by Ali al-Muqri
Let me return to Om Kalthoum . . .
Demands are not met by wishing
The world can only be won through struggle.
‘Abd al-Raqeeb, who now refused to be called merely Raqeeb, filled the house with religious recordings and books. He made a fire on the roof area outside his room and burned all the revolutionary pamphlets and cassettes he’d collected during his ‘wayward years,’ as he now referred to that period of his life.
On his first day as a married man, ‘Abd al-Raqeeb chose the room next to ours for him and his new bride. We rearranged the room, and redistributed the things that had been stored in it around the house, but in the end they only spent four nights in it. Nura said he didn’t want us to hear their nightly antics. He preferred them to sleep in the room on the roof, far away from us.
‘Does Sheikh ‘Abd al-Raqeeb even know what fun and laughter are anymore?’ asked Lula. As usual, Nura gave a little giggle.
Nothing is beyond the reach of a people
When their feet are firmly in the stirrups.
When Suhail gave me the Om Kalthoum cassette, I’d already decided to study at the Islamic University once I finished school. It was a popular option, especially since the only acceptance condition was to memorise three of the Noble Quran’s thirty sections and be able to recite them correctly – and according to what I’d heard from other girls who’d studied there, the recitation wasn’t strictly necessary. Up until a few years earlier we hadn’t even heard of the Islamic University. It would have been so much easier if I’d only had to memorise three parts of the Quran, and not spend three years at the Islamic Scientific Academy. Those years passed by as though I’d never really lived them. I wanted to complete my secondary education at the same school I’d attended for nine years. I wanted to stay with my friends, but this wasn’t to be. One day when we were eating dinner, ‘Abd al-Raqeeb said, ‘Tomorrow morning, go and register at the Islamic Scientific Academy. The one close to here – it’s just a couple of streets down. I’ll drop you off in front of it. The religious science academies are much better than the schools, they teach their pupils according to the true Islamic way.’
As soon as he said this, my father looked over at me. ‘Did you hear what your brother said? You’ll go with him tomorrow.’ I didn’t have a say in the matter.
Nothing is beyond the reach of a people
From day one I sensed the Academy was going to be completely different from my old school. In the morning, as I passed through the main gate, I noticed a woman standing beside the door holding a long cane. She placed her left hand on my right shoulder and looked me up and down, scrutinising my clothing. Then, abruptly, she whipped her cane up in the air.
‘What’s this joke? Have you come here to study, or to dance?’ I didn’t know what to say. She pointed to the gate with her cane.
‘Go home. Now. Don’t come back until you’ve put on a loose abaya and covered your face with a real veil, not that flimsy thing you’re wearing. And buy a pair of flat-heeled, Islamic shoes.’
When I got home, Lula hadn’t yet left the house. She rummaged through her wardrobe and pulled out an old abaya, saying, ‘Perhaps this one will do?’ She returned to the pile of clothes to find a veil, adding, ‘What more could they want? You look like a tent. No one’s going to be able to see you dressed like that.’
I needed to get back to the Academy. On the way out of the door, the world looked different: it was darker. After I put on the thick veil the sky looked like a big shadow, consuming the earth and stretching into the horizon. Everything around me had become one big shadow, the shadow cast by an invisible light.
I remembered the ‘Islamic shoes’ and went back to Lula.
‘The shoes you’re wearing are already as low as they get.’
‘Perhaps a few extra millimetres are all it takes to be in violation of sharia?’ I said to her.
‘Enough! Talk to your brother, the sheikh, it’s his duty to buy you a pair of shoes that meet sharia standards.’ This time she seemed angry. I quickly slipped my shoes back on and left.
Abu al-Zahra, I’ve overstepped my rank
In praising you, yet I seek the honour.
At the academy I learned that ‘Abu al-Zahra’ is one of the names given to the Prophet, Muhammad, after his daughter, Fatima al-Zahra. Om Kalthoum’s song praises a beloved with the same name. Why did Suhail give me this particular song?
