by Qanta Ahmed
At the time, the religious flavor of the Ikhwan was a useful excuse to convince otherwise disparate clans to unify their goals of “cleansing” and eradicating “ignorance,” also known as Jahiliya in Arabic (literally meaning “ignorance,” it is actually a namesake for “spiritual darkness”). The efforts of the Ikhwan would replace this primitive culture with the clarity of their furious Islam. A convenient military strategy was therefore cloaked in a righteous enforcement.
Thus, al-Saud, through the Ikhwan, exerted his influences all over the peninsula by forming settlements of Ikhwan-led communities, or hijras, in initially punctate areas of the now Kingdom. Eventually these settlements spread rapidly and coalesced into the skeletons of future conurbations of modern-day Saudi Arabia. There, in these hijras, with the aid of intense and fervent preaching and the use of violent, intimidating force, local nomadic populations were subdued and encouraged to follow the path of The Prophet, even if it was recommended to them under compulsion! Religious zealotry therefore became the anchoring fabric weaving fractious fiefdoms together into a Kingdom.
By 1929, the Ikhwan under the leadership of Abdul Aziz had established 120 settlements. In this manner they settled huge communities of nomadic Bedouins into sedentary peoples, effectively terminating their liberated, free-spirited lives on the Saudi steppes. The Ikhwan were terrifyingly violent to most people and for a time they bloodied the landscape, becoming enormously feared. At the time, parts of the peninsula were under British protectorates and when the British resident in Jeddah threatened to oppose the encroaching Ikhwan in 1918, Abdul Aziz muzzled them to maintain his useful alliances with the British. The Ikhwan were growing too powerful; dangerously autonomous.
This love-hate relationship between the clerical forces and an impotent monarchy would become a pattern which would be mimicked repetitively in modern day Saudi Arabia. Ignominiously reined in by their ruler, the Ikhwan became deeply offended, especially as they considered themselves the religious Army of God. The rude rebuff drove them to question their unwavering loyalty for their King. Thus the first crisis of clergy and King was conceived.
Eventually, an open confrontation between the King and the army would follow, and in 1929, with the help of British armaments and soldiers, the King was secured. Treasonous Ikhwan leaders were rounded up and garrisoned in Riyadh, and this quickly precipitated the creation of the League for the Promotion of Virtue and the Eradication of Vice as an essential curb of a monster devised initially to meet the King's ambitious goals of conquering Arabia.
The Mutawaeen who had intimidated us tonight were an impotent relic of their voracious forebears because they remained muzzled in the costly, decorated bridle of the Saudi monarchy. The origins of the Mutawaeen therefore were never to be an anti-Western mine-sweeping tool, rather a means of policing the state for the security of the precarious monarchy that had conquered it.
It was the 1979 Iranian revolution that radically infected the Mutawaeen with a new zeal for Islamization and a novel obsession with harassing Westerners. It was not surprising that we needed monarchic intervention to rescue us that evening because I was realizing that, effectively, the monarchy was on the same side as we were.18
Some believed it would only be a matter of time before the Wahabi clergy of the Mutawaeen was sufficiently emboldened to take on the monarchy itself. Many of their ranks watched the arrival of an Ayatollah in supreme power with animated relish. I knew what they must have thought: how much they preferred a turbaned coronet to a jeweled one.
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO OF ARABIA
IT HAD BEEN SEVERAL MONTHS since my unexpected enchantment with Imad. Since he was Saudi and I an expatriate Muslim, it was impossible to openly pursue him in anything resembling standard, Western dating. My reticence, together with my inability to unravel the ways of the Kingdom, left me very much at a personal stalemate in the approach to the object of my desire.
Instead I decided to increase my professional contact with him, hoping that would lead me to know him better. I invited him to write with me. I finally found my hospital email of use. Though most employees had access to the internal email system, it was notoriously unreliable; servers would go down for days at end and most had quickly set up web mail accounts to bypass this irritation.
One day I searched for his address, finding it quickly. In a short note, I asked him to collaborate on a paper that I was already publishing with another colleague. In a few hours, he had taken the bait, expressing delight in the invitation. Now I had a reason to contact him. I was surprised at my cunning. At least one female trait had not deserted me here.
“I would like to see your resume, Imad,” I emailed. “I want to see what you have published.”
His documents revealed his age, thirty-four, and his marital status, single. I was amused to note the date of his birthday. Tomorrow he would turn thirty-five. He was born in Mecca. So Imad was definitely a Saudi national, even though his appearance was so very North American. I went on to read his publications. The resume extended for dozens of pages. His credentials were amazing. He was far more than met the eye. Imad was an international authority in his field and at such an impossibly young age. He had been incredibly industrious. I was curious to know more about this handsome, intelligent man. I paged him the next day.
“Allo?” he answered.
“First of all, happy birthday, Imad!” I told him daringly.
“How did you know today is my birthday?” He sounded alarmed.
“Because you sent me your resume! I noticed the birth date. How are you celebrating? Perhaps some shopping downtown, in Olleyah, or perhaps some cake maybe?” I paused.
