by Ayesha Mattu
I’d become an oddball in every circle I occupied. My friends and family were all Christian. Islam was foreign to the majority of people I knew. I was tasked with explaining why I fasted during one month of the year, why I was trying—and often failing—to pray five times a day, and why Muslims do or don’t do whatever it was the person wanted to know about. I couldn’t always answer because I didn’t have all the answers.
Most of the brothers at the masjid were older and more conservative. I was occasionally treated to monologues about how misguided the West was. I kept my protests to myself. Everything seemed so black and white, and I was unable to articulate the beautiful shades of gray I saw every day. I was equally horrified when a brother casually talked about throwing gay people off of a cliff. I began to wonder what I’d gotten myself into and how long I could hold up.
The idea of marriage as a priority stayed with me, even when Islam didn’t. I met a non-Muslim woman six months after my conversion and proposed six weeks after our first in-person meeting. I was in love and believed I had met “the one.” After going through most of life feeling misunderstood, I had met someone who accepted me for who I was. We clicked immediately and found in each other a safe harbor in the rocky waters of young adult life. The news of my engagement was met with a couple of “mashAllahs” at the masjid. So ended the great “find Anthony a wife” phase.
My iman burned out quickly thereafter. Being with a non-Muslim woman allowed me to openly question everything I knew about organized religion without dismantling my social structure. My friends didn’t care about my religion. My fiancée didn’t, either. They just wanted me to be happy. Not being raised in a church and not being invested at the masjid allowed me to question without consequence. I drifted away from the Muslim community, spending the next five years studying different religions and philosophies about God and life. My odyssey took me from Islam, to agnosticism/atheism, back to church, back to Islam, to Buddhism, back to Islam, back to church, back to nonbelief and, finally, back to Islam again.
I kept coming back to Islam because it felt like home. I was always greeted at the masjid like a returning relative with an “Assalaamu alaykum” and a handshake. Brothers asked how I was doing and sincerely wanted to know the answer. Though I found solace in salat, I came back for the people.
In 2010, I divorced, adding failing to stay married to failing to stay with religion. The decision was for the best, but I felt alone in the world. What I was missing was a spiritual anchor and a greater sense of purpose. Without it, I spent the next few years in and out of relationships and empty sexual trysts.
After what seemed like an endless round of reading and research, I came back to Islam in 2013. I was praying five times a day, frequenting the masjid, and enjoying Islam again. I was now more open to an Islamic-style courtship. Everything else had produced dismal results. I trusted Allah. What should’ve been the first option was last.
Being a millennial, I signed up for a Muslim marriage site. I was hesitant to make the financial commitment to send messages on the site. The prospects in my city were few, but one sister caught my eye: “Mercy 44.” Her smile was beautiful, she didn’t always wear hijab, and her profile offered a window to her personality. Without the capability to send a full message on the site due to my irrational frugality, I sent one of those canned, “I like your profile, write back if you’re interested” messages, and went on with my day, expecting nothing.
A “ping” sounded on my computer. Mercy 44 had written back! I wrestled my credit card from my wallet, punched in my information on the site, took a deep breath, and hit “send.”
“Sure, feel free to tell me about yourself,” her e-mail read.
I replied with my biography: Muslim man on the other side of his twenties, journalist by trade with a pair of degrees. She responded in kind. As a progressive Muslim who revels in the shades of gray, I knew to tread lightly. My pro–LGBTQ rights, pro–women’s rights, separation-of-church-and-state, inclusive philosophies don’t always make for easy conversation. After a couple of weeks of small talk on the marriage site, Mercy 44 and I moved our correspondence to e-mail. My hesitancy proved well founded.
We were polar opposites on nearly everything. I was a Sunni who quoted hadith on occasion; she was a Qur’an-only Muslim who believed that “Sunnis and non-Sunnis could never have full relationships.” We agreed to disagree over the course of endless e-mails as we slung suras backing our respective positions. This wasn’t a future wife, but I was intrigued and she was attractive. I’ve also never met a debate I didn’t like, and she knew her stuff. I dropped my guard enough to begin sharing snippets of my journey. How I fell in and out of Islam, my brush with nonbelief.