Life at the Academy was always serious. No one ever dared joke or laugh, except for Leena. It was as if she had been born from a joke, or that she had grown up in a house of laughter. As soon as the teacher left the classroom, Leena would raise her voice to address our classmate, Nahla, who’d been chosen as the class president.
‘O Sheikha Nahla, am I permitted to tell you all a joke?’ The first time, Nahla was silent for a moment, before replying, ‘It is permitted. It is permitted, but only on condition that it is told in an Islamic way.’
The girls burst into laughter at such a serious answer. This became a running joke. Leena would tease Nahla by asking her the same question. When she refused to reply, some of the other students would answer for her, so that as soon as Leena opened her mouth and began to ask ‘Is it permitted to—’ they would raise their voices and drown her out with a chorus of ‘It is permitted. It is permitted, but . . .’
Within these limitations we would laugh. Leena didn’t even need to tell a joke; she’d just ask her usual question and we’d all be laughing.
One time Leena cut across our laughter, with ‘Do you know what I was going to ask before you all started saying It is permitted, it is permitted?’
We all fell silent, sensing there was something behind her words.
‘If any of you are rude, I’ll write your name on the board for teacher to see,’ Nahla would always threaten. She only ever carried out her threat once, when she complained to the Quran teacher that the students kept laughing and joking. ‘If that’s the case, then firstly, they wanted to tell a joke, and secondly, they were going to laugh when they heard it,’ said the teacher, trying to work out the appropriate judgement to be passed on those who had dared not only to tell a joke but to laugh at it, too. But just at that moment, one of the Academy’s Administrators came along. She told the teacher that her family had been in touch and had asked that she come home straightaway, as her mother was sick. She shrieked, rushing from the classroom as though her mother was already dead.
I have praised kings and risen high in their esteem
But when I praise you I rise above the clouds.
I stopped just going through the motions of prayer and began to pray in earnest. At first I missed my old school: lining up for morning registration, then standing to attention as the national anthem played, until it accompanied our measured steps from the playground to class. I also missed the sports. But I quickly learned that what I missed was in violation of sharia.
‘This is the way of the new age of ignorance, it violates sharia – God’s law – completely, in spirit and in letter . . .’ I heard this sort of thing often in relation to all and every aspect of life. A fatwa, or religious ruling, was always to hand, hemming me in on all sides. Fatwas were cited in answer to any question, spoken or unspoken: Is it OK for a woman to go outside without a male guardian, related to her through birth or marriage? Is it wrong to walk too slow or too fast? It is OK to read novels and magazines? Most of the rulings dealt with issues that were embarrassing for someone of my age: What was the appropriate ruling for a woman handling cucumbers and bananas, cooking with squash and aubergine, sleeping naked, talking to men, shaking a man’s hand, embracing another woman, being taken by her husband from behind, seeing dogs or chickens copulate. A fatwa was required for everything, and for every conceivable situation in life it would be asked ‘Is this, according to sharia, permitted or prohibited?’ Even crying and laughing. I considered laughter within the bounds of sharia but I couldn’t work out whether I was free to cry. I searched and searched in books for a le
gal pretext that would give me the right to cry, however and whenever I liked. I spent days and months researching and comparing various opinions. Eventually, my own independent judgement, or ‘ijtihad’ as it’s known in sharia, led me to conclude I had the right to cry. But when I wanted to cry, I found I’d forgotten how to.
Three years passed during which I felt I was in an endless state of jihad, a religious warrior battling the everyday. I became obsessed with the great Islamic issues: jihad in Afghanistan and Chechnya against the heathen crusaders and the communists, fighting the Jews in Palestine, and infidels in general, wherever they might be.
By my final year at the Academy, my relationship with Lula had changed. Once while I prayed she heard me asking God to give me the good fortune to go to Afghanistan or Palestine to do jihad and become a martyr.
‘What? Jihad? Live a little first! Zeet-meet, that’s jihad,’ she said before I’d even finished my prayer.
