Shelina Janmohamed

by Love in a Headscarf

  Shari’ah offered guidelines for yourself as well as for managing your interactions with others. It prescribed how to look after your own body in the best possible way. The idea of eating only meat that was halal meant eating good wholesome food. Fasting helped you to keep in shape and detox. Not drinking alcohol kept your body healthy. Not being intoxicated allowed you to see clearly and be in control of your actions at all times, all the while being able to have a direct clear-headed conversation with the Divine. Shari’ah also explained some things relevant to personal life as a Muslim: how to pray, how to marry, how to fast. Shari’ah is the basic idea of working toward justice and equality by regulating how you live with other people: not stealing or killing, treating people well, observing your duties and responsibilities to the people and environment around you.

  I had followed a lot of rules throughout my own search, and I was tiring with the obsession with them. How would they offer me freedom?

  As though reading my thoughts, Mohamed said, “Shari’ah is only the stepping stone to tariqah, the way you do things. It’s not enough to stick to the letter of the law: you have to apply its spirit too. The best possible way to do things is with kindness and compassion.”

  This reminded me of Karim and his lightning story. He could have just told me that he wasn’t interested rather than spinning me along and then suggesting his preposterous story that lightning had intervened. Or Khalil, who had rejected me before we’d even met because I was too short but wanted to meet me anyway; and then took my money from me.

  It was easy to forget that along with what you do, it is how you do it that is important. It is the difference between following the rules begrudgingly and softening life with a smile, a small kindness, generosity, compassion. If you fulfilled your duties by the book, you had only observed the method, the shari’ah. Tariqah was the manner in which you carried out your responsibilities. Tariqah was doing things in the best way possible.

  Mohamed became most alive and passionate when we spoke about haqiqah.

  His eyes lit up. “This is when you truly know the Truth. You can taste the Divine and witness it. This is the inner path, where the soul has already been freed by following the shari’ah and the tariqah, and now it can soar into the arms of the Beloved.”

  Beloved? Who spoke about God as the Beloved? It sounded very romantic, but maybe that was the idea. There were many names to describe God. God was Just, Compassionate, Merciful. God was Beauty, Majesty, and Life. I agreed that he was also Love. But really, who used an affectionate name like Beloved?

  Mohamed then told me something that I had heard thousands of times before, but this time it changed my life. “Allah says that He created the human being in order to be known. To be known requires someone or something to do the knowing.” He paused to let this sink in. “Allah also says that He created the human being in order to be loved. To be loved requires someone or something to do the loving.” I waited, wanting to hear how it all came together. “For God to be known, to be loved, someone or something has to do the loving and do the knowing of the Creator. Human beings are the best of all creatures, and they exist to know and love the Divine. We’ve been created for the very simple and single purpose: to love.”

  I had found my place, my meaning. I now understood how my search for the one, my Prince Charming, made sense as part of my search for the One, the Beloved. I was a human being who was made to Love, we all were.

  Through all the searching we did in our modern lives, through films, music, books, arts, life, and dreams, we were all looking for the same thing, whether it had a human, Hollywood, or Divine face. It was a sense of completion that came from being in balance with our surroundings. It came from giving love and being loved.

  Every human being has a yearning for a partner, a companion, a lover. I knew that my heart was fashioned from the intricacies of love, and I had plenty of love to give. All I had to do was find him. What I hadn’t known until now was that this cry inside for love, for him, was also a search for Love and for Him.

  Love is the Divine principle, and to Love is to Know. That is why the human heart can contain the secrets of the universe.

  Quantum Theory

  Searching for a husband had distracted me from exploring my own inner world. As a human being my focus should have been on making my spirit blossom. Finding a companion and getting married was part of that journey toward flourishing as a person: that was the Islamic thinking behind marriage. But I had focused too much on the outer search for Mr. Right, convinced that this was the best way to fulfill my responsibilities. As a result I had put my inner life and spiritual development on hold. The conversations with Mohamed had ended all of that, and I had made a quantum jump in the journey of discovery.

  Slowly, I began to truly live my life once I realized that my companion and my faith were intertwined. I still had value as a human being without him, and I could keep learning and growing as an individual. He would appear when I was ready, and we would begin a journey together, hand in hand. Unshackled from the ideas held erroneously in my mind, I gradually started to open my heart to the potential of life around me.

  Talking to Mohamed helped me to open these doors that had stood in front of me for many years. He unlocked a different kind of freedom for me, inner freedom. I did not want to marry him because of the gratitude of a student for a teacher or because of a crush on someone sharing knowledge. Instead, I felt that this was a man I could go on a spiritual journey with. He would be able to take care of me materially and spiritually. The more I spoke to him, the more certain I became that this was a man with whom I could spend the rest of my life.

  Little by little, he was recovering from his heartbreak, yet I felt too nervous to broach the subject of my idea with him. My parents had known about him all along, and in any other circumstance I would have asked them to take the formal route of approaching his family through a matchmaker. Given his delicate situation, we all felt that he might feel cornered if his family was involved.

  I confided in Jack at work, and asked his advice. “You can help me, you’re a man, just like Mohamed,” I pointed out to him. “What should I do?”