She wasn’t impressed. My theological adventures put me in contact with people of all faiths and those subscribing to none. When I mentioned that those without belief in God were also good, moral people, her disagreement turned to disgust. Things got more contentious when she questioned whether I was really Muslim.
“Maybe you should find some more guidance within Islam if you want to be a Muslim. Or maybe you’re just a believer and not necessarily Muslim,” she said.
In 99.99 percent of instances, that would’ve been the end of the conversation.
But it wasn’t.
I was appalled. While I fancied that she saw me as a hell-bound heathen with no morals, I was still attracted to and intrigued by her boldness. I friend-zoned Mercy 44 and figured she’d eventually stop talking to me.
That didn’t happen.
When we tired of arguing about all things Islam, the conversation shifted to mutual complaints about being single Muslims looking for marriage. In spite of our differences, I enjoyed the dialogue and, against all rational judgment, suggested we meet. I expected her to decline, which, I thought, would let me close this chapter and move on. To my surprise, she accepted. We agreed on bowling—probably the most halal thing a Muslim couple can do in Sin City on a Friday night.
Mercy 44 greeted me with a smile, instantly melting my defenses. I’d met women online through mainstream dating websites, but meeting a Muslim woman was another matter entirely. Sites for Muslim singles are explicitly geared toward matrimony. While what Muslims say and do are sometimes at opposite ends of the spectrum, the idea that Muslims don’t “date” left me in the dark regarding Islamic courtship. We both knew the endgame. Getting there was another matter. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to act. Neither was she. We looked like two teenagers at a junior high school dance, exchanging nervous laughs and cheesy grins.
The actual game of bowling wasn’t as warm and fuzzy. From a woman with the screen name “Mercy 44,” I received none once we hit the lanes. I hung tough through the first five frames, bowling strikes and near strikes to keep it close. As I hoisted the ball into the air to bowl my sixth, I saw a horrifying split in my jeans near my upper thigh! Frazzled by this discovery, I let the ball slip from my fingers, and it sailed into the gutter. I never regained my composure and was soundly beaten. The game was no longer of consequence. I needed to figure out how to keep from flashing the unsuspecting sister I found myself interested in getting to know.
I would later find out that Mercy 44 did notice the giant rip in my jeans. To her credit, she didn’t laugh at me, which said a lot about her character. The two-hour conversation we had outside the bowling alley—ripped jeans and all—solidified my interest. We had more in common than either of us had previously imagined. We both believed Islam was best practiced through interactions with others and that appearance wasn’t the sole measure of piety. We had similar tastes in music, enjoyed each other’s company, and had a passion for knowledge. Our disagreements went from a source of division to an avenue for enrichment. Not seeing eye to eye on everything was okay as soon as we stopped e-mailing and started talking. She wasn’t a hardliner. I wasn’t a heathen. We were two people finding our way through life the best way we knew how.
What began as begrudging respect became genuine interest
. As Mercy 44 and I spent more time together, we chose to focus on what we had in common, instead of our differences. Our earlier e-mails had been more about competition than conversation. Islam is important, but focusing on Qur’an over character turned minor disagreements about interpretation into a battle of wits with heavily armed combatants. We never saw eye to eye about hadith, but who cuts someone off over a disagreement about the validity of Bukhari and Muslim?
Despite setting a tentative wedding date, Mercy 44 and I never made it to the altar. Premarital counseling has a way of revealing whether one is truly ready. I wasn’t. At least not at that moment. Still, our brief time together taught me a lot about compromise and not judging a book by its cover. Most important, I learned that being authentic is okay.
Instead of finding mercy at the altar, I found it in myself.
