Love, InshAllah

by Nura Maznavi

  Given my estrangement from my family, my divorce was a major spiritual and emotional crisis. There were few Muslims in the small Northeastern town we lived in. My husband was the only Muslim I knew well, and he was my entire support system.

  Habeeb had threatened to divorce me once a few months before, but had changed his mind and taken me back before the three-month iddat period (after which the divorce would be final) was complete. He’d said it out of frustration and anger. But this time, it was I who was frustrated and angry, and made insecure by his threats to divorce me. I decided to move out of the home we shared and into my own apartment to wait out the iddat period. I knew I wasn’t supposed to leave our home. According to the religion of Islam, spouses are supposed to live together during the iddat period in case there is an opportunity for marital reconciliation to occur. But my faith was new, and I felt weak. I was sick of the arguments and Habeeb’s threats of divorce. I couldn’t think straight and felt the need to escape. I left.

  My new apartment was located a few hours from Philadelphia, and the area was home to a large and diverse Muslim community. I met some sisters with whom I grew close. They were from Pakistan, India, Africa, the Middle East, and Malaysia. I also met American-born Muslims: African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic sisters. They gave me the support and encouragement to cope with my imminent divorce and introduced me to the blessing of sisterhood.

  “Don’t become disillusioned and lose your deen,” Sister Myra warned me.

  “Keep yourself right, and don’t come out of your clothes,” Sister Zakiyyah cautioned. Sadly, we all knew convert sisters who had left Islam and taken off their hijabs after divorcing Muslim men.

  My sisters counseled me to turn to Allah with my grief, and reminded me that He doesn’t give us more than we can handle. They assured me of Allah’s promise in the Qur’an that with every hardship is relief.

  Even though I was happy in my new apartment in the city and grateful for my friendships with Muslim women, I missed my Habeeb terribly. We spoke on the phone a few times, and he occasionally came to my apartment to drop off important mail or things I needed that I had left at our home. We tried to talk during those visits, but our relationship was still very strained and we ended up fighting each time. We didn’t see each other at all after that.

  From time to time, I returned to the small town where Habeeb lived to run errands and tie up loose ends. One day, I stopped in at our favorite department store. I tormented myself while there, fearing that I would run into him, imagining at the turn of each aisle that I would see him there with a new wife. I nearly had a panic attack, and vowed never to return.

  “You’re being tested,” Sister Mahra explained when she heard the story. “Although you don’t like it or know the reason behind it now, be patient. Allah knows best.”

  I was brokenhearted. I reflected on the early years of our marriage, when we were still happy. I missed my friend and lover and was amazed that our marriage had come to this. I wanted him back. But, sadly, I realized that it might be impossible to work things out.

  I tried to be patient during my iddat. I prayed for Allah to soften my husband’s heart and bring him back to me. I soaked my prayer rug with tears, awakening at night to supplicate Him. I constantly prayed the istikharah in search of guidance. I had been sure laying down an ultimatum by moving away would bring Habeeb running back to me, but that manipulation failed. The stress nearly led me to a nervous breakdown, and the sisters were extremely worried about me. Though I prayed not to despair, not to give up, solace escaped me, and occasionally I felt suicidal. Had it not been for my fear of Allah and Judgment Day, I would have ended it all, astaghfirullah.

  The holy month of fasting, Ramadan, began, and I endured. Each night I went to the masjid for iftar, the evening meal, and busied myself with serving others and cleaning up afterward. While everyone was happily eating and chatting with friends, I dwelled in the background, picking up dishes and utensils, loading the dishwasher, wiping up, and putting food away.

  From the shadows, I eyed my Muslim sisters with envy. Smiling, beautifully dressed and bejeweled women, they were surrounded by their friends, families, and children, with seemingly not a care in the world. They were secure in their beautiful houses with protective husbands who cared for them in the way that Allah commanded. I had no one. I was alone.

  Stung by my own diseased thoughts, I felt ashamed. I slipped into the musallah and prayed for Allah to remove the bitterness and resentment from my heart. I reminded myself that my situation was a test from Him.

  Ya Allah! So many tests! Alienation from my family, marital problems, moving alone to a new city and a small apartment, working two jobs just to survive, health problems, and, now, the threat of divorce.

  At the end of my iddat, Habeeb didn’t take me back. He moved forward with finalizing the divorce legally, and I found myself unmarried and alone.

  Although I felt it was premature and still loved Habeeb, the sisters said I needed to be married, and set out to find me a new husband.

  “What are you looking for in a husband?” one of them asked.

  “Well, it’s pretty simple,” I responded. “A brother around my age, in his fifties or early sixties at the most. Perhaps a widower. A practicing Sunni Muslim. Since I’m close to retirement, I want to finish out my career.”

  By then, I was working in a state prison as a substance abuse counselor in a specialized treatment program for Spanish-speaking inmates. I enjoyed combining my clinical skills with my ability to speak Spanish, and had only a few years to go before I retired.

  “Anything else?” the sister asked, drawing the pen out of her mouth, poised to write in her notebook again.

  “Well, a brother who values family and a calm Muslim life, someone quiet and dignified, a gentle soul. Race and ethnicity aren’t important.”

