Laughing All the Way to the Mosque

by Zarqa Nawaz

  “Just take it off,” I yelled when we went out together.

  She couldn’t. She felt that if wearing hijab was part of her religion, then she had to do it too. So I had inadvertently shamed her into it and I couldn’t undo the damage.

  Since my parents had ruined my hijab rebellion, my religious fervor refused to stop at my head. I started treating my hijab like a magic wand. I could wave my holier-than-thou hijab-covered head and complain about whatever I wanted. This wasn’t a privilege I’d been afforded when I was just a bare-headed Muslim.

  “Wow, you guys take interest?” I asked my mother during a trip to the bank. I informed the gobsmacked bank teller that, unlike my neglectful parents, I would not be engaging in usury.

  “Plucking eyebrows is forbidden,” I told my mother’s friends.

  “There’s alcohol in vanilla extract, and you’ve used it for how many years?” I said as I threw my mother’s bottle into the garbage.

  “How dare you listen to music,” I said and turned off my father’s Bollywood tunes.

  “You guys are like modern Muslims who don’t even know about their own religion!”

  I scoured the hadith for details of seventh-century Muslim life. My old bed broke, but I wouldn’t let my parents buy me a new one. I slept in a sleeping bag on my carpeted floor because authentic Muslims didn’t use box springs.

  “Beds are not forbidden in Islam,” said my father, uneasy at my nitpicking approach to faith.

  “I think God would approve,” I said, confident that I understood God’s will better than my parents.

  When my mother took me to the seamstress to have my shalwar kameez sewn for Eid, I argued non-stop.

  “I want long, loose shirts,” I told the seamstress as she measured my waist.

  “I’m going to take it in at the waist to give it some shape,” she said innocently.

  “No shape,” I said.

  “But it won’t look good,” said the seamstress. “You’ll look like you’re wearing a sack.”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  The seamstress implored my mother with her eyes to intervene, but my mother knew better. There was nothing she could do. I looked like I was wearing a giant paper bag for Eid. I loved it.

  My parents never saw this coming. Bringing their children to the West was supposed to be about improving their quality of life. Instead, they were being told they were crap Muslims. And their daughter seemed to be throwing away the conveniences of modernity, like beds. They just listened to my droning patiently. And then their patience paid off.

  In late May, Uncle Mahmood, one of my father’s oldest friends, convened a meeting of our two families. His daughter Zereena had gone to camp with me the previous year. We’d both had a blast. I was looking forward to talking to Zereena about our plans for camp that summer. I had an enormous suitcase, which I could barely close. Were ten outfits too many?

  As we gathered in his living room, though, Uncle Mahmood was clearly upset. My expansive teenage imagination assumed the worst: He’d make us weigh our suitcases and enforce a ten-kilo limit. But when he finally blurted out what was bothering him, it was much worse.

  “At this so-called Muslim camp, they let the kids eat Chicken McNuggets,” he said with such seriousness that you would have thought we had been fed rat poison or, worse, pork chops. “The children should be forbidden from attending this camp again,” he intoned.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I loved Muslim camp more than life itself. And now Uncle Mahmood was ruining it for me.

  “You’re not being fair,” I said out loud before I had a chance to think. “It’s a good camp and I really like going.”

  My father watched the exchange with interest. Halal meat was a big issue for South Asian Muslims like us. Our family bought meat only from halal butchers. But Arab Muslims believed that meat slaughtered by Christians and Jews was acceptable and went on faith that someone of that religion was slaughtering the meat at the local grocery store. No one was going to quiz the butchers on how often they went to church or synagogue.

  “There’s a difference of opinion about meat,” I said, racking my brain for the religious niceties and coming up empty.

  “There’s only one real opinion, and proper Muslims follow that one,” said Uncle Mahmood.

  I had turned my faith into endless rules. They had given me structure. They had helped me torture my parents. And now they were being thrown back at me.

