experimenting: Last Wednesday, I wore straight-leg jeans and a black-and-white polka-dot long-sleeved silk shirt. Truthfully, it’s not like it’s superconservative, but I can’t remember the last time I wore pants. Dresses have been my thing here.
I guess other students have started noticing.
“Actually, Emilia told me you’re Muslim. Is that true?” Sarah asks.
“Yep.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Yep.”
“Did your family convert? You don’t look Muslim.”
“What does that mean? Looking Muslim?”
“You know.”
“I don’t, actually. I’d love to hear you say what you mean. Do Muslims look a certain way?”
Am I being too aggressive, or do I have less tolerance for BS recently?
Is Sarah being rude, or am I?
She blanches. “I’m just trying to have a conversation, okay?”
“I’m Circassian.”
“What’s that?”
I long to say, Google is your friend, but I don’t. Maybe she does want to learn.
I launch into an explanation of my background, only to realize her eyes are glazing over about five seconds into it. I cut myself off, feeling insulted, and say, “Anyhow, that’s the deal.”
The next day, it happens again. Wells and I are standing together at my locker, and he’s showing me cell phone video from his recording session, when Mikey Murphy stops by. “Yo, Lincoln. There’s a rumor going around you’re Muslim. True?”
“True,” I say flatly.
“That’s crazy.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why is the fact I’m Muslim ‘crazy’? Which, by the way, is an offensive thing to say in itself.”
“It’s offensive to say you’re Muslim?”
“No, it’s offensive to say—never mind.”
I’m not going to waste my breath on Mikey. He’s a lost cause.
He looks at me like I’m weird and shrugs. “’Kay. Gotta get to class. Later.”
Wells watches him walk away. “Why are we still friends with him again?” he says.
“Hey,” I say, “that’s on you, not me.”
A couple days later, when the subject of terrorism comes up during World History, a few kids throw glances my way.
I know what people who’ve never experienced it would say:
It’s not a big deal.
You’re looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Stop being so sensitive.
But I’m not imagining it.
I’ve gone from being just plain Allie to being Allie the Muslim. My identity boxed in, just like that.
CHAPTER TWENTY
This week’s study group is at Shamsah’s house. It’s my second time here, and her place reminds me of mine—unlike Dua’s and Fatima’s houses, there are few visible signs of Islam.
“Did y’all have fun at the movies Friday night?” Fatima asks. “I saw your photos on Insta. Sorry I couldn’t make it!”
“We did,” I say, smiling. “What’d you do?”
I’m beginning to slide nicely into their routine. The text messages are coming on the regular, and the girls send me invites to things outside normal business hours: a Friday night dinner with family, an after-school meet-up at the bookstore. I have to decline most weekday invitations, because my course load is getting intense—but weekends are rife with hangout opportunities. When I’m not with Wells, obviously.
“My cousin got married out in Snellville,” Fatima says. “And my mom took me to the masjid! She never goes anymore, so it was a pretty big deal.”
I nod. “Nice!”
“It’s gonna take work,” Fatima says, “but I can get her back on track.”
Leila starts giggling.
“What?” Fatima asks, peering at Leila’s phone.
Leila swivels the screen to show us something on Tumblr. “It’s a bunch of fiqh memes.”
“What’s a ‘fiqh meme’?” I ask.
“It’s, like, poking fun at the way people interpret Islamic law,” Dua explains.
Fatima nods. “It’s a whole thing.”
Leila laughs again, scrolling. “I’m obsessed with this account. It’s hilarious.”
“Yeah, but you’re obsessed with Tumblr period.” Dua turns to me. “Leila follows every Queen Rania account on Tumblr.”
Leila’s ears turn red. “So? She’s gorge.”
Once Samira arrives, we begin: first reading, and then discussing Qur’anic passages. At the end of class, I bring up the question I’ve been working up the courage to ask for weeks.
“Is there an updated stance on dating in Islam?” I ask Samira. “I know we’re not really supposed to. But isn’t that kind of outdated?”
Samira shakes her head. “It’s not allowed. Dating is a Western concept.”
“Oh.”
Samira’s cool and progressive, so I wait for her to say something like, But don’t worry, it’s all good!
She doesn’t.
“So, it’s like haram haram?” I ask. “Or a tiny bit haram? Haram lite.”
This elicits a laugh. “I know you want me to say dating is fine,” Samira says. “Perhaps I’m being a hypocrite: progressive on some issues, conservative on others. I’m sorry. The Qur’an is clear. Do I think you’re going straight to hell if you kiss a boy once? No. But, yes, it’s haram.” Forbidden.
“Okay,” I say glumly. “Thanks.”
“I’m dating,” Shamsah says loudly.
“You are?” I ask, feeling relieved.
Panic flashes in her eyes, replaced by something stronger, more defiant. “Yeah.” An upturn of the chin, a setting of the jaw. And what of it?
“Cool,” I say.
