His Other Wife

by Umm Zakiyyah

  There was a thoughtful pause.

  In a lower, more reflective tone, Salima added, “I wish someone had done that for me.” She drew in a deep breath and exhaled, the sound coming out ragged in emotion. “But because my privileged mindset went pretty much unchallenged amongst Muslims, to say the least,” she said with a thoughtful frown, “I wronged myself, my husband, and his family, and I have no idea if Allah will forgive me.”

  ***

  I know several lawyers. But they’re usually licensed by state, so I don’t know how much they can help you.

  Aggravated, Deanna closed the email window, and pushed away from her desk. She had humiliated herself by reaching out to her brother only for him to shut her out. She hadn’t told Asher why she needed the lawyer, but she’d expected a little more enthusiasm than his two measly lines in reply.

  Now what? she thought in annoyance.

  Melancholic heaviness weighed on her as she sat feet from her desk, the email window a horizontal icon at the lower border of her monitor. Deanna tried to ward off the depressed feeling. She didn’t want to reduce herself to sulking over a man who didn’t appreciate her.

  You better NOT marry Aliyah.

  Deanna winced at the memory. Those were the only words she’d said to Jacob when she saw him last. That she’d put them in writing instead of speaking them aloud made the scenario all the more incriminating.

  I don’t want to lose you, Deanna’s heart had cried as she lost sight of Jacob in her dream. Then pray, a voice told her. Pray…

  “Child, you need to stop fighting yourself.” The elder inmate at the jail had shouted the words as she passed Deanna one day, when Deanna was in one of her customary funky moods. Before that moment, Deanna and the woman had never exchanged a single word. The advice had shaken Deanna, and no matter how hard she tried to deny it, she knew that woman’s passing comment was a sign that she should turn to Allah for help.

  Then pray…

  There had been a few other Muslim women at the jail, but Deanna had kept her distance. Sometimes she’d see them pray together, lined up next to each other in their pale inmate uniforms. Some days the sight was annoying because it reminded her of the self-righteous sisters she’d known from the masjid, women who were no better than anyone else but felt the need to flaunt their religiosity in everyone’s faces. But there had been other days that the sight incited guilt in Deanna regarding her own spiritual neglect. Whatever troubles these women had in their lives that had landed them in jail, at least they had not abandoned Salaah.

  One day while in jail, Deanna had found herself in front of the row of sinks, feeling awkward as she rubbed water over her skin. She couldn’t even recall the last time that she’d performed wudhoo’, and a part of her had wanted to give up right then. But as the cold water ran between the recesses of her fingers, a calming, humbling feeling struck her. When she rubbed the water over her face, there were tears forming in her eyes.

  Minutes later, she’d lined up next to the other Muslim inmates, and as soon as she raised her hands as if in surrender to signal the start of prayer, she had a jolting epiphany. Whatever misfortune happens to you, is because of what your [own] hands have wrought… They were the same words she’d read from the Qur’an after Jacob had divorced her. At the time, she’d promptly shut the Qur’an and didn’t want to read anymore. She knew it wasn’t merely coincidence that it had come to mind as soon as she’d begun praying at the jail that day.

  Turning her head to the right and then to the left, signaling the end of prayer, guilt had sat like a nasty pit in her stomach. She loathed herself something unimaginable right then. You’re a hypocrite and a fraud, her mind had jabbed in self-rebuke. And she sat feeling like an imposter amongst the prayerful Muslims. You can’t blame Aliyah just because Jacob wanted to marry her, came the begrudging thought thereafter. She was never plotting to marry him, and you know it.

  Deanna had clenched her teeth, irritated at the haranguing thoughts. When she got up and left the women, she had no intention of joining them again. This pitiful self-loathing was why she’d stopped praying in the first place. All praying did was make her feel like a horrible person, like she was bound for Hellfire no matter what she did. And this was the effect of prayer when she was actually concentrating. Otherwise, it felt like a meaningless burdensome ritual that God had forced upon her, and she really didn’t understand why He insisted on it so much. Neither the deriding guilt nor the empty ritualism inspired her to continue Salaah with any regularity. Why pray when the best she could hope for was feeling drastically worse than she had before she prayed?

  But even as the mere thought of prayer continued to annoy Deanna, she was never able to shake the effect of that single prayer that day. Stop blaming Aliyah. She’s not a backstabber. You are. The bitter realization that only she was to blame for what had happened in her marriage continued to haunt her up until her release. Whatever misfortune happens to you, is because of what your [own] hands have wrought…

  But Deanna despised Aliyah nonetheless. Perhaps she always had, though Deanna couldn’t say with any truthfulness that this was due to any fault of Aliyah’s. Aliyah had never been a bad friend. Aliyah had never lied or betrayed her. In fact, Aliyah was sickeningly loyal, someone you could always count on, in that stereotypical “bestie” way. Deanna despised Aliyah because Aliyah was a weak, pathetic person who was a poor excuse of a woman, a poor excuse of a human being in fact. She never stood up for herself and was an easy target for anyone who wished to take advantage of her. She saw the good in everybody, in a blind, stupid, naïve way.

  But what Deanna resented most about Aliyah was that women like her were the archetype of the “perfect wife.” Perhaps it was a life rule of sorts that all good men would fall for the helpless, dimwitted religious-type at least once. It was like a childhood fantasy of theirs or something.

  “Oh, child,” the elder inmate had uttered sympathetically after Deanna had confided in her with angry, indignant outbursts that taxed her raspy, aching voice. “No man wants a needy, desperate woman. So make sure you don’t become one. And if your friend is as pathetic as she sounds, he’ll be over her real quick. Sometimes you just got to let a man taste his fantasy. Then he’ll come back to you on his knees.”

