Courage to Say No

by Raana Mahmood

  I told Father that I wanted to become a lawyer like him. He said that to practice the law, I would have to deal with cruel and criminal people, many who are not reputable. I should not have to do that my entire life. Instead, he encouraged me to study hard. My uncles, who often visited our home, told me I was smart enough to practice medicine if that was what I chose. To treat the needy is also a noble cause.

  I decided that I wanted to help people get well and live long, prosperous lives, so I chose to study medicine. That meant I had to be top in my class, and make the best marks to be accepted into medical college. I applied myself with extreme determination, in the same way that the boys fought and competed on the pitch. Schoolwork came easily to me. I wanted to understand the world around me. So I read everything I could find. If I could absorb the world through the written page, I would have as a child.

  My father kept a salwar kameez in his office so he could go directly to Friday prayers at the mosque every week. Since girls did not attend the mosque to pray and learn the Quran, we were sent to a Maulvi’s (imam’s) house to learn our religion. We were taught to recite the Quran in Arabic, which none of us understood. Our native language was Urdu. But still, we memorized and recited, especially during Ramadan, when I, like every Muslim, tried to pray namaz five times a day, and I recited the whole Quran seven times in one month during my childhood. After so many recitations, my natural curiosity took over. What were these words we recited? What did they mean? What was written in the Quran? Why could not we read them in our native language?

  After years of rote repetition, I became unsatisfied. So I saved my pocket money and on my own purchased a copy of the Quran in Urdu, along with the six-volume set of tafseers (interpretations) by Maulana Syed Abul A’la Maududi, the great expositor of the Quran. He was one of the notable men in Pakistan who supported creating the Islamic Republic of Pakistan during Zia-ul-Haq’s presidency.

  I wasn’t more than eleven years old when I began reading the tafseers and the Quran in my own language. It took me many months to get through his translation of the Quran and to read all Maududi’s tafseers.

  Over those months, I learned that the Quran granted many rights equally to both men and women. Along with those rights, it required many duties.

  Our responsibilities toward God are called Haqooq Allah. They are to believe in one God, pray five times a day, to fast during the month of Ramadan, and to perform Hajj in Mecca.

  And likewise, we have as many responsibilities toward others, called Haqooq ul Ibad. As Muslims, we were to care for one’s family, our neighbors, and those in our community—no one was to go hungry if we could help them. In all our dealings with others—our relationships, our business, our marriage, and at the time of a divorce—we are to always practice respect and honesty and seek guidance from the Quran.

  When I read this, it impressed me that religion was not about the words we speak, but the duties we kept, and it had a solution to every problem if we had a strong faith in God. The tafseers opened the doors to a whole new world to my young mind. I stood in awe of our simple and beautiful religion. Most of the time religious personalities presented Islam as so difficult to learn and practice that it produced fear in people. But after reading the tafseers, I did not fear Islam. I loved it.

  Education for both girls and boys is the first rule of Islam. The first message from God to Prophet Mohammad by Gabriel was “Read.” This has been interpreted to demonstrate how essential education is, and so children were to be educated equally.

  Additionally, as stated in the Quran killing is haram—forbidden. Killing even one innocent person means killing all humanity. Rape and extramarital relations are also haram according to our religion. So I was surprised to learn as an adolescent that infidelity and rape were common occurrences. I read about them in the newspaper and media reports. It seemed to my child’s mind that these crimes were continually increasing.

  The Quran also taught something important about forgiveness: it is required to ask forgiveness. Before one’s death, to be accepted into heaven, a person has to ask forgiveness from the people they had harmed. If someone dies without asking for forgiveness, Allah will not forgive them after death. This made me think of all the killing that went on in the name of God, both in my own country and abroad.

  After my study of the Quran, I became convinced, even at my young age, that most Muslims only knew about their duties toward God and did not practice their responsibilities toward others. All the killing and hurting people in the name of Allah is not from the Quran.

  I was always surprised to see those who were considered good Muslims because they kept a beard and attended the mosque in their shalwar kameez to show off their devotion to prayer in the Masjids (mosques). Their thoughts, tongue, mind, eyes, and everything else were corrupt. They were dishonest, unkind to orphans, cruel to their wives and children, greedy for materialistic things, and power hungry. What kind of Muslims were they?

  I often spoke to Father about what I learned. He was impressed with my knowledge of the Quran, and he frequently asked me questions about Islam and the meaning of the Quran. I was always glad to “teach” him, but I felt he knew it already.

  One day, I was sitting on the stairs outside of the main gate of our house with my little sister. I must have been about nine, and my sister four. A businessman who owned a printing shop across the street from our house, stopped to speak to me. I recognized him immediately as the owner of the shop, who came to our neighborhood occasionally in his big expensive car to manage his printing press. He was much older than my father, fat and ugly, but well dressed.

  He stopped his big shiny car at the corner of the street. After he finished his business in his shop, he approached me.

  “I would like to take you for a ride.” He flashed his expensive watch full of diamonds as if he could entice me to ride with him because of his fancy jewelry. What a show-off, I remember thinking.