  My father had heard enough. “My daughter is right. We have to be more flexible when it comes to faith. We can’t be extremists when it comes to Islam.”

  And in one fell swoop, my father dismissed the meeting and said I could go to summer camp as long as I wanted. His relationship with Uncle Mahmood soured. But as far as my father was concerned, Uncle Mahmood was a crazed religious nutjob. Halal meat was as big an issue for my father as it was for Uncle Mahmood, but he ruled in my favour because he knew how much I loved summer camp.

  In that moment, I decided not to take Islam so literally. Religion had been my weapon of choice to break my parents’ hearts. But then it came back and almost broke my heart. Maybe God had sent me a sign through those Chicken McNuggets—my parents were good Muslims and it wouldn’t kill me to become a little more like them. After all, even though I had a strange haircut and paraded around in my hijab like I was the pope, my father still stuck up for me because I was his little girl.

  “I’m thinking about growing out my hair,” I said. It was the only thing I could give back to him for standing up to me.

  “It’s fine short,” he said. “But how about you sleep in a bed?”

  I agreed. My back was killing me.

  Muslim Summer Camp

  I needed a sign from God. My future was in peril.

  My first year at university was off to an abysmal start. I’d been a star in high school, where everything had been easy. But at university, nothing was easy. I was losing focus. Calculus and chemistry were difficult, but physics was unfathomable. Newton and his three laws were killing me. I felt like I was in free fall. Partly in desperation, partly in procrastination, I decided to escape the library for Friday prayers. I was being sucked into the mosque’s gravitational field.

  I packed up my twenty kilos of textbooks and drove to Jami Mosque, a Presbyterian church built in downtown Toronto in 1910 that was converted into a mosque in the 1960s. In Muslim countries, mosques are decorated with colourful handcrafted tiles formed in intricate geometric patterns based on mathematical principles, to create complex designs that represent the unity of God’s creation. These incredible works of art sometimes took decades to create. The exterior of Jami Mosque was also decorated with tiles—gleaming white bathroom tiles to be precise. Well-meaning Muslims seemed to have the same understanding of mathematical concepts as I did. The neat straight rows of tile outlined the entire structure, with some Arabic calligraphy painted on. It reminded me of an eccentric Middle Eastern gingerbread house. Normally this would make me laugh as I approached, but today I didn’t care. I was going to the gingerbread mosque hoping God would send me some sort of a sign. After all, a mosque is a place where God is worshipped, ergo the place where God’s signs should appear. I’m sure that was Newton’s first law.

  I solemnly climbed the stairs to the women’s section in the old choir balcony and sat with the other women. I had come all this way for a message from God. Instead, I heard a sermon about the importance of being nice to one’s neighbours. I felt a little deflated. I was mired in indecision about what to do next with my life, and this admonition to send a muffin basket next door didn’t give me the guidance I was looking for. Then I heard the community announcements.

  “We are looking for volunteers to organize Muslim summer camp,” said Abdullah, a burly man with a Guyanese accent. He sounded a bit like Bob Marley. His rich, deep voice soothed my addled brain. Clearly, this was the sign I was looking for. I volunteered immediately. Our first meeting was that weekend.

  “Whe
re are you going?” asked my mother as I put on a headscarf to go out.

  “To the mosque,” I said. “I’m organizing Muslim summer camp.”

  “Shouldn’t you be studying for your exams? You need high grades to get into medical school.”

  “They don’t just look at your grades,” I said smugly. “They look at your volunteer work too. It might be even more important than grades.”

  My mother looked at me skeptically.

  “This is what God wants me to do,” I said, appealing to her religious side.

  “Did you hear God say that to you?” she asked, knitting her eyebrows and looking more than a little concerned.

  “No, of course not,” I replied, more than a little offended.

  “Because if you’re hearing voices, we can get you help.”

  “I’m not hearing voices,” I said, now totally offended.

  “I sense that God would want me to organize Muslim summer camp.”

  “I sense you may be doing this to avoid studying.”