She relaxes visibly.
I want to know everything. Haram loves company.
“What’s his deal?” I say.
“Um, not much to say,” she responds.
“Where does he go to school?”
She pauses for a second. “Chattahoochee.”
“Where’d you meet?”
“At the homecoming game. In September.”
“So mysterious.” I laugh.
Shamsah smiles, shrugging.
“Name?”
She pauses again. “Jamil.”
Dua frowns. “Shamsaaaah.” She wraps the name in disappointment and disapproval.
I look at Dua, surprised.
Like I had with Samira, I’d assumed she would be cool with it.
Dating as an American Muslim can be a bizarre through-the-looking-glass experience. None of my cousins raised in the US were set up through arranged marriage like their Jordanian parents—they met people on their own, like everybody else here. Some met on Islamic dating sites, others were set up through friends, and a few—like Houri and Rashid, my cousin Amal, and even my parents—dated American-style.
The difference is in the timing: My family moves quick. From first date to engagement took my parents three months. For Houri and Rashid, it was six, a
nd for most of my various other Americanized cousins, it happened in a matter of weeks. But it’s also more organic than it was back in the day, like for Teta and Jido, whose marriage was arranged between close family friends when she was seventeen and he was twenty. (I can’t.)
“You’re big girls, and you’re going to do what you’re going to do. You know I support you and don’t judge—that’s not my place,” Samira says, looking around at the group. “But I’d be failing you if I didn’t emphasize that the Qur’an is quite clear on the subject of dating before marriage.”
“The Qur’an is clear about other things you disagree with,” Shamsah says, looking irritated.
“I never disagree with the Qur’an—only skewed interpretations. But this is different,” Samira says. “Physical contact before marriage is haram. And that’s not a sexist thing—when the Qur’an is applied properly, it applies to men and women equally.”
“Men don’t get a pass,” Dua says.
“Different only because you say so,” Shamsah mutters, ignoring Dua.
Shamsah and I exchange glances.
“What if there’s no physical contact?” I ask. “What if you’re not kissing and holding hands, and definitely not having sex—is that okay?”
Samira frowns. “According to the Qur’an,” she begins, launching into a series of translations explaining why not, before getting into various teachings about relations between the sexes.
“Thanks. Cool,” I say, trying to keep the disappointment off my face.
Shamsah sighs and folds her arms over her chest. “Not cool.”
* * *
After study group, Dua and I wait outside for our moms to pick us up.
“There’s so much I don’t know,” I say. “I might as well be a convert. Converts know more. They try harder.”
She gives me a serious look. “How’s it going?”
“Good, I guess. I love the group, and I love the girls…”
“But?”
I swallow. “Sometimes I feel really alone. You know?”
She nods, though I’m not sure she gets it. “Have you told your dad?” she asks me. “You mentioned last week you were keeping it from him.”
I bite my cuticle. “No. He’s going to be weird about it. I told Wells, though. He took it fine.”
Oh no.
“Who is Wells?” Dua asks.
No, no, no.
“Um. He’s … well…” I should have brought it up in study group, but with Samira being down on dating, I didn’t have the guts. I’m already breaking tradition by doing one of the things you’re not supposed to do as a Muslim—I was hoping I could ease into those confessional waters. Dua seems liberal, so I hadn’t been superworried about telling her, but considering how weird she was with Shamsah, now I’m concerned. “He’s … um … We…”
“Your boyfriend.”
“Yeah.”
Dua looks disapproving. “Oh.”
“It’s new,” I tell her in a rush. “We’ve only been … whatever … this semester.”
“Okay.” She licks her lips, nodding. “Is he a Muslim?”
“No.”
“Ah.”
A wellspring of anxiety bubbles up in my chest. I know this feeling. If I don’t let it out gently, it’ll explode, making a bad situation way, way worse.
“You think it’s a bad idea?”
She sighs. “What do you want me to say, Allie? Do you want the honest response or the encouraging response? I’ll give you whichever one you can handle right now.”
“Honest.” I don’t mean it.
“Dating is haram. And dating outside the faith is even worse.”
“I thought marrying outside the faith was the problem.”
She looks alarmed. “You want to marry him?”
“No! I don’t know! We’ve been dating for like eight seconds. I just mean”—I exhale my frustration—“I’m trying to do it properly. I want to get it right. But it seems kind of arbitrary: Men can marry ‘People of the Book,’ but women can only marry Muslims? I get why that was the case in the six hundreds. But it’s like fourteen hundred years later. It doesn’t make sense anymore.”
Dua seems offended. “Look. I understand you’re new to this. But there are people who’ve been studying this way longer than you. It’s literally the exact opposite of arbitrary. It’s literally the word of Allah.”
“Or maybe it’s a giant game of Telephone.”
She gives me a look saying, You have got to be kidding me.
Oh, Allie. You’re on thin ice here.