  “Come here; I want to give you this Rolex watch with diamonds if you go with me for a ride.”

  I stayed seated on the steps with my sister. “Uncle, I don’t like watches. My father always takes me in his car to see movies at the Capri Cinema and to the Perl Continental Hotel for brunch. I don’t need to go anywhere with you.”

  He kept insisting, so I stood to go inside. “Let me ask my father.”

  He suddenly had a confused look on his face, and quickly rushed toward his car. Inside the house, I told my father what the man had said to me. Father strode outside a stormy look in his eyes. The man had already started his car. Before he could pull away, Father stuck his hand in the car window and held the steering wheel to stop him from leaving.

  “What are you saying to my daughter?”

  “I just wanted to take her—”

  Father cut him off. Speaking firmly but calmly, he said. “I don’t want to see you again in this neighborhood—ever.”

  The next day that man moved his printing press out of our neighborhood, and we never saw him again.

  CHAPTER 2

  Magic Spells

  MOTHER’S ADMONITIONS WERE CONSTANT. SHE wanted me to stay to myself, never to allow myself to become too close to any friend, except for my siblings. Left to myself much of the time, I dwelled in a world of imagination from detective stories, historical novels, Reader’s Digest, the Quran, and just about any other book I could get my hands on, even if I did not understand its content. All of these ideas and characters and stories ran through my thoughts, giving me a strong sense, if an utterly romantic one, of how my world should operate. All this reading and intellectual discovery imbued me with the courage think on my own, to speak on my own, and to be my own person.

  I dressed like my own person, too. Mother always stitched beautiful frocks for me. I did not like the standard prints because they were too familiar. I enjoyed different patterns, rather than the typical ones worn by most girls. I preferred geometrical prints, stripes, and checks in vibrant, but not outlandish, shades. Mother peruse
d the foreign fashion magazines and sewed frocks that were trendy in the West. I kept my hair short with bangs that covered my forehead. In general, I enjoyed standing out and being different by wearing modern clothes.

  I remember one day, I was eight years old, when an elderly man, whom we called Mama (mother’s brother), who usually walked my siblings and me to school, was too sick to help us. He had lost both hands during the fighting when Pakistan was partitioned from India, and so his primary job each day was to escort the neighborhood children to school. Because he could not walk us to school that day, I set off on my own. I passed Sind Muslim Law College, where father had studied law, when a car slowed down beside me as I walked. Several of my friends were in the car, and one of the girl’s fathers drove. He asked me to get in, and said he would drive me to school.

  I knew all the girls in the car, but still, I did not want to join them. I could make my own way to school. I did not need a ride. I thanked the man and told him I would rather walk.

  “Thank you, Uncle, but this is the way I walk to school every day.”

  He continued to drive very slowly beside me on the road. Again, he asked me to get into the car. I thanked him and kept walking. The girls leered at me, smug looks on their faces, but I refused to be part of their drama. He followed along for another few blocks and then sped on his way.

  A few evenings later, I overheard Father telling Mother how a father of one of my school friends had approached him at the mosque. He had related the incident on the way to school to Father and said. “Ch. Sahib, your daughter has a strong ego. She would not get in the car.”

  Father responded, “No. It is self-respect.”

  Father’s voice was filled with pride as he related the story to Mother. “She is like me,” Father said in front of me. “Yes, and like me,” Mother added and hugged me.

  When I was twelve, Sharif, my father’s cousin, visited us from my father’s village. He was roughly dressed, ordinary-looking, and almost eighteen years older than me. Because of my parents’ reputation for hospitality, we often entertained relatives from Punjab. Sharif visited us regularly during that year, and paid particular attention to me. One day my mother told me that Sharif had asked my parents to marry me. From my expression, she knew I did not like his proposal. She told me not to worry. Father already turned him down. My father had told him that I planned to become a doctor and would not marry for many years. Besides, he was not a compatible match for me in any aspect.

  Sharif was furious, my Mother told me. He was very upset when Father told him to leave.

  Days later, I learned from Father that Sharif had stormed over to my Uncle Hamid’s house, and begged him to convince Father. Uncle told him again about my desire to become a doctor. Sharif would not stop his arguing, so Uncle removed his shoe and began beating Sharif over the back and head.

  Uncle told Sharif, “If Brother Mahmood has refused you, how dare you come to me?” It is a great insult to be slapped with another man’s shoe.

  I did not think much of Sharif after that, since I was secure in Father’s protection. Only later did I learn that sometimes women are forced to marry, even if they don’t want to. Father would never allow that of me. But some men, if they do not get their way, will lash out in anger to obtain by force, by conspiracy, or by magic, what they cannot attain by asking. It is regrettable that many women’s lives are ruined this way.

  Later, Sharif sent me a message through relatives that he would make great effort to force me to live alone. Since his proposal had been rejected, no one would be allowed to marry me—ever. As shocking as this attitude was to bear, I realized much later that it is very hard on some men’s egos to experience rejection, so they must find a way to strike back.