“Oh no, nothing like that.” He sounded intensely bashful, quickly trailing off into an awkward silence.
“That's too bad. You should have some fun on your birthday.” I giggled to hide my mounting shyness. Recognizing the topic was now extinct (especially in a community where observing birthdays for adults was a pagan, Western behavior contaminating the peninsula) I decided to talk about the real reason I had wanted to call: to arrange a meeting. He listened politely.
After further emails he had agreed to write the paper with me. A few days later, I took a pile of references and marched off to his office, where we had planned to meet.
The Internet had only arrived in the Kingdom in 1998 and at the National Guard hospital in 1999. Without this new technology it would have been impossible to contact the single Saudi male. Thank God for the Web!
Along the way to his office, I detected butterflies inside me and a long forgotten excitement of anticipation that took me back to my girlhood. I hadn't had a crush of these dimensions for a long time. I smiled, enjoying the delicious sensations of forgotten frisson. I hurried toward the building where I would find his office.
The sun warmed my hair. I felt the perpetual Riyadh breeze ruffle my short crop. It was always marvelous to come out into the open, and here on the medical compound I could always exit without an abbayah or veil. I was perfectly at ease, though doubtless many eyes were watching my unusual progress, which generated surprise wherever I went. Saraway, my pharmacist friend, told me about this, condensing my diaphanous vapors of suspicion that I was being observed into a very concrete reality.
“Qanta, you know when you first started inviting me to have lunch in the canteen, I felt really strange. I wasn't sure if I should go. I mean it was unheard of for a woman to eat with a male colleague at work.” I was surprised, remembering my natural invitation of Saraway to eat with me as soon as we had finished making our first rounds together. Because he was American, we became friends immediately. I hadn't realized I had distressed the Ethiopian American Coptic Christian quite so much. I listened.
“I mean, you cannot know how startling it was to see you arrive in the ICU, Qanta. We had never had a woman there before. Even for me as an American it was hard because after five years in Riyadh, you kind of get used to the segregation.”
“What did you notice, Saraway?” I as
ked, out of genuine curiosity. I had been so overwhelmed by adjusting to the strange society around me that I had been unaware that I myself was a source of any consternation.
“Well, one day you were discussing some CT scans with a group of doctors, all men. I watched from a distance and even from there I could see your body language was different. You were leaning against the monitor with one hand in your trouser pocket, just like a guy.”
Saraway stopped to demonstrate. He had captured one of my favorite postures when deep in thought. Like most women, I especially enjoyed trousers that had pockets in them.
“Just how you were standing, so comfortable in a ring of men, completely unaware of the division between men and women, well, it was really shocking, for men and women,” Saraway continued. “I mean, the nurses always worked with the male doctors, but because of their role, the men never considered them their equals and always managed to be apart. No woman could stand with them the way you do.
“At first, every time I came back from lunch with you, the other pharmacists would always say, ‘So, did you have lunch with your friend again?’” Saraway laughed, actually uncomfortable in recollection. I was astonished.
“What were they implying about us, Saraway?”
“Well, the guys used to tease me about you, suggesting we were engaged in something illicit.”
“Like an affair?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” he answered bluntly. I looked at him in disbelief. I was also amazed that I had sensed none of the ripples of shock that clearly just my presence had elicited. Working in a man's world (which much of medicine still remains) had been a way of life for me for almost a decade at the point I arrived in Riyadh. I hadn't realized that I had absorbed any of the masculine traits that Saraway had identified in the eyes of locals as scandalous: confidence, authority, physical ease around men, and above all, a will unbent by the conjecture and speculation of the society around me. Evidently, I was a chimera to my Saudi and Arab colleagues. I was a man in a woman's body, a Westerner with a Muslim name. I was impossible to place.
Finally I found Imad's office and walked toward it. Just as I turned into the small corridor leading there, I came across lines of footwear encroaching onto the hallway. His office, it emerged, was immediately next to the building's private mosque, where the administrators worshipped. I was startled to confront a mosque on the threshold of my attraction. I hurried past, glimpsing a lone Saudi man prostrate in prayer. I was beginning to feel guilty about my feelings.
Hoping there was no lipstick on my teeth, I knocked at the door. Imad's soft voice called out, “Come in.”
I hesitated for a moment, wondering how I had arrived at such a point. Acutely, I felt shy and girlish. Inside he was ensconced at a large desk that wrapped around him, piled high with papers. He peered into a computer screen and alternately glanced at his laptop. As soon as I entered he stood up and greeted me with a formal handshake. His hands were soft and cool. In this single gesture he had recognized the Westerner and the peer within me. It was the first time a Saudi man had shook hands with me. I was touched and broke into a smile.
I looked at his face and noted an imperceptible curve of his full, pink lips. A glint of perfect teeth appeared under his neatly groomed moustache. He quickly bundled the smile away, indicating I should sit. Obediently I did so, careful to leave the door ajar behind me. I wasn't sure of the proper decorum of a woman meeting a Saudi man unchaperoned in the institute. Outside the door I could hear his Filipina secretary, Malea, diligently typing. I felt intensely uncomfortable and guilty. I wondered if my foolish, gaping smile gave away my secret attraction. I was glad Imad chose not to notice anything. His rimless eyewear cast a bluish reflection over his eyes as though veiling them. From time to time, when we accidentally locked glances, I couldn't be sure what I could know in his eyes.