  I explained to him that Mohamed had asked his friends to start on the process of introducing him to women with a view to getting married. After his meetings with them, Mohamed would lament to me how the women were wrong for him, picking out their flaws one by one. But he never asked me if I would like to consider him. I waited, hoping.

  I consoled myself with the fact that he was still emotionally vulnerable and that he would have rejected me for the same reason he rejected all the other women: because he wasn’t ready. He felt that the more women he was introduced to, the more quickly he would recover from his loss. This made me angry. These women were meeting him with hope and open hearts, and he was using them to provide solace for his pain. I should have taken note.

  Jack listened carefully and then paused dramatically before he delivered his opinion: “If you really like him and you think that he is the right husband for you, then you should tell him.”

  “But it’s obvious that he doesn’t like me, otherwise he would have said!” I wailed.

  “Would he? Maybe he feels just like you and is scared to say anything.”

  I pouted. Jack continued. “Think about it like this. If you want a job or a house, you’ll go after it, won’t you? Think about how much effort people put into their careers. On the other hand, when it comes to their personal lives—and, after all, a partner is the most important part of your life—they are passive and just hope it ‘happens.’ You have to make it happen.”

  I was surprised that his wisdom was so similar to that of the Aunties. I could hear their voices. “Good men are hard to find, my dear, you need to grab him.” It was clear that their advice would also be to prioritize finding a partner above all else. Tradition and common sense were of the same opinion in this case.

  I felt chastened. Even though I had followed the process for so many yea
rs, I hadn’t yet understood the key universal principle behind it: to think clearly and rationally about how to pursue the right partner. I had let the ideas of all the traditions that I was part of dictate my behavior. Notions from Hollywood to Bollywood that “the man has to do it” and that “it should just happen” had taken root inside me much deeper than I had imagined.

  Despite my criticisms of those who upheld all these different traditions over what Islam was trying to teach, I found myself doing the same. I loved the story of Khadijah, the first and most beloved wife of the Prophet Muhammad sending someone to approach him directly to see if he would be interested in marrying her. Safura, too, had taken things into her own hands, asking her father to invite Moses into their home and into their business. I held up these empowered, independent, and determined women as inspiration for Muslims, and yet I was falling short.

  Jack explained that if I shared my feelings with Mohamed, it would not be an ultimatum, and I should not fear it as such. I realized that I could have the same conversation with Mohamed that I had in introductions with other men. It would be the beginning of a discussion about whether we could see ourselves as a married couple. I had been through so many of them already, I should not be scared. If I really believed that Mohamed was the one, I had to grab this chance to talk to him about the possibility of spending our lives together.

  I had been through so much, met so many different suitors, worked with the process, rejected culture, and then found my own place in it again. I had learned about what love was and what love could be. If I did not take this opportunity, I would let myself down. I decided that I would not abandon the journey that had brought me to this point. I had learned too much about myself to do that.

  Over coffee, Mohamed and I chatted aimlessly about work, mosques, literature, art, vacations, food. And then, in a quiet moment as we sipped our drinks, I told him.

  “I like you.”

  He squinted curiously at me.

  “I just thought I should tell you, you know …” I stuttered, not sure what to say next.

  Be brave, I told myself, you’ve come this far.

  “And I was wondering …” I lost the nerve to ask him directly if he liked me too. My voice deserted me at that moment, absent without leave. I managed to croak, “I was wondering what you thought about that.”

  There, I had said it. I picked up my cup and hid my face in the dark, opaque liquid. It felt very quiet in the room.

  His silence continued. At first, I thought it was because I had made such an unexpected statement. Perhaps he was reflecting on what I had said, perhaps my words had stirred emotions that he had hidden deep inside. He still said nothing. Now that he had reflected, he might be crafting his words to express the depth of his feelings. I started to feel uncomfortable. Surely his feelings couldn’t be that majestic and ponderous that he needed this much time to work out how to convey them to me?

  I fidgeted, wanting to break the silence. But that would mean I would have to reiterate what I had just said—which would exacerbate the silence further—or I would have to change the subject. I had expended so much energy and bravery to make him this offering of my feelings that I would just wait to see what he said. I would not change the subject now.

  I should have known that the silence was foreboding. But I wanted to hear it, to know for sure. A rejection would hurt but at least I would go away in the knowledge I had tried. I would have to find a way to recover from having been so close to the husband I had been searching for and then being turned away.

  Being brave enough to ask him about his feelings openly was about to pay off, because his response revealed more to me about his emotional state than years of marriage could have uncovered.

  His answer was even better, even more informative, than I could have expected. It showed me his obliviousness to my bravery and vulnerability, and that made it starkly obvious that he wasn’t as suitable for me as the life companion I had hoped him to be.

  The answer was worse than I had anticipated. Not only did he crush my feelings, but he did it without respect or grace.

  “Shelina,” he said, looking at his coffee, “I am a scientist. I have just discovered that Einstein’s theory of relativity might not be true. This has turned my world upside down and I can think of nothing else at all. Nothing. I’m consumed.” And with that he continued sipping his coffee.