  I thought nothing of his threats. In those days, I had so much to look forward to, and marrying an unsuitable man was something Father would never allow. Above all, I wanted a marriage like Mother and Father had, one arranged, but not forced; one bound together in love, where two walk side by side, supporting each other’s strengths and passions. That, I thought as a child, would be the greatest happiness.

  As much as I loved reading, I also had a passion for drawing and painting. I constantly drew sketches of anyone who happened to be in sight. I saw myself as an artist. Father did not encourage that ambition; he never allowed me to study painting or to take up any other hobby that took away from my schoolwork. He wanted me to focus on my grades so I could get into medical school. But that never diminished my desire to paint, and when I reached high school, I talked Mother into interceding for me. After many requests, Father finally allowed me to join the Arts Council, a local college that offered a variety of art classes. But I could only attend after I had completed my intermediate college examinations.

  The Arts Council was only a fifteen-minute walk from our house. I did not enroll as a full-time student, but just took casual evening classes. I was very excited sitting in my first class, waiting for the teacher, Miss Zonera, to arrive, when a good-looking young man about my age came to me and introduced himself.

  His name was Furqan. As he talked, it became apparent to me that he was a man of little ambition. His late father had been wealthy, and with that cushion, he did not seem to take anything seriously, even these art classes. He attended them to pass the time, and because he believed he would find a girlfriend. I tried to be pleasant with him, but I made it clear I had no interest in him.

  I attended classes for two months, and he continuously tried to get my attention. One time he said he was only trying to protect me from other students. I told him to stop wasting his time; the other students were all very decent.

  After a while, he got the message and left me alone—at least in person. He began sending Tavezes to me at home by post. These are magic spells written out on square pieces of paper. Superstitious people in Pakistan use them because they believe magic will get them what they could not otherwise obtain. Mainly they are used as love potions. The sayings written on the cards are supposed to make a person love. To me, using Tavez was a distinct act of desperation on Furqan’s part. What he could not purchase with his father’s money and what he lacked in personality and character, he thought he could make up for through using magic. He honestly thought paying someone to perform these magic spells would make me love him. I could not imagine a person wasting their time on such nonsense. Not all the magic in the world would ever convince me to like him, much less love him.

  I thought this was the most stupid behavior imaginable.

  Before the end of our classes, he asked me again if my feelings toward him had changed after receiving his letters. I felt sad for him. I told him, “Look, God does not want us to use magic. It is forbidden in Islam; you know that. You can never force someone to love you. I don’t love you, and I will never love you, even if you were born seven times.” I encouraged him to use his time and energy to do something useful, to get an education, and to try to help people.

  I didn’t see him again for a long time, and I learned that he had applied and was admitted to a Homeopathic College, and started calling himself Dr. Furqan.

  The next month, the results of my Higher Secondary School exams were out, and I learned that I was admitted to the Sindh Medical College in Karachi. A few years before I was accepted in Karachi, a new all-girls medical college had been opened in Nawab Shah. It was founded by Mr. G. Mustafa Jatoi, who was an influential and popular leader of Pakistan People’s Party. Therefore, it was an important school. I was one of the twenty-one students who were transferred from Karachi to Nawab Shah Medical College, and twenty-one Sindhi students were transferred from Nawab Shah to Karachi.

  Nawab Shah lay in the heart of Sindh province’s agricultural districts and was an eight-hour train ride from cosmopolitan Karachi. My parents were hesitant to send me that far away on my own. I knew Mother feared something tragic would happen to me, and Father possibly thought I was too innocent to live independently. But I was determined to live with other girls my ow
n age, who were focused on the same goal. So, when my parents told me they didn’t want me to travel so far away from home, I began crying that they had to let me study and live in Nawab Shah. I had to convince them this would be good for me, so I told them if I had to stay in Karachi, I would also attend regular classes at the Arts Council. I did not see this as a threat or manipulating them. My artistic talents were beginning to blossom, and I was thinking about developing them to a professional level.

  I told Father that the Principal of the Arts Council, Mr. Masood, had said that I should not go to medical college; instead, I should become a full-time student at the Arts Council. “There is an artist inside you,” he said. “You were born an artist. You need some guidance and training.”

  This recognition delighted me. I was beginning to gain some mastery and enjoying it. With Mr. Masood’s encouragement, I started thinking of myself as an artist.

  I also told my parents for the first time about the journalist from Mirror magazine who wanted to publish my interview and photos of my paintings to encourage me as an emerging artist. They were astonished to hear that.

  Father especially did not like this. Yet he of all of the people in my life understood my determination to reach a goal once I set my mind to something. I believed I could have become an accomplished artist if I applied myself. In the back of my mind, I knew that I could do both—medicine and art.

  After discussions with Mother, Father permitted me to move to Nawab Shah. But he had one condition—I could not return home to visit for six months. He did not want me traveling back and forth because I was homesick. If I went out on my own, I had to stick it out for the duration. In a way his condition was a vote of confidence—not only could I leave, but I would be all right without them. I would figure out my life as I went along, and in time, I could return home to the people I loved.