Laughing All the Way to the Mosque

by Zarqa Nawaz

  “Okay, I have a confession to make,” I said.

  “Go on,” said Charlie.

  “My sister-in-law was moving to Boston and she had a white packing cube in the driveway and someone thought it was suspicious and called the RCMP to investigate my father-in-law. That phone call really bugs me. But you know what I find most upsetting?”

  “That you can’t sleep in?”

  “Yes, I mean no, I mean that my father-in-law has lived in this neighbourhood for forty years and in one instant somebody erased that entire history.”

  Ruth came over to me and held my hand. “It wasn’t you who flew those planes into the towers,” she said. “You’ve got to learn to forgive yourself for something you haven’t even done.”

  “But other people don’t forgive,” I said, sulking.

  “You can’t live your life worrying about other people,” said Ruth. “Just worry about yourself and raising those little ones. And maybe get a job—something to keep you busy, you know?”

  Charlie came up to me.

  “I like your religion,” he said. “It’s a little wacky with the headless chickens but it could grow on me. I’d like to convert. Try it out.”

  “Charlie, I don’t know. We have enough nuts in our community. Do you really want to be a part of that?”

  “Ah, people are pretty nuts in these parts too. Plus I always wanted to travel to Mecca. See some Arabs, ride me a camel. What do I have to do? Rub chicken blood on me during a full moon?”

  “No, you just go to the mosque and recite the declaration of faith: ‘There is only God and Muhammad is his messenger.’”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, we’re kind of minimalist that way,” I said.

  That night after we got everyone off to bed, Sami and I cuddled on the couch.

  “You did an okay job with the speech,” said Sami.

  “You think so?”

  “Not really, but my hope is you’ll get better with practice. I gave a bunch of people our contact information.”

  “Why would you do that? I hate public speaking.”

  “Because it’s the only way you’ll get over your hysteria, and people need to see Muslims speaking, especially women.”

  “I hate those hijackers,” I said. “They ruined our lives.”

  “They ruined a lot of people’s lives, but not ours,” said Sami.

  “We’ll never find the neighbour who called the RCMP on us, will we?” I asked Sami. “I really wanted them to know how wrong they were.”

  “I think they already know that and probably feel stupid for ever having called the RCMP.”

  “Do you think the kids will be okay?” I worried about them the most. Their lives would carry the burden of what had happened on September 11. Their faith would be associated with terror instead of peace. I didn’t know how to explain it to them. They were so young.

  “Right now their lives revolve around what time recess is,” said Sami.

  He was right. The only way they’d been affected by the attacks was through my panic. I felt guilty and wanted to make it up to them. I saw their brown paper lunch bags on the kitchen counter and got up off the couch.

  “What are you doing?” asked Sami.

  “I need to make something.” I rooted around the pantry cupboard finding my ingredients.

  “Now? It’s almost eleven.”

  “It won’t take long,” I said. For children, it was the small things that changed their world for the better. And I could do one small thing tonight.

  “What are you making?”

  “Rice Krispies squares,” I said.

  Behind the Shower Curtain

  A giant shower curtain was strung up in the middle of our mosque prayer hall. Muslims have a mania for cleanliness, but this was nuts.

  “What would freak out the men more, the water damage,” I said jokingly to Sami, “or naked women in the mosque?”

  The cause of the shower curtain revealed itself as a visiting imam from Saudi Arabia, the land of strangeness. Turns out that the visiting imam felt that the men and women should have a physical barrier between them while they prayed. The position of men and women in mosques is a contentious issue. Each mosque differs in its approach to separation, depending on the makeup of the congregation and the architecture of the room. Some spaces of worship mix the two genders in the prayer lines, but those spaces are in the minority. The majority of mosques separate the genders either with a physical barrier or by having the women pray in a separate section or behind the men.

  In our mosque in Regina, the men prayed in front with the women behind them. There was no physical barrier between the two groups. Given all the bowing and prostration that goes on in Muslim prayer, the women in our mosque preferred to be the ones in back, observing the bent-over men. As a female friend said to me once during prayers, “It’s quite a view.”

  “In Saudi Arabia, they don’t even let women drive,” I said to Sami. “So why does this man get to influence our congregation?”

  Saudi Arabia follows a literalist interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, which I take issue with because their austere rules didn’t even exist in literature. Descriptions of women riding camels and participating in public life exist in our history of the early Muslim community, and yet Wahhabism outlawed women driving and leaving the house unescorted. The Saudis try to mould Islam around their restrictive culture to justify their sexist behaviour. To me, if you’re going to be a literalist, then the hadith are clear: Women shouldn’t be physically restricted in galleries or behind curtains as we are today. We should have the same access to the prayer hall as men.

  But the Saudi imam felt differently. The women could be seen too easily by the men during the prayer. What made me crazy was that the men in our mosque didn’t dismiss him. Instead, they strung up a shower curtain. I couldn’t stomach it. I decided to see if I could convince the imam that he was wrong. I introduced myself, then started with small talk.

  “So, how’s the price of oil these days?” I didn’t know any Saudi sports teams, and asking how the beheadings were going seemed a little gruesome.