  “Someone who wants to sit in an easy chair in front of the fireplace with you?” she laughed.

  “Yes! A brother willing to be my partner, my friend, and a fellow seeker in Islam.”

  “Okay, I think I got it!” she said, with an excited smile.

  My closest Muslim sister introduced me to the first candidate. He was a divorced Palestinian gentleman in his mid-sixties, living with his two adult daughters and their families. It was clear from the start that they were not for me. When I arrived at their home, I noticed Easter decorations in the window and a huge bunny on the porch. Neither of his daughters wore the hijab, and when it came time for the afternoon salat, the gentleman told me that he’d “do it later.”

  At my encouragement, we did pray, but no one else in the family joined us. His grandchildren ran around the room, screaming and laughing the whole time we were praying. The oldest grandson, who was about seven, kept pointing at us and squealing, “Look at their butts!” as we went through the motions of the prayer.

  The second candidate was a married Egyptian man from New York City. He had a wife “back home” and insisted she didn’t want to move to America. He claimed that she understood “his needs” and was amenable to his taking a second wife.

  “When will I be able to speak with your wife, brother?” I inquired when we spoke over the telephone. I was clever enough to know that I would be marrying a family, not just a husband, if I agreed to be a co-wife. It was important to build a relationship with her from the start.

  “Well, uh . . . that will be difficult,” he stammered. “She works most of the time, and it may be hard to coordinate, due to the time difference between Egypt and America.”

  Likewise, it wasn’t convenient for me to move to New York with him after I retired. After all, he had just started a new business and had many expenses. Which came to his next question: Would I be willing to remain in my city and continue working in order to support myself?

  “Just until my business gets off the ground?” he pleaded.

  Now the red flags were waving like crazy. “Would this be an appropriate arrangement for your daughter?” I exclaimed
.

  “No,” he mumbled.

  “Then what makes you think it would be good for me?” I replied. Without giving him an opportunity to respond, I slammed the phone back in its cradle.

  There was another Palestinian gentleman, an extremely wealthy widower with a large family. “Would you be willing to sign a prenuptial agreement?” he wanted to know.

  “Well, yes, if I get a significant dowry up front.” I replied.

  I never heard from him again. He was expecting a free wife who wouldn’t take a piece of his family’s pie.

  Then there was the Yemeni brother who informed me that he would have to divorce me if his wife couldn’t “get used to” having a co-wife. Not that he’d told her he was searching for a second wife, of course.

  And, finally, the Sudanese brother who wanted to know, “What is your bra size, sister?”

  Worst of all were the Muslim women, not in my close circle of friends, who lived in my own community. The young wives of husbands expressing a desire for a second wife thought they could control the situation by searching for her themselves. They were hoping that their husbands would accept an older woman, a mature Muslimah, who they perceived wouldn’t be a sexual threat or compete for their husband’s affection.

  Other Muslim women pushed me toward polygyny, citing my age as a factor. “After all, sister, men want to have a lot of children,” they rationalized, “and it is the Sunna,” they added when I came up with any objections.

  A woman whose family was facing immigration issues after they had overstayed their visitors’ visas also approached me.

  “Would you be willing to marry my husband? Please,” she begged, “just to help us out?”

  I wasn’t brought up in a culture where polygyny was accepted, but I wasn’t necessarily against it. Plural marriage was common in our community. Although having my own husband was my first preference, I was able to see some benefits in plural marriage. I was willing to “share” a husband with another Muslim sister and not have to deal with a full-time husband under my feet. But it had to be the right situation, one that would work both for me and for a potential co-wife. The search for love and security was paramount in my life. I wanted a husband who would love me and treat me as equal to his other wife. I didn’t want to be used, to marry simply for someone else’s convenience, and had a difficult time understanding how some Muslim women could suggest such a thing to me.

  Other sisters—all married—encouraged me not to worry, assuring me that Allah would give me a husband . . . in the Next Life.

  “Why do you want to marry at your age, anyhow?” a sister marveled. “Men are such a bother.”

  My emotional vulnerability and desire for companionship resulted in two brief marriages, in which both men deceived my wali and me. Even though I was a mature Muslimah and didn’t necessarily need a wali to arrange the details of marriage, I wanted one. I wanted someone to look out for me and for my interests, because my trust in men was tenuous. The first brother told my wali and me that he was a businessman. This was true, but he failed to mention not only that his business was not profitable, but also that he was receiving partial government assistance and engaging in dishonest financial practices.

  My second brother told my wali and me that his former wife had left their home and abandoned him with their small children.

  “Sister, that’s not true,” his first wife confided a few months later when I ran into her. “He threw me out of the house in the middle of the night during an argument so he could marry you.”

  She also revealed that she was pregnant. When I confronted him furiously, he admitted it.

  Neither marriage lasted more than six months. My friends lamented that I had been deceived so terribly. But was I really deceived? Or did I agree to these marriages with “eyes wide shut” because I desired companionship and love so desperately? I berated myself for not having checked out these brothers more thoroughly.

