Shelina Janmohamed

by Love in a Headscarf

  “Don’t think you are a boy, that you can do whatever you like. You’re a girl and you have to know your place.”

  I was not surprised by this turn in the discussion: it simply evoked a long-standing incredulity about what is and isn’t right for girls and boys to do.

  “Are you sure that it’s okay for boys to climb mountains but that girls should not climb mountains?”

  I raised my eyebrows and smiled cheekily. I was sure that I was very irritating at this moment.

  In my head I wanted to ask her: “You don’t want to phone a friend or ask the audience? Is it your final answer?” Instead, I paused and slowed down my pace, adopting a more serious tone.

  “I love the stories of the Prophet, and I particularly like the story of his wife Khadijah. Don’t you? It must have been very moving for her to be married to a man of such spirituality.” The Auntie listened as I recounted the story every Muslim knows: often the Prophet would go to a special place to “get away from it all” and to meditate. This place, nestled at the top of a small mountain was called the Cave of Hira, and is where Muhammad’s mission as a messenger of God was first openly revealed to him.

  The angel Gabriel descended and revealed to Muhammad the first word of the Qur’an, “Iqra!” meaning “Read!”—the divine prescription toward knowledge being at the heart of the message of the religion that came to be known as Islam.

  Over time, further verses came to Muhammad telling him that “There was no god but God,” and that he, Muhammad, was God’s messenger, like God’s messengers and prophets before him.

  The first person he shared his message with was Khadijah, his wife, and she accepted it. She was one of the solid foundations at the birth of Islam.

  There was irritated coughing. “This is, of course, a lovely story, but this doesn’t change the fact that nice girls don’t climb mountains. You have to take care of your reputation otherwise no one will marry you.”

  “Oh, but this does change everything, Auntie. This story changes absolutely everything if we take it to heart. This Cave of Hira is at the top of a very steep mountain which it is no easy task to climb. Khadijah would climb this mountain every day to visit the Prophet as he sat and meditated. The wife of the Prophet climbed a mountain. And I’m going to do the same.”

  There was only one path I could choose that would let me look back and have no regrets, and that was to choose the rules that I believed were the truth and to live by them. I had made my choice: it was Islam. And then, no matter what people said, there was only one overarching principle: to thine own self be true.

  I stood at the highest point of Kilimanjaro at midday one October morning. The first three days of the journey had been a gradual climb, first through tropical forest, then into watery clouds, and then a rest day to acclimatize to the altitude. The fourth and penultimate day was a long unending trek across an almost lunar landscape to the base of the crater. We camped at the foot of the great peak, agitated by the lack of oxygen at this height, hungry, but not wanting to eat in case we were sick.

  At midnight we began the final ascent up the steep crater wall to reach the rim of the volcano. It was dark and our feet stumbled on the rocks wedged invisibly into the almost sheer mountain face. As dawn was breaking, we arrived exhausted at the rim. There, at the top, I met two English men with a thermos flask. “Tea?” they asked.

  After climbing through the night, and now at 19,000 feet, every step was an unimaginable effort. First my legs refused to participate and I had to focus all my determination on placing one foot in front of the other, one by one. I took off my gloves so that I could pull out a bar of chocolate from my rucksack and found that the temperature at minus 25 degrees had turned my hands deep blue. The cold and fatigue were affecting my resolve to reach the peak. I had made it to the rim; would it make any difference if I got to the highest point or not?

  I will never know where the inner determination came from, but inch by inch I dragged my legs, my body, and the entirety of my being to Uhuru Peak. I made it to the top of Africa. I was padded out like a teddy bear with six layers of thermal clothing, two hoods, and a baseball cap over my headscarf, my hands Prussian blue in the cold as I passed over my camera for a photo to be taken of me standing exhausted, elated, and proud at 19,314 feet. I had made it to the very highest point. It was a glorious and unforgettable moment. I did it.

  We prayed at the top of the mountain through sheer joy and thanks for arriving safely at this most amazing place and for being blessed enough to experience something that so few people could enjoy. We looked out over peaceful snowcaps and majestic glaciers that shone with an otherworldly aura underneath the immanent sun.

  It was no easy task to have achieved this and I felt proud of myself. It was an exercise of both mind and body. I had climbed uphill physically and metaphorically to a goal that “people” believed I should not set myself. During the four days of grueling climb I had been in awe of the creation of the Divine and learned that I could achieve things beyond what even I myself believed I was capable of. I could push my body harder than I ever had. I could push my inner being further and with more focus than I could have ever imagined.

  Through the encouragement of my faith I had seen the beauty of creation, something I would never have done otherwise. The experience had revealed the obvious: nice girls can achieve whatever they want.

  After climbing the mountain, I decided to buy a convertible racing car, a glamorous James Bond–style model with va-va-voom. Boys were allowed to buy exciting cars; in fact they were supposed to buy an out-of-the-ordinary car. Nice girls were not supposed to. People might get confused and think it was the girl that was racy, not the car.

  I was advised not to take the car to the mosque because people might get the wrong impression of me. They had known me my whole life, but the small matter of owning such a car would completely wipe out my previous nice reputation.