  “Please.” I tossed my winter scarf around my neck. “I am not that shallow when it comes to God.”

  The meeting was in one of the mosque’s warren of rooms. I sat in an old-fashioned child-sized metal desk, which doubled as a storage cubby. It was full of broken crayons and a workbook with childish Arabic script. This was the same place I had learned how to read the Qur’an during Islamic weekend school. It brought back unpleasant memories of memorizing prayers in Arabic, which I hated: I preferred to talk to God in English, so that nothing was lost in translation. There were several seventeen-year-olds who had volunteered to be camp counsellors. At twenty, I was the oldest volunteer. Abdullah was at the blackboard, writing out the different things that needed to be organized for the camp: transportation, food, programming, recreational activities and registration.

  I approached him. “I’d like to volunteer for the programming and recreational activities.”

  “That’s a lot to organize,” said Abdullah. “Aren’t you a university student?”

  “I feel that’s what God wants me to do,” I replied.

  “You’re not hearing voices, are you?” asked Abdullah, worried.

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  “It’s just that young people your age tend to get overenthusiastic about religion.”

  “I’m not a zealot,” I replied. Organizing Muslim summer camp shouldn’t be this hard, I thought. “I’m just doing my Islamic duty.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Science,” I replied. “I’m trying to get into medical school.”

  “Ah,” said Abdullah. “Now it makes sense. You’re having trouble with physics, aren’t you? The creatively unfulfilled types always wind up on the programming committee.”

  “Physics is very creative,” I managed. “All those equations about giant balls that float.”

  “You mean planets?” he said.

  I changed the subject back to the camp. “So you’re the advisor for the camp committee?”

  “Yes, I’m volunteering to oversee it this year.”

  “I’ve got really great ideas for the program.”

  Abdullah scratched his beard. “Let’s hear them.”

  This was unexpected.

  I racked my brain for all the Islamic lessons I had listened to while sitting at my metal desk as a child. Mostly they were about how to avoid hellfire and brimstone. Don’t backbite, be good to your mother, give money to poor people, don’t lie, especially to your mother. (These all made me instantly guilty as a six-year-old.) And no premarital relations until after you’re married. (We would always nod sagely, with no idea what a premarital relation was—a third cousin?) This material was standard stuff in weekend mosque classes. Parents loved it. Why rock the boat?

  “We could talk to the kids about how to become better Muslims,” I said. “No backbiting, no lying—”

  “Or we could put up wallpaper with scenes of the wilderness down here and save ourselves the trip,” said Abdullah. “I want you to think outside the box.”

  I liked my Muslim box with its fire and brimstone fixation.

  “Well, my brother runs the Red Cross leadership camps,” I said. “I could ask him for ideas.”

  “Do that,” said Abdullah, “and come back next week with real ideas.”

  Muzammal had been running the Red Cross international development education conferences for several years. He gave me a copy of the program. They had simulation exercises: people pretending to be other people, debates about controversial subjects. It was pretty exciting stuff. Maybe too exciting for Muslims. I wrote out my ideas and took them to the mosque the next weekend.

  “Now this is thinking outside the box,” said Abdullah.

  I was relieved. I worked on my program for the next few weeks while studying took a back seat. My mother watched me anxiously.

  “I’m going on a trip to Pakistan in July,” she said. “Would you like to come?”

  “It’s the same time as Muslim camp,” I said. “You know I can’t make it. My responsibilities are too great.”

  “It’s just camp,” said my mother. “You can leave if you want to.”

  “My role is crucial,” I lied, knowing that Abdullah was really in charge. But for the first time since high school I was enjoying myself. It fed a part of my self-confidence that had been eroded by university. I was finally good at something again.

  The night before camp was to start, I got an emergency call from Abdullah.

  “Zarqa, I’ve broken my foot,” he said.

  “What do you mean you’ve broken your foot?”

  “What I mean is that you’re in charge of Muslim camp.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “You were supposed to supervise me.”