  EIGHT

  Multiversal

  View from the Shelf

  PITY

  The Aunties started to feel sorry for me. “Such a nice girl,” they would exclaim. “So well-mannered.”

  “I can’t understand why she isn’t married,” said one to the other, emphasizing the words.

  I expected them to lay the blame at my door for not marrying earlier or for not choosing one of the inappropriate men that had been recommended. I italicized the words in my own head for irony. Instead, the Aunties surprised me.

  “So pretty, so intelligent, so lovely, and religious, I just can’t imagine who could be right for her,” sighed the other in return.

  I was unnerved by their compassion. Had they forgotten their complicity in the tortuousness of my search? Or had they too been on a journey of their own?

  They turned their heads to face me whenever I appeared and then stroked my hair lovingly.

  “When you find the right person, then you’ll know it has been worth waiting for,” they consoled me. “You’re still young and so pretty, plenty of time! A man would be crazy not to want to marry you.”

  I felt tearful. I felt that I had achieved so much: education, independence, career, travel. Through all of it I had retained a close relationship with my family, my community, and my faith. Like many other single Muslim women, I had negotiated the complexities of growing up in a new environment, of wanting to excel in education and career, and of keeping my respect for the importance of ethnicity, faith, and identity. I was at once “independent” and “community-minded,” “modern,” and “traditional.” In short, I had earned the Aunties’ respect.

  Whether their words were hurtful or compassionate, the Aunties still pointed to that one thing I wanted most—companionship. For them, a husband had secured them social status and perpetuated tradition. The structure of marriage had worked for them and they had found their place through it.

  There was something about marriage that they had only begun at this late stage to explain clearly and which I wished that they had spelled out from the start: the satisfaction of having Someone To Be With. My parents echoed their sentiments: “We just want you to have someone of your own so you can have some company, someone to go out, someone to do things with.”

  They were right. I had already done all the things I wanted to do on my own. I hadn’t let expectations, gossip, or stereotyping hold me back. I had discovered that I could do all the things that I wanted to do on my own. I just didn’t want to do them on my own anymore. The experiences would be richer and more meaningful if I had someone to share them with. Once I wanted Prince Charming. I still did, but now Cozy Companion would have sufficed, someone to spend time with, to move on in life with, someone, anyone, anyone at all?

  AUNTIE JEE: “We must find someone for Shelina.”

  AUNTIE AITCH: “What about that nice doctor? What is he called? Something beginning with ‘Muh.’ Is it Mehdi? Masood? Malik?”

  AUNTIE JEE: “Maazin?”

  AUNTIE AITCH: “No, no, let me think.…”

  AUNTIE JEE: “Muna?”

  AUNTIE AITCH: “No, not Musa, not Munir.”

  AUNTIE JEE: “Malcolm?”

  AUNTIE AITCH: “Malcolm? Who is Malcolm?”

  AUNTIE JEE: “Sabin’s son. You know they were very modern when the kids were born, called them all sorts of things. Now she is more religious than the Maulana himself?! Do you mean Mahbub?”

  AUNTIE AITCH: “Yes, yes, that’s it! Mahbub!”

  AUNTIE JEE: “But he is almost fifty years old! Much too old! And previously divorced with three child
ren who live with him. No, no, no! Not suitable. And you know there were terrible rumors about why his wife left him. Girlfriends, affairs, drinking.”

  AUNTIE AITCH: “She can’t be too picky you know, at her age, and having turned down so many very good boys. Fussy is as fussy gets. You know what they say about the fussy crow?”

  Auntie Jee emits a weary sigh of knowledge.

  AUNTIE AITCH: “The fussy crow turns his nose up at the rich pickings and ends up sitting on the pile of dung.”

  ANGER

  Wherever I went I was looked at with sadness. The community couldn’t understand why I had not been snapped up. In my head I played back the conversations I would like to have had with them.

  “You said I was too educated to make a good wife …”

  “You said that the boys wanted a younger girl …”

  “You said I was too religious …”

  “You said I wasn’t religious enough …”

  I felt angry and let down. To make matters worse, I was not the only woman on the shelf. It was a veritable riot up at this height.

  The community had finally started to recognize that there were problems and that it was harder for people to find a suitable match. Although there were plenty of young unmarried women, there was still a mysterious lack of young men. Some really had disappeared. Others were continuing to go “back home” to marry. This was their prerogative of course; the choice of a partner is an entirely personal matter. The consequence of their decision, though, was that the gaps they would have filled in making wonderful matches for women like me, based on compatibility, life experience, identity, and our new British Muslim values and culture, remained vacant. Why did the men not feel the same way about what a good match we would make for them?

  It seemed to me that the answer was that women had been forced to redefine themselves through the opportunities and experiences they had lived through. Femininity had changed and been updated by the challenges we had faced, and the outcome was stronger and more centered women. What appeared to be missing was the challenge to men to trigger them to update their own notions of masculinity. Instead of rising to the challenge, some of them now felt at worst threatened by the lively, energetic women who wanted a proactive spiritual and material life, or at best uninterested in them.