  Girls who wore headscarves ought particularly to avoid such cars. It was not seen as befitting their piety, nor suiting the reputation of sobriety that they were forced to maintain. I should be aware that people would talk.

  “Let them,” I shrugged. “If the most interesting thing that these people have to talk about is my car, then I feel sorry for them. If it helps to spice up their gossip and make their lives more enjoyable, then consider my new car to be an act of public service.”

  I pulled my sunglasses out of the glove compartment, put the roof down, and roared into the sunset.

  Hijab Marks the Spot

  It was an average Tuesday at work. In the office our row of desks looked out of the full-height glass windows of the fifth floor. We were perched above the Thames and could see the Houses of Parliament at one end, and past several bridges and into the blurry, crowded money-scape of the city at the other. Behind us was a busy London street.

  The weather was averagely autumnal; dry, crisp leaves colorfully littering the streets; collars now upturned on the city types who click-clacked their smart city shoes on the gritty pavements as they rushed home on the ever-so-slightly-closing-in September evenings; thicker and longer than average coats on the slick all-in-black media women.

  I sat next to Emma, an unpredictable Anglo-German woman of highly strung intensity and brow-furrowing naivety. Behind me were Elaine and Nicola, two women, about my age, who were excited about moving to London after graduating from their university. Opposite me was handsome, well-traveled, courteous Jack. He was a tall, affable all-American college boy who charmed effortlessly and unknowingly, pulling wonky faces at managerial nonsense and participating in peer-to-peer banter with good will and kind heart. Jack was optimistically American and realistically New York savvy. His humorous self-deprecating cynicism meant he had blended in nicely in London.

  We sat punching away at our keyboards, post-lunch, pre-home time. E-mails flew backward and forward, the Internet was surfed, and digital decisions were made. On the other side of the room there was a whisper.

  Heads
lifted across from me and I heard a voice shout, “A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center!”

  I looked up. The room was full of agitated rustling, eyes squinting, eyebrows rising. Everyone was restless but there was as yet no sense of shock or fear.

  I heard the words again: a plane has crashed. I imagined it to be a small glider and wondered how it could have entered a well-monitored area like Manhattan and then lost control. I didn’t imagine it to be anything other than a horrible accident.

  I carried on typing. Suddenly, there was a loud, frantic shout: “Oh, my God, I think we should watch this on the large screen in the canteen!”

  Chairs scraped, shoes clattered, and bodies moved hurriedly. We raced to the open space where we sat and ate our lunch every day. As we ran, our eyes remained glued to the large television screen above us that was playing a live news feed. The camera was static on the stark image of two of the world’s most famous buildings standing tall against the autumn blue sky. We were stunned: the World Trade Center had swathes of menacing black smoke billowing out of it.

  We remained frozen with horror. It was completely unbelievable; we couldn’t understand exactly what was happening. Then, before our eyes, a second plane came into view and crashed into the second tower.

  I was in shock as they kept replaying the second crash. This can’t be true, I thought, this is just a sick Armageddon Hollywood blockbuster.

  No one knew what to say. The events were inexplicable. Nothing like this had ever happened before. This was the first attack of its kind on America that we could remember during our lifetimes. After we could no longer bear to see the same crash scenes anymore, we returned to our desks. We couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

  Jack and I searched the Internet in a frenzy to find out more, something, anything. The BBC Web site was down, CNN was down, CBS was down, Fox News was down. They had all been broadcasting from the Twin Towers, and those that hadn’t were just unable to cope with the number of visits to their Web sites and their servers froze up. We were among millions of people looking for information, and right now we didn’t have access to any at all. Jack had friends who worked in the building. My friend’s fiancé worked there, too. There was panic on our floor as everyone recalled a friend or colleague who worked at the Twin Towers.

  Who could have done this? A Palestinian group claimed responsibility, seeing an opportunity for raising awareness of their organization. Then they withdrew, realizing that the pretense was more than they could handle.

  I returned home, and stayed glued to the television screen, like all of my friends and colleagues. London fell into a stillness that none of us was used to. The minutes ticked by and still we had no news, nothing was clearer. We sank into a chasm of fear and distrust. Which city would be next? There was so little information about who had carried out this attack or what their motivations were that we assumed London would soon be a target.

  George W. Bush announced the culprit was Al-Qaeda. Al-Who? I had never heard of them. The world’s most wanted man was suddenly Osama Bin Laden. I’d never heard of him either. We were told that Bin Laden and his associates had carried out the attacks. They were Muslims and had declared jihad on the West. Nine days later George W. Bush announced his own war in response, the War on Terror. It felt like it was declared on me, on us as Muslims. I felt stigmatized and cornered. It was not the autumnal air that gave me chills.

  Just like the rest of the public I felt angry and frightened. It was easy for people to lash out in fear, and ordinary Muslims like me, despite sharing the same panic and dread as everyone else, became cast as murderous, hateful, barbaric villains. Double whammy, I thought to myself. We now faced fear on two sides.