  The imam was shocked that I had approached him. He tried to put some distance between us, but I kept following him. Time to cut to the chase.

  “Why are you making us pray behind that thing?” I asked him. “Isn’t it enough that we are behind you guys?”

  “It’s better for men’s concentration if they don’t see women.”

  “But men don’t have eyes in the backs of their heads,” I countered.

  “Free mixing of men and women will lead to adultery and fornication and the end of traditional marriage,” he intoned.

  “We’re already separated and praying in a dignified manner. Don’t you think you might be overreacting?”

  “Where is your husband?” he asked, desperately looking around.

  “What about seeing women in their daily lives?” I asked. “If men can’t concentrate in the mosque, presumably they can’t concentrate when they leave their homes. So do they stop functioning in the real world? It’s not saying much about men, is it?”

  “You have insulted me, and I will no longer speak to you. This is what happens when women speak and walk about freely,” he said to a passing man. “They get ideas.” Maybe I should have led with the beheadings after all.

  “I’m not praying behind that thing,” I told Sami.

  “So don’t,” he said.

  A few women got together and decided to pray in front of the curtain. Now we were closer than ever to the men.

  “This is strangely calm,” I said to Aunty Lubna. The women tended to talk and have children with them. Praying right next to the men was like praying beside a well-disciplined army. They were quiet and didn’t trade recipes, such as ketchup mixed with mango chutney makes a great samosa dip.

  “It is peaceful,” said Aunty Lubna. “I could get used to this.” But there was a tension in the air. As men entered the prayer hall, they’d see us
sitting in front of the curtain, gape and then keep walking with their heads down.

  A few days later, a petition was circulated and the majority of women in the congregation signed it. They wanted the curtain. In the period I now mentally labelled “Before the Curtain,” hardly any women came to the mosque for Friday prayers, but now that everyone wanted to make a point—we love the curtain, we hate the curtain—the place was packed. Our little band continued to pray in front while the majority of women prayed behind and the Saudi imam fumed because he had inadvertently caused an increase in the visibility of women in the mosque.

  I went to the mosque one Wednesday for Maghrib, the sunset prayer. Like Christians who flock to church on Sundays, Muslims flock to the mosque on Fridays. But fewer people come for the prayers during the week, and I wanted to pray in a non-combative environment where it was just about prayer and peace—something that had gone out the window with the Battle of the Shower Curtain.

  As I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that the shower curtain was gone. I was elated. The Saudi imam must have backed down. Just then a man with a red-hued beard walked towards me.

  “Excuse me, sister, but this is the men’s prayer room,” said Red Beard. “Only men are allowed to pray in here.” He pointed to an elaborate and large sign: MEN’S PRAYER ROOM. It might as well have said NO GIRLS ALLOWED.

  “But this mosque is for women too,” I replied, frustrated.

  “Of course it is, and now you have your own special room.” Red Beard directed me to the office behind the main prayer hall. The door now read WOMEN’S PRAYER ROOM, and the space had been renovated so that there was a two-way mirror, the kind used in police interrogations, in place of the previous built-in bookshelves.

  “Look,” said Red Beard. “You can look out at the men but they can’t see you.”

  We both stood in the women’s room looking out through the mirror at the men praying on the other side. The curtain had been bad, but at least we were in the same room. This interrogation-style mirror made me feel like I was being buried somewhere deep inside the mosque so my presence could be erased. I couldn’t do it.

  “I don’t really care if the men can see me,” I said. “I’m just here to pray.”

  A man with a long black beard came up on the other side of the window and looked at me.

  “I think he sees me,” I told Red Beard.

  “No, that’s not possible,” he said. Black Beard pulled out a comb and starting to fix the part in his hair.

  “Why’s he combing his hair?” I asked.

  Red Beard was very happy. “See, he doesn’t see you at all—he sees himself in a mirror. It works perfectly. Now you have your own separate but equal space.”

  “Separate but unequal space,” I corrected.

  Black Beard pulled out a nail clipper and started trimming his nose hairs. Apparently, this was too much for Red Beard. I followed him out of the women’s room back into the main prayer hall. Red Beard told Black Beard that women could see him.

  “I used to use the bathroom in that office to take care of my grooming needs,” Black Beard complained.

  “There’s another washroom in the basement,” Red Beard told him. “Use that one.”

  “The basement is far away and a little scary. Besides, there aren’t any women praying in that room. Can’t I use it?”

  “Sure, knock yourself out,” I said. “I’m not praying in there.”

  “But dear sister, we’ve given you your very own room,” said Red Beard. “Why don’t you want to use it?”

  “During the time of the Prophet, if a woman felt that someone was impinging on her rights, she would speak up and complain because she was in the same room with no barrier in front of her,” I said. “How are we going to do that now?”

  “Just send a note,” said Red Beard.

  I arched an eyebrow at him. There was no way I was buying what he was selling. Women were being treated like truant children, being punished for being born female. But he didn’t give up.

  “We made it nice for you. We even put in a new carpet, look.” He beckoned me back into the room. Black Beard followed us and made a beeline to the washroom.