‘What are you saying? You’re disobeying God. Why are you being so blasphemous?’
‘When have I ever disobeyed God? What is there for God to dislike if we’re enjoying our lives?’
‘We should only enjoy what is halal, what is permitted.’
‘Halal, halal. Let a man mount you with his halal. After that, you won’t want to run after jihad or anything else. You’ll want to martyr yourself beneath him, taking his thrusts.’
She started laughing and wouldn’t stop, even though she could see I was angry: ‘Instead of allowing yourself to be martyred by the thrusts of an infidel in Afghanistan or Chechnya or Palestine, martyr yourself here. Go and pick a fight with any old infidel and let him stab you to death.’
Lula had just got back from a trip to London, but unusually for her, she hadn’t told me anything about it yet.
She’d started testing the waters, to try and gauge how I’d react before telling me about her sexual adventures and how much she loved Europe.
I remember how she’d gone on about her trip to Germany for months, all starry-eyed:
‘There are people there. People. Not like the people here.’
‘Why did you come back then? You could have stayed there.’
‘What would I do? There are more than enough whores over there.’
‘Couldn’t you find any other work apart from that?’
‘You know that’s my preferred line of work.’
The truth is, Lula wasn’t really a whore, exactly. Her activities were limited, and she rarely had relations with anyone other than her boss. Even so, this is how she liked to describe herself.
After her trip to Norway we had pretty much the same conversation, but her trip to Paris was like nothing else. Her life was turned completely upside down, a life she’d begun too early.
*
A few months before I enrolled at the Islamic Scientific Academy, Lula wanted to show me where she worked. She’d told me she worked for an import and export business. When we arrived there were three girls sitting at neighbouring desks. They chattered amongst themselves, their conversation eliciting a near constant stream of laughter. Lula quickly led me into another room.
‘What’s the matter with you? Come and sit down and introduce us to your sis!’ said one of them.
‘I don’t want you corrupting her with your loose morals!’ replied Lula, laughing.
‘Loose morals! It’s bad enough she lives with you, isn’t it? Or do you never go home?’ They laughed some more.
‘Aren’t there any men working here?’ I asked her.
‘Of course there are. There’s the boss. Then there’s the accountant who works here one day a week. And there’s also a man who comes in every afternoon around two o’clock. He deals with foreign transactions, business relations, stuff like that.’
‘What about the girls, what do they do?’
‘As you can see, sometimes we print documents and letters. One translates letters into English, the other is the office secretary – she records all the imports and exports and prepares the paperwork for the accountant. She’s also the one who opens and closes the office. The other is a butterfly who just flutters around looking pretty. Sometimes she cleans the office and makes tea and coffee for the boss.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘I’m still in training. I’ve only been here eight months.’
She answered the phone on her desk. ‘OK. I’m coming. OK!’ She repeated this several times, giggling.
After she hung up she said: ‘I also answer the phone for the boss – but only for the boss. He has two lines, one in his office and one in here with me. Didn’t I tell you? I’m training to become his PA. His last one went for the office secretary position.’
Lula dropped me back home. She said it was the boss who’d called. He’d asked her to return to work later that day, to fill in for someone.
‘All of us have to pull an afternoon shift, ten consecutive days a month. Ha, if only you could see the work that’s done in the afternoon! The boss keeps me busy in ways you couldn’t imagine.’
‘God protect you.’
‘No, it’s not hard work. It’s lovely, delicious work.’
Lula was really into buying these transparent, risqué nighties. She kept them stashed away with her perfumes in a locked suitcase. Father was always very happy when she gave him a chunk of her salary, so he went along with everything ‘Abd al-Raqeeb said, except stopping Lula from working or travelling. Later, she told me all about the extra work she did in the afternoon: ‘The boss doesn’t make me work in the afternoon, except for the ten days before the start of my period.’
‘You said the five days after the period are safe, and that a woman can’t get pregnant during this time if she—’
‘True, true,’ Lula cut me off, ‘but there are ten safe days if you count from the first day of the period. But the boss likes to work during the ten days before my period. I like this time too because I’m hornier before it than I am after.’