  “You’ll have to do it,” he said. “We have thirty campers registered. The counsellors will look after the kids. You just have to run the program.”

  I wondered if this was my punishment from God. Islamic weekend school was right: Don’t lie to your mother.

  I slept fitfully that night and woke exhausted. Abdullah wasn’t coming. I was in charge. This was worse than physics. In the morning, I went to the mosque and boarded the bus with thirty kids under the age of fifteen.

  “Where’s Brother Abdullah?” asked Ibrahim, the head male counsellor.

  “He’s not coming,” I said, noting the look of panic in his eyes.

  “But who’s going to be in charge?” asked Lumya, the head female counsellor.

  “Me,” I said, with as much authority as I could muster.

  Lumya and Ibrahim looked at each other. I could read their minds: How could God do this to them? Welcome to the club, I thought.

  “Well, it’s a seven-hour bus ride to the camp grounds. We’ll just sing songs until we get there,” I said.

  “Let’s pray to God for protection instead,” said Ibrahim solemnly.

  “Suit yourselves,” I replied.

  Once we got to the site, everyone unpacked and chose cabins. As we ate dinner, I planned the next morning’s events. I went to find Dwayne, the camp cook, to ask if he had any cardboard boxes. Dwayne was in his early thirties and had clearly never met any Muslims before. We were like a group of Martians who had just landed on his planet, and he was very excited.

  “Why do you need boxes?” asked Dwayne. “Is it a Muslim thing? Do you use them in your worship rituals?”

  “No, I need them for a camping exercise tomorrow,” I said. Dwayne looked disappointed but found me a pile of cardboard boxes.

  After breakfast the next morning, Ibrahim and Lumya came to find me.

  “So what’s happening?” asked Ibrahim nervously. “Are we going to have Islamic lectures like the last camp I went to?”

  “You heard Brother Abdullah,” I said. “He didn’t want a regular Muslim camp, he wanted an exciting one.”

  “Muslims don’t do excitement,” said Ibrahim.

  “Muslims do
lectures about how to be better Muslims,” said Lumya, nodding knowingly.

  “Yeah, well, this camp is different,” I said, wondering why it had to be. I gathered the campers outside and mixed up the groups so each contained girls and boys.

  “Why are you doing that?” asked Ibrahim nervously.

  “They’re supposed to be a family,” I said. “Families have both genders.”

  “But intermingling between the sexes could be dangerous,” said Ibrahim. “Something inappropriate could happen.”

  “Like sex,” I said, irritated. “Trust me, it’s not that easy.” It had taken a while, but I had eventually figured out what premarital relations were. No one was going to make it to first base in a cardboard box under my watch.

  I gave each group a pile of cardboard boxes and started to explain the game. “In many developing countries, people have very little to build their houses with,” I said confidently, as if I knew what I was talking about. I myself had grown up in the suburbs of Brampton, Ontario, and only knew about aluminum siding.

  “So your task today is to build your family a home using only the materials you have in front of you.”

  The kids were excited. After about twenty minutes I was gazing at six makeshift homes.

  “Now what?” said Ibrahim, unimpressed. “The kids have learnt they can make boxes out of cardboard boxes.” Ibrahim was starting to irritate me.

  “Okay kids, now I want every group to sit inside their houses,” I said. “When the weather gets rough, we have our houses to protect us. Let’s find out if your house can withstand a rainstorm.”

  “How are you going to do that?” asked Lumya.

  “I’m going to throw a bucket of water on each house,” I replied.

  “Can I throw the water on the houses?” asked Ibrahim, thawing a little.

  “Knock yourself out,” I said.

  Ibrahim took a bucket and doused each house in turn. Only one of the six houses didn’t collapse.

  “This was almost fun,” said Ibrahim. A twelve-year-old girl named Maria came up to us. She was crying.

  “My grandmother lives in Pakistan,” she said. “Is it a developing country?”