  My headscarf was suddenly a neon flashing light as I walked along the wide-eyed fearful streets. The horrific tragedy in New York and the thousands of innocent deaths were, it seemed, my fault.

  Every channel was full of discussion, debate, and analysis. Jack returned from a short visit he had made to New York to ensure his friends and family were okay after the attacks. He described how groupthink patriotism had spread itself over the tragic remains of Ground Zero. “Why do people hate us?” was the question Americans were asking, he told us. He also said that to do what he was doing now—questioning, analyzing, wondering what could have led to this awful situation—was socially forbidden. People first needed to grieve.

  We were told that the perpetrators had been inspired to carry out their hideous actions as “jihad,” based on the belief that they would become martyrs for their faith and then reach paradise. I was horrified. As a result of this, the whole world seemed to think Muslims believed their religion encouraged killing innocent people. This was incomprehensible to me and to most other Muslims, whose fundamental belief is to ensure peace and harmony in the world around us. Even the very name “Islam” means peace. It was hard for us to come to terms with the question: how could people who called themselves Muslims do something like this?

  Jihad had been terribly mistranslated by Western commentators as “holy war.” It had been terribly twisted by the criminals who claimed that they were Muslims and that their violent acts were jihad against their “enemies.” Jihad actually meant “spiritual struggle.” It meant doing your best to live the highest moral and ethical life. It had its own place in religious terminology because it was an activity in its own right, and a tough one at that. It was a fight to stop the dark side of your conscience from behaving in a way that prevents you from being fully human. The only time jihad was allowed to become a physical struggle was if you were required to defend yourself from attack. Jihad did not permit the killing of innocent civilians.

  As the hours and days progressed, the investigations into what had happened continued. We learned that there were nineteen men involved. We also found out that in the last hours before embarking on their plans, these men were busy getting drunk and having intimate relationships with unknown women. It didn’t make sense. If they were the dedicated puritans that the media described, they would not have engaged in these activities that were outside the bounds of Islamic behavior. And if their acts were not motivated by religion, why would they blow themselves up along with thousands of other people?

  The shock that America experienced brought the world to an emotional standstill. On their home soil this huge and powerful nation had been attacked, and its citizens had never experienced such a thing before. They were in deep turmoil and anguish, and the world was with them. All other countries put their own devastation and pain into second place to share America’s moment of bereavement. Innocent people had been killed and this was intolerable. Islamic—human—etiquette demands that even a single innocent death must be mourned, irrespective of who that person is. The value of a lost person is not dependent on what else is happening in the world. One human life lost, wherever or whoever, is the loss of the whole of humanity.

  Muslims from around the world sent heartfelt messages of condolence and denunciation, but it was never enough. No matter how much we condemned the atrocious acts, we were informed that we were actually supporting them. We were told that we ought to condemn them more fervently and more passionately. So we condemned them some more, and then we were told we were insincere. When we tried to explain the peaceful humanitarian principles of Islam, we were told that we were being false—otherwise how could these men have carried out their atrocious activities saying that they were “Islamic”? We also explained that their interpretation of the teachings of Islam was erroneous and they were criminals trying to justify their disgusting actions any way they could. Speaking out just attracted more attention, more vitriol, more hatred. But keeping quiet was not an option. Keeping quiet would allow others to suffer and the War on Terror to spiral out of control. I felt frightened—as though I had been identified and badged as “evil” and a “terrorist.” I was fearful of what lay ahead for me as a Muslim.

  This was the first time that I was encouraged to say “not in my name.” It
was demanded of me as a Muslim to denounce what had happened, distancing myself from something that was not my responsibility. I wholeheartedly rejected the outrageous attacks, and it came from my very soul to state my horror at the deaths. I denounced the actions as a human being, as a citizen of the world who abhorred violence and the killing of innocent people, and the willful destruction of people, property, and symbols.

  “Not in my name” as a human being was a universal statement. But I felt angry that it was expected of me to say “not in my name” as a Muslim. Even though I was a Muslim, I had no connections to the evil men who had done this, so why should I have to say “not in my Muslim name”? Why should I create a link that didn’t exist? I was as little involved as anyone else. I had been taught only peace and harmony. That was the very fundamental basis of faith—to be at peace with the Creator, at peace with one’s self, and at peace with others.

  “Not in my name” still echoes after July 7 in London, and is still demanded whenever a Muslim is linked to violence. I am asked to become an apologist for the actions of others, connected to me only as much as anyone else in the six degrees of separation. But I should only be held responsible for my own actions: that is a human principle, an Islamic principle.

  After September 11, 2001, and again after the events of July 2005 in London, my color, my name, and my headscarf marked me out and tagged me with the label “terrorist.” It was September 11 that marked the date of the very first time that I felt subhuman in Britain, and the first day that I felt scared to live in my own country.

  Many days before the awful events in New York, I had arranged to meet with a group of Muslim women to build a Muslim women’s social network. This was to have been our first meeting. Our purpose was to drink tea, eat muffins, and make new friends. It was September 12 and the girls felt nervous.

  “Not sure we should be out,” said Sara.