Having a safe space to share my story was liberating. I’d realized that “Anthony, the Muslim” and “Anthony, the skeptic” could coexist. I could be Muslim and have questions about faith. Islam felt safe again. Mercy was my red pill. She helped me escape the Matrix, the illusion I’d created that no Muslim woman would ever accept me for who I was.
Maybe I can do this marriage thing after all. Not today. But one day.
Prom, InshAllah
By Haroon Moghul
The first job I ever applied for was at McDonald’s. Had my mom and dad, both doctors, discovered this, they’d have been horrified. I needed money to cover my date to the high school prom, which they weren’t supposed to know about either. But, sitting in that plastic chair, testifying to my aptitude for flipping burgers, guilt wasn’t the first feeling that came to mind.
I’d tried to go along. I bought into it. We didn’t drink. They did. We didn’t dance. They did. We didn’t date. They did. We did not “like” girls, never mind “need” them. Somehow, it was assumed but unspoken that a spouse’d pop up, in a kind of ironclad Pakistani American Hegelianism. Thesis, antithesis, children. But there was only so long I could stand being on the sidelines.
I’d decided, come fall of my senior year, that I had to go to the prom come hell (probable) or high water (climate change). It’d be my Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, my riding the ball in Take Me Home Tonight, my shot at that one unforgettable night. Even then, you see, I looked forward to life nostalgically, salivating over its reliving before it had come to pass. “Remember Haroon?” they’d say. “Who snuck out to prom?” And with who!
There are, after all, different ways of trying to live forever. Some start with an anodyne decision to cross state boundaries, like my parents did when they moved us from an old-money Massachusetts suburb to a barely postrural town. I showed up in a new school system in the middle of fifth grade; too late to make friends. Then, in sixth grade, my parents got a letter in the mail, which would change my life—by denying me one.
Not only did my mom and dad never talk to me about girls, but they also made sure that no one else did. In order to be enrolled in sex education, students needed parental permission. Every single student received it, except me. The only brown kid. The only Muslim kid. The new kid. I was assigned a project on the solar system instead of sex education and deported to the library to research it. For a doofy twelve-year-old who wore pleated pants, mismatched polos, and large, cinnamon-colored glasses, this was social homicide.
Fast-forward six years. I was a deeply superficial upperclassman—for someone so stunningly awkward, I was convinced I had a shot with the school’s hottest girls. But I wasn’t just interested in them for their bodies. I really wanted someone to hold hands with. Someone to see the world and share it with. Someone to make sure I’d never be alone again. Because I was many things: narcissistic (no one should leave me) and despondent (everyone will one day).
By my senior year, the battle of immigrant Geist versus female corporeality had been decided. Not only did I want to go to prom, I wanted a date to it. She turned out to be a sophomore named Carla, who first came to my attention one day late in March. My good friend Jeremy and I were walking the senior hallway after school when Carla stepped out of a classroom she shouldn’t have been in. She stopped and looked both ways. She waved hello to him—she didn’t know me—and walked ahead of us.
Even Jeremy, ever the embodiment of propriety (and piety), muttered an “Oh, my goodness” before he noticed my staring and suggested I stop. This I liked Jeremy for: he treated religion religiously. A man of God, but one who danced and dated, and so he threw me for a loop. When I admitted to Jeremy I was smitten by Carla’s Italian genes, her stonewashed jeans, and her striped green tank top, he swore to help me make the leap from fantasy to reality.
On a Wednesday in early April, I was taken from school to attend Eid prayers at the closest mosque, some forty miles north, where the Muslim part of me was all but born and bred. As usual, we had to wake up uncomfortably early to not get stuck in the unsnowplowed outré-mer of the Islamic center’s parking lot. Also, you wanted a short walk from the car to the building so you didn’t freeze to death. Our obstinate Punjabi-ness demanded we wear shalwar kameez, no matter its inappropriateness for the weather.
If Eid was one thing growing up, it was boring. Among the few upsides, we got some money—mine, it should be noted, helped pay for Carla’s corsage. Which meant she said yes. Let me tell you how.