  I then decided to select a man and do the proposing myself. Why not? It’s acceptable in Islam. I chose a very pious brother, the butcher at our local halal store. Every time I went to the store, he was reading the Qur’an. He seemed a gentle soul and had a wonderful reputation. I inquired about him and was told he was not married.

  But when I sent someone to him, he said he had two wives and eight children in Niger. He was honest enough to tell me that he didn’t feel he could do justice to both me and his family back home.

  Next, I tried Muslim marriage websites; they were anonymous, so I could screen the candidates without public humiliation. It quickly became clear, however, that my online profile was a magnet for green-card seekers. I was especially amused by the eighteen- and nineteen-year-old boys who were willing to marry an American convert in her fifties. They gave me what I call the “Khadijah line”: “But, sister, the Prophet, peace be upon him, was fifteen years younger than Mother Khadijah when they got married!”

  Had I became desperate to have a husband, afraid as I was of being alone?

  It was so painful. A family member—on my father’s side, Jewish—asked me if I was ready to trade in salaam for shalom. I was almost ready to give up on marriage, but not on Islam. I knew that the religion was not at fault.

  Despairing of a successful marriage, I reflected on my first one. I became painfully aware of my own role in our marital discord. Because I was insecure, I’d been bossy, demanding, and controlling. The more I’d tried to control Habeeb, the more he had moved away from me. He was working a full-time job and studying for a graduate degree at night. Although he loved me, he couldn’t handle the stress. Habeeb wanted a peaceful home and a calm and supportive wife. Had that been too much to ask?

  I remembered something from the book of Proverbs that my Jewish grandmother once told me: “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish one tears it down with her own hands.”

  Oh, Allah! What have I done? How I wished that I had another chance with Habeeb! I loved him so much. I had never stopped loving him.

  Feeling very low and depressed, I was starting to feel as if I should just stop searching for happiness.

  “Why won’t Allah send me a decent husband?” I wailed to my wali, Imam Shaheed.

  With brutal honesty, he replied, “If Allah wants you to have a husband, He’ll send you one!”

  I was frustrated by his answer, but recognized the truth in what he said.

  When you ask, ask of Allah; and when you seek help, seek help of Allah. Know that if people were to gather to benefit you with anything, they would only benefit you with something that Allah had already prescribed for you; and if they were to gather to harm you with anything, they would only harm you with something that Allah had already prescribed for you.

  —Al-Tirmithi

  I made a commitment to have patience with whatever Allah had decreed for me, and I asked Him for forgiveness for not trusting Him.

  I continued to attend Arabic classes and halaqas. I read and learned as much as possible. I worked on my insecurity and self-esteem issues. I got closer to Allah. I knew I had to rely on His power to change people and their destinies at His pleasure.

  I developed an inner peace with the fact that He hears the dua of each and every one of His beloved creations, but answers them in His own time. I accepted and submitted to this truth and His wisdom. I finally realized that I had all I needed within myself, and in the life I’d been given.

  Almost three years after those heartfelt duas—and two failed marriages—I finally found peace and resigned myself to the prospect of being alone. I kept in touch with Habeeb, feeling less hurt as time went by. When I was promoted at work, I emailed Habeeb to tell him. Sometimes he called me, and eventually our conversations grew more frequent.

  One day, Habeeb said that he had been keeping tabs on me and knew I was unmarried. He said that he still loved me and regretted the way things had turned out between us.

  “I’d really like for us to have another chance,” I told him.

  “I’ll
give Imam Shaheed a call for some naseeha, and, of course, we should both pray istikharah,” he replied cautiously.

  After I hung up, I went directly to my prayer rug, made two rakat, and prayed istikharah. Then I called my best sisters, shrieked out the news, and asked them to include Habeeb and me in their duas.

  A few days later, Imam Shaheed telephoned me.

  “Safiyyah! Brother Habeeb called me and said he’s coming to the masjid tonight between Maghrib and Isha to talk with me about remarrying you,” he exclaimed.

  I don’t know who was more excited, Imam Shaheed or me. My imam truly loved my husband like a son, and our divorce had pained him deeply.

  That very day, Habeeb and I talked for hours about our love and our mistakes, and vowed to make it work this time with Allah’s help.

  My prayer had finally been answered, by Allah! My search for true love was finally over.

  You’ve Got Ayat:

  Finding Love Online

  Cyberlove

  Lena Hassan

  My aunt used to say that a woman marries the man of her destiny. She would say it with a sigh, after an hour of trying to talk my sister or me into saying yes to a particular suitor. That we were not from the Damascus of our parents, but American born, did not change the rules. You did not find marriage on some quest for romance, according to my aunt. Rather, marriage found you.

  At the time, I was in the beginning of my junior year at a large West Coast university. My main concern was not men, but the two years it would take me to complete my computer science degree. There were men in my life—my department was four-fifths male—but, as most were non-Muslims, I never considered them an option.

  The prospects were hardly more promising at our mosque, situated only a few blocks from campus. Portable partitions, improvised out of bedsheets stretched over frames of PVC piping, separated the sexes. If I looked through the gap in between them, I could see the men. Arab men, just like my dad, but younger.