  “It is pretty,” I said, flicking on the lights to stare at the pink shag. But Red Beard looked upset. I thought it was the sound of Black Beard gargling, but Red Beard was staring at the mirror.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is it the wrong shade of pink?”

  “I can’t see through the glass,” said Red Beard, perplexed, as the view of the main prayer hall was gradually replaced by a reflection of the room we were in. With the lights on inside, the women’s room was brighter than the men’s room during sunset, which resulted in the two-way mirror reversing direction.

  “I have spinach in my teeth,” I said, examining my face.

  “This is not going to work,” said Red Beard. “The men can see in.”

  “I know, right,” I said, happy that he was coming to his senses.

  “Let’s turn out the lights.” He flipped the switch and the room became pitch-black. “We’ll add a curtain to the window, so at night you can leave the lights on.”

  “But then we can’t see the prayer leader,” I complained.

  “But you can hear the prayer leader. The speakers in here are excellent.”

  Black Beard came out of the washroom, tripped on the carpet and fell at our feet.

  “Why are the lights out?” he exclaimed.

  “Why are you in the women’s prayer room?” said Red Beard.

  “Because I had to use the washroom,” said Black Beard.

  The three of us stood there in the dark.

  “Well, this is awkward,” said Red Beard.

  “And it’s very dark,” said Black Beard. The call to prayer started and the three of us trooped out and prayed in the main/men’s/disputed prayer hall. I went home.

  “How was the mosque?” asked Sami as he unloaded the dishwasher.

  “It gets weirder every time I go,” I replied. The problem as I saw it was that Muslims themselves saw barriers in front of women as something mandated by religion. They needed to be educated about their own faith.

  “Is this Zarqa Nawaz?” asked Joe McDonald, a producer for the National Film Board. He wanted to know if I’d like to submit a proposal for a documentary. “Is there a topic you’re passionate about?” he asked.

  Why yes, there is.

  I had left my journalism roots behind, but there was no time like the present to resurrect them for a good cause.

  I threw myself into the research. I wanted to figure out how tradition had become mistaken for theology. My initial proposal was seething, but somehow the NFB accepted it—with the caveat that I not be quite so hard on my community.

  “Just remember that there are women who prefer the privacy of a separate area,” Sami cautioned me. “You can’t discount their feelings.” His sensibleness was getting annoying, but he was right. I did want to be fair to women who were in favour of a segregated space. So I decided to interview my mother, who represented more conservative Muslim views. I called her.

  “Yes, I’m coming to Toronto for work again.”

  “Are you bringing the children?” she asked.

  “No, they’re all in school,” I said, thinking she’d be relieved. “I want to interview you for a documentary I’m making about barriers in mosques.”

  “But the children need their mother at home,” said my mother.

  “In our home, they probably need their father more.”

  I took my mother and the camera crew to her favourite mosque in Mississauga. The women prayed behind the men, with only a knee-high Plexiglas barrier between them. Men and women could easily see each other as they milled about in the cavernous prayer hall. There was a crying room at one end for women with babies.

  “I pray here five times a day,” said my mother. “I enjoy coming here.”

  “Was there a barrier in your mosque in Pakistan?”

  “
We never went to the mosque,” she said. “It was for men only. I only started going to the mosque when I came to Canada.”

  Mosques in some Muslim countries are like pit stops for men who need to do their daily prayers while on the run. Mosques in North America are like Muslim community centres, where there is accommodation for everyone.

  “Do you feel a little odd coming to a mosque without a physical barrier between the men and women?”

  “I heard a male scholar say that there were no barriers during the time of the Prophet. So praying like this is allowed,” said my mother.

  “So if scholars tell you it’s okay, then you’re fine with it?” I asked.

  “Real scholars, not people like you with your modern ideas.”

  Clearly I needed to bring in some heavy hitters. I called my contact at the NFB, but there just wasn’t the budget to fly a camera crew and me to the Middle East. I was adding up my air miles when my mother suggested that we attend a new Islamic conference in Toronto called “Reviving the Islamic Spirit.” I checked the speakers—it was the perfect list of scholars and they all looked the part. There would be enough beards and robes at this conference for a casting call for The Ten Commandments. It was a sign from God.

  “Don’t drag God into this,” my mother said.

  While my mother sat in the lecture hall, I managed to convince one of the harried organizers to give me a room in the conference centre, where I set up my camera crew. As each speaker left the main hall, I pounced.

  “Excuse me, I’m making a documentary about female segregation in the mosque, and I wondered if you would be willing to comment on camera?” I asked one serious-looking scholar.

  “This problem again,” he said, a little annoyed. This surprised me.

  “You’re familiar with it?” I asked.

  “Too much,” he said wearily. “Where are the cameras?”

  To my wonderment, the scholars were more than willing to speak to me.

  “It’s a cultural problem,” said one. “Not a religious one. There’s no religious requirement for barriers. It came about when Islam spread and started incorporating the traditions of cultures where segregation was the norm. Both women and men have to grow used to the idea of worshipping without barriers in the same space. But until then, mosques with either strong leadership or a congregation that is forceful about equality will be the ones without barriers.”