I clear my throat. “I’m just saying, the Qur’an wasn’t written down for like seventy years after the Prophet, peace be upon him, died. Maybe the guys who wrote it down got some of it … wrong?”
“Allie.” Dua looks disappointed.
“The Qur’an is divine, I get that. But how do we know the hadiths are really true?” I say. “Okay, the Authentic Six … al-Bukhari … Sahih Muslim, fine. But all of them? They’re memories of what the Prophet said and did, but some of them weren’t compiled for generations after his death. Like, if Leila and I wrote down everything we remember you saying and doing last month, we’d have two different memories. Two different insights. Two different interpretations. Right?”
“You can’t remake the religion in your own image. Sorry. That’s not how it works. And besides, the hadiths have been examined and authenticated and ranked. By experts.”
“Okaaay. Sorry.”
I have no idea how the conversation ended up like this—and with Dua, of all people.
We both pick up our phones, fiddling with them as we wait for our moms. And as we stand there, I keep swiping away the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Most days, I love French class—an excuse to pretend I’m Amélie—but today, I’m distracted, thinking about how Dua reacted yesterday to the news that Wells and I are dating.
After searching for so long, I’d started to feel like I’d finally found my group. Like I was safe.
But maybe they’re not my group at all.
Maybe I’m just as alone as I’ve always been.
Ms. Carter stands at the head of the classroom, a gold fleur-de-lis pinned to her navy blazer. She’s born and raised in Georgia, and speaks both English and French with a heavy Southern accent.
“Très bien, y’all. Let’s move on to croire, le subjonctif.” Behind her, the chalkboard is marked in her distinctive cursive.
Je croie. Tu croies. Il croie. Nous croyions. Vous croyiez. Ils croient.
From time to time, I glance up at Ms. Carter as I repeat conjugations aloud with the rest of the class. I scribble in my notebook and try to look attentive, but my thoughts are elsewhere.
I’ve spent my entire life feeling like an outsider: the perennial new girl, forever the tiniest bit out of sync.
But Dua is different. Shamsah, Fatima, Leila, Samira: They’re different.
It’s hard to explain, but these past couple of months, it’s felt like they could be family.
I think back to praying with Dua at her house and how alienating it is being unable to speak Arabic. Language is more than words. It’s a story, a history, a shared experience. From the time I was young, I understood there was a chasm between me and my dad’s family—an impenetrable wall because of the failure of my ears, the failure of my tongue.
“What does this mean, Daddy?” I’d ask, repeating a phrase I’d heard Aunt Bila or Houri say.
My father’s answers were short, terse. Replies designed to shut the conversation down.
“English is so much more beautiful than Arabic,” he said once at the dinner table, after I questioned a phrase I’d heard him utter. “You’re lucky you grew up speaking it. It took me years to master.”
“I think Arabic sounds pretty cool.”
“Eh.”
Maybe if I’d grown up speaking Arabic like the rest of my family, I’d feel more in touch with my heritage. Less tentative
about taking control of my religion and saying, I have as much right to this as any other Muslim. More willing to challenge and question and push back when things don’t make sense to me.
Maybe I wouldn’t have spent my life feeling like the outsider who didn’t fit.
“D’accord, y’all. Très bien.”
Ms. Carter erases croire and moves on to the verb vouloir, conjugating it in her loopy handwriting as the class dutifully chants, “Je veuillle. Tu veuilles. Il veuille. Nous voulions. Vous vouliez. Ils veuillent,” sounding like the world’s least inspiring mob.
I pull my phone out of my purse and discreetly scroll through the app store until I find the prayer app both Teta and Dua use: Muslim Pro.
I am becoming a professional Muslim.
I stifle a giggle.
“Allie? Ça va?”
“Oui, Mademoiselle Carter. Ça va.” She looks at me suspiciously. I smile back sweetly.
After downloading the app, I play with it under my desk. It has hadiths, so you can read prophetic conversations and lessons on the go, plus it gives you duas for the day. (I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize Dua’s name has a meaning: supplication.) Most people use the app to face the right way while praying—the Ka’baa in Mecca—and to know the five daily prayer times: Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha.
When the bell rings, I’ve been poking through the app for a good twenty minutes. I realize I have no idea what the homework is, so I lean over to the girl next to me, whispering, “What did she say the assignment was again?”
She looks surprised, her eyes widening behind her glasses. “You weren’t paying attention? It’s the subjunctive worksheet at the end of chapter three.”
“Cool, thanks.” I gather my bags quickly, stuffing my phone into the unzipped side of my purse and rushing off to chorus.
We’re in the middle of practicing “Summer Nights” when it happens: a plaintive call in Arabic, melodic and mellifluous, the adhan of the Qur’an.
“Allahu akbar. Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah…”
It’s my prayer app.
I fumble in my purse, reaching for my phone to turn it off, stabbing at the button to silence the call to prayer piercing through the now-blazing silence of the chorus room.
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