I was home from Eid prayers by late afternoon, and called Jeremy to find out what I’d missed in school. As if, as a senior, I really cared. Turned out I’d missed only everything. During eighth-period English, Carla had stopped by our class. She had a message for her older sister, a senior like us.
To call me crestfallen would be dishonest. I was shattered. Carla, with the wavy hair, which smelled like heaven, underneath which rivers flow? Carla, with the mesmerizingly sapphire eyes?
“Did she look hot like she always does?” I asked.
Jeremy answered elliptically. “You should hurry up and ask her before someone else does.”
How exactly should I do that?
I’d never talked to her, never acknowledged her, never, so far as I could tell, been noticed by her. But so badly did I want to that I tossed social anxiety aside and decided to ask out one of my Abrahamic coreligionists the day after celebrating his near-sacrifice of his son. It should’ve been easy enough. Because, for one thing, her sister had already told her of my interest.
Carla’s locker was right outside our AP biology classroom, which is where I’d make the ask, except I lost my nerve at the last minute and sought refuge in that same classroom, until her cousin Bradley showed up with a huge grin on his face. “Did you do it?” he asked, entirely rhetorically until he saw my expression.
“Umm, no.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He may or may not have said that. Because Bradley had other ways of communicating. Upset with my spinelessness, Bradley punched me. To add insult to social injury, he shoved me out the door. This meant I came into Carla’s line of sight by flying out of a classroom and halfway across the hall. I tried not to think about how this looked. Her friends scattered at the sudden sight of me, because they knew what I was there for.
“Hey, Carla . . .”
She turned to give me her full attention. This was not helpful.
“I was wondering if you—”
“Yes?”
“Would, uh, want to go to the prom?” I’m really not sure if I included the “with me”; I may have simply inquired into her interest in the function generally.
“Sure, I’d love to.”
Then she slammed her locker shut and said she had to get to class.
I like to think I stood there like a Punjabi Peter Parker, when he first becomes aware of his super spidery powers. I felt a new man—taller, better, braver, and a cooler shade of brown. High on myself, I spun around and nearly ran over Mrs. D., my AP biology teacher. Who’d been behind me during the entire exchange.
She practically gave me a black-power salute: “Good work, Haroon!”
I was mort
ified. “You saw that?”
By the end of that day, the whole science department had congratulated me. I should, in honor of this alliance, apologize for scoring a 2 on the actual AP exam. More important things were unfolding.
My parents left town a few weekends later; Carla and I talked on the phone and agreed we were “dating.” You might at this point think me possessed of incredible memory. Rather, it’s that I wrote volumes of poetry, as every bookish kid my age would; they are my photographs. They recorded, mostly, what I didn’t do. Except this time I did.
For our first date, I’d gone all the way to Westfield, which had the closest Friendly’s. Her father told her, by which he meant me, not to be late, but we were. We talked over frothy chocolate milkshakes. About what, I don’t know. Didn’t care.
Our two months together were my AP in assimilation. How do dates work? (Ask friends.) Am I allowed to check her out because she’s my girlfriend? (Answer didn’t matter.) Holy crap, she’s going out with me. (Holy crap, she’s going out with me.) The whole not-touching thing didn’t last either. Late one Saturday night in May I decided to kiss her.
We pulled up to her house and I walked her to the side door, under the porch, one of those halfhearted basements, part underground and part above. (I sympathized with this bipolarity.) When she turned to face me, ostensibly to say goodnight, I stared stupidly into her eyes until she asked, “Is everything okay?”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
She went with it. Carla approached me slowly, gingerly, and when she got close enough, closed her eyes and reached up toward me, tilting her head ever so slightly. I was kissed. Nothing I’d read prepared me for that feeling—pure joy, a wave displacing everything else inside of me. Rapture had come to lift me up and away. I kissed her back, and a second later it was over. She smiled and disappeared into her house.