‘What? You like it?’
‘Yep. Understand?’
‘And he works with the rest of the girls like this?’
‘No! He swears it’s just me. The others come into the office as and when their work requires it.’
‘And what do they say?’
‘They don’t know and I don’t tell them anything. The only things we do together are watch cultural films and the afternoon prayer.’
‘I know what the cultural films are, but what’s going on with the afternoon prayer?’
‘According to the boss’s instructions, five minutes before the call to prayer we play a cassette of the Quran, recited by Abdulbasit Abdulsamad, the Egyptian Quran reciter, and turn up the volume so that everyone in the building can hear. When we hear the call to prayer from the three nearby mosques blaring out we roll out the prayer rug in the office lounge and pray behind Samira, who leads the prayer.’
‘And if Samira doesn’t lead the prayer, do you do it?’
She let out a long laugh and then said: ‘Yeah right, me an imam! You mean if she’s on her period? No, it’s not a problem. It’s all just for show anyway, for the owner of the building, the boss’s father-in-law. He’s really religious.’
‘I don’t understand. What’s the point, even if it’s all just for show?’
‘Oh Pipsqueak. The owner of the building is rich and it looks good for the boss. If he sees us praying like that then he won’t worry about us trying to seduce his daughter’s husband and corrupt him, because we’re righteous women who say all our prayers.’
‘But what if he’s the one doing the seducing?’
‘They say woman is a devil who seduces man – that if it wasn’t for her he’d remain pure.’
*
Not too long after I visited the office, Lula’s boss decided to close the business. He opened up a new office as part of some international campaign to save endangered species. The nature of his work meant that he was often out of the country. Not a month would go by without him having to travel – u
sually at least twice – to take part in some conference or workshop. He took Lula on three trips: to New York, Berlin and London. She told me that as soon as they got through the door of their hotel room, he’d start pestering her to swap the heavy layers that concealed her figure for clothes that showed it off. But then, once she was dressed as requested, more provocatively, he wouldn’t allow her to leave the room. So she would stay there until it was time to pack their suitcases and leave.
‘When he finally agreed to let me represent the organisation at the special session on animal rights in Paris, I was freer than I ever was when I travelled with him. A whole month of freedom! As soon as I boarded the plane I went into the toilet and changed my clothes. I got rid of my abaya, headscarf and veil and put on a short skirt and slinky blouse.’
But that was not the most significant event of Lula’s time in Paris.
At the Louvre her Algerian friend, who was also taking part in the session, whispered that the man contemplating the Mona Lisa was a famous painter, and that just a few days ago one of his paintings had sold at auction for a record figure, much more than any of the auction houses had seen in the past five years.
Lula decided to make a record of her Parisian adventure, taping herself on the old cassette player. It seemed to me that she was mocking ‘Abd al-Raqeeb, who’d begun to record his own sermons in classical Arabic to develop his skills as a preacher. She didn’t say this. Perhaps there were other reasons – I didn’t ask.
I stayed to listen during the recording:
A Personal Cassette Recording
‘I wanted to get to know him. I’m not sure why.’
[I can clearly remember Lula’s expression as she spoke, as though she were right here in front of me now, as I write down what she recorded].
‘I went up to him and said in English, “Do you like the Mona Lisa?” He said “I like anything nude.” “But the Mona Lisa isn’t nude,” I said to him. “Actually she is nude. Can’t you tell?” he said. “No,” I replied. He was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the painting. Then he turned to me and took a good, long look before asking me “Do you like tomatoes?” I told him that I did like them, especially pureed with hot peppers. Then he said “I want to paint you, with tomatoes.” At first, I was really embarrassed, but I quickly got over it. “OK,” I said, “on the condition you don’t paint my real face.” He didn’t agree to my condition, telling me that art refuses any conditions – if it is produced according to conditions, it is no longer worthy of being called art.