I chose to sit in the low-slung, black leather settee in the Le Corbusier style. His basement office had a distinctly masculine appeal to it. With the leather and chrome furniture, there was a distinct air of Hugh Heffner about the room. I suppressed a secret smile. Overhead, sandaled footsteps echoed from outside a window which peered onto the sidewalk above us. We were in a secret and very hidden place.
Just as I was relaxing and responding to Imad's initial pleasantries inquiring of caseload and patient outcome in the ICU, the Azaan rang out: afternoon prayer. I stopped mid-sentence, unsure what to do. It was not my custom to observe prayer in the middle of my working day, preferring to condense my prayers in the early morning and before bedtime. I stared at Imad, expecting him to rush off to pray. He remained motionless and apparently intent on my next words.
“Do you need to pray, Imad?” I asked shyly, wondering if the question embarrassed him. “I didn't realize your office is next to the mosque,” I added, trying to inject some levity into the air of mounting sexual tension.
“No, Qanta, I don't.” And, without explanation, he left it at that. “Now let's talk about our paper.” Moving from his desk, he came to sit near me in an armchair to my left. I was surprised. This soft-spoken and powerful Saudi man did not appear to worry who would see him missing from the ranks of his praying colleagues. I wondered if he observed prayer at all.
He settled into his chair comfortably. He must have been six foot four at least. From this proximity he seemed even larger. I was intimidated by his manliness. He crossed one leg over the other and seemed to be relaxing in anticipation of a long conversation. Around the office his phones were blinking, calls on hold being diverted by Malea. A fax machine furled out endless commu-niqués and his email notification system was beeping intermittently. He responded to none of it, fixing his open and disarming stare on me.
Avoiding his eyes, I noticed the fine silk tie he was wearing over a crisply pressed shirt. As usual, his white coat was buttoned up and the lapels perfectly pressed. Now I was close enough to read his name emblazoned on his chest. Mounted on the wall I counted multiple framed diplomas and soon realized his middle initial shared the same as my father's name. I was surprised by my appetite for these details. Already I was bewitched. From this proximity he was even more attractive to me.
His coloration was fascinatingly Caucasian, and the blue eyes were startlingly deep, a navy-violet color almost; sometimes they appeared black and sometimes blue. His neatly barbered, vigorous gray hair was thickly waved. Flecked with silver, his manicured beard was beginning to turn fully white. I curbed a sudden desire to ruffle his mane, imagining its plush, thick pile.
After a brief conversation outlining the paper I had sketched, we fell into an awkward silence. Unusually for me, I was tongue-tied. Just as I was trying hard to think of something witty, an unexpected sound startled me, the sound of a very loud cricket. I jumped out of my seat, thinking there was an insect loose in the room. Imad roared with laughter, his eyes crinkling, creased in giggles.
“Qanta, don't worry, there is nothing here, that is just my screen saver!” We both giggled with nervous relief. For some time, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at me with genuine glee. His twinkling eyes revealed amusement. The ice was finally broken. This Saudi man had a sense of humor. We fell into a chat about writing and medicine. I was now on familiar territory. Imad was very engaged. He seemed to want to tell me a lot. I questioned. He talked.
“I went to medical school residency and fellowship in DC, Qanta. I loved it there. I lived there with my mother and father and my sister. My father had business interests there for many years. In all, I spent ten years there. After residency, I did two fellowships.”
“So you are triple-boarded, Imad?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, sounding not the least ostentatious. He seemed a modest man.
“I had great mentors there, Qanta. I had a terrific time in residency. I loved the States, still do.”
“Why did you come back here, Imad?”
“It's been about ten years since I came home. My education was sponsored by the Saudi Arabian National Guard, so I had
to return here to work for them in exchange for a free education. When I arrived, they made me chair immediately. I was a chair in a department of one—me!”
He stopped, chuckling. He was extremely attractive when he laughed. I continued listening. “Since then, I hired everyone you know today. We are a department of seven at the moment and of course a fantastic team of nurses. They are really loyal to me.”
“What about your writing? How did you become so published so quickly, Imad?”
“I always enjoyed it. I had a wonderful mentor at Georgetown. We wrote a lot together. He developed a habit of observing and publishing in me which served me well. I created the first research database here and of course that generated publications. Everything else followed.”
“But you seem to write a lot on your own, Imad. You don't have any residents or fellows who would like to write with you?”
“No, Qanta, we don't have these programs yet, but Inshallah I will build one.” He paused, focusing on a distant future.
We began to work intently on several documents I had brought with me. He leaned in toward me as we digested a particularly obtuse paragraph. His immaculately dressed thigh was millimeters away from mine. He was powerfully muscular. I followed the perfect crease of his trousers upward until it disappeared under the fold of his coat. I could feel the electricity between us. We disappeared into an engulfing silence, neither of us daring to look up from the paragraph, frightened of what our locked gaze might reveal.