  Aliyah had no right to give the media those pictures of herself, Deanna thought bitterly, standing up and pacing her bedroom, clinging on to any excuse to remain angry at Aliyah. Yes, her mind retorted, but she would never plot to steal your husband.

  Deanna nodded at the revelation, halting her pacing and sitting firmly on the edge of her bed. It was true. Betrayal wasn’t in Aliyah’s makeup. Deanna had been merely projecting when she’d assumed that Aliyah was savvy enough to hook someone else’s man. Even Aliyah’s marriage to Matt had been Deanna’s handiwork. And as useless as that man was, to anyone, Aliyah hadn’t even been able to keep him. How then could she win someone like Deanna’s husband? Jacob had only been interested in Aliyah because she represented that stereotypical “righteous” brainless damsel that all men thought they wanted. Deanna just needed to convince him that she was the only real woman he’d ever know.

  “Apologize to him and your friend,” the elder inmate had suggested. “Especially if you don’t have any proof she was betraying you. Men like women who show regret and humility, especially for things that mean a lot to them.”

  Deanna grunted at the memory. But she didn’t dismiss the advice, however difficult it was to swallow. Though she hated to admit it, Aliyah did deserve an apology. She just wondered if she’d ever have the wherewithal to give it to her. But she couldn’t think about that right now. She needed to focus on getting a lawyer.

  Attorney Bryan Schmidt, the idea came to Deanna just then. He was the lawyer her father had hired for her representation in the assault case. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to double as arm candy to make Jacob jealous, but Deanna was running out of time—and options. She had less than ten days to respond to the divorce filing, and the las
t thing she wanted was the divorce decision to automatically default in Jacob’s favor.

  But Bryan was all business, so it was highly unlikely that he would offer any free legal advice, and asking her father to pay the fees was out of the question. She had money of her own, but until her voice situation was settled, she didn’t want to touch any of it because she had no idea when she’d be able to earn money again.

  But if she already knew exactly what she wanted before she consulted him, then all she’d need him to do was type it up formally and submit it to the court. That way she could save herself an astronomical legal bill.

  ***

  Racism makes sense. The timing of the epiphany was odd, and completely out of context. But later, even the timing and context would make sense to Aliyah. She was standing in front of a small lecture hall conducting an algebra lesson when the realization came to her. She had just finished explaining how any lettered variable that was part of a mathematical equation containing other definite values had a single definite value itself.

  “What this means is, the term unknown value is actually quite narcissistic,” she’d joked, setting off a ripple of uncertain laughter amongst the students. “Because if all of the other values are known, then it’s impossible that this single one can be truly unknown. It’s only unknown to the extent that a person lacks the knowledge or willpower to work out the single answer that everything else is obviously pointing to. A truly unknown value exists only outside the sphere of other definite mathematical values,” she explained. “In other words, in the realm of definite realities, the answer to the unknown is literally right in front of you if you have both the knowledge and willpower to see it.”

  There was the whistling of pen strokes across student notebooks, and Aliyah pondered the completely obvious reality of why racism made sense: Believing that someone deserves the harm that consistently comes to them is much easier (not to mention much more convenient) than admitting your part in inflicting that consistent harm. After the self-serving belief is firmly in place, the rest is left to confirmation bias—that tendency to view any new information that supports your belief as proof that your belief was right in the first place, while completely ignoring or discarding any new information that contradicts or disproves your belief.

  In this self-serving contradictory mindset, Aliyah reflected, Divine truth was the necessary arbiter in human justice. Without evidence from God Himself that all humans were created equal—and exceeded each other only in sincere faith and good character—there would be many who would live and die genuinely believing they themselves were inherently superior (or inferior) to others.

  But amongst even professed believers in God, racism had permeated the hearts so much that even God’s Words did little to deter the self-contradictory disease. Because the person did not want it deterred. For reasons perhaps unknown to the racists themselves, racism was subconsciously viewed as necessary to their existence. Their fragile egos and faulty self-serving biases gave them a sense of purpose on earth, as if they were here only to “civilize” everyone else.

  When Salima had made the analogy between the systematic mistreatment of racial minorities in America and the systematic mistreatment of marriage minorities—namely men and women in polygyny—in Muslim communities, Aliyah had thought the parallel was hyperbole, a gross exaggeration. But now she understood that, until that moment of her epiphany during her algebra lesson, the reality of the bigotry that people like Kalimah regularly faced was merely a variable of “unknown value” in Aliyah’s world.

  It had been much more convenient for Aliyah, a person of marital privilege, to believe that “disadvantaged” people in polygyny deserved their bad reputation and social ostracizing. That way, she didn’t have to admit that her negative view was merely a small but necessary tool in the same sinister beliefs that perpetuated the system of racism in America—and was fueled by both confirmation bias and discarding God’s Words.

  ***

  “I don’t think I would’ve thought to put it like that,” Salima said later, when Aliyah shared her epiphany. “But mashaAllah, you’re right.” Laughter was detectable in Salima’s voice through the earpiece as Aliyah drove the short distance from work to the masjid to pick up Ibrahim.

  “It’s kind of scary though, isn’t it?” Aliyah said, gripping the steering wheel, the earpiece snaking from her ear to her mobile phone in the compartment next to the driver’s seat. “How we only get upset when we’re being wronged, but we have no problem seeing others wronged in a similar way. Then we blame them for the suffering that was at least partly our fault.”

  “It is scary,” Salima agreed. “Especially when I remember how I used to vent to Mikaeel, saying that any problems that women like Kalimah face are ones they created themselves, so I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.”

  “SubhaanAllah,” Aliyah said in lighthearted humor. “You were a completely different person back then, huh?”

  There was a thoughtful pause. “Not completely, no,” Salima said. “Just a bit more self-centered and insecure.”

  “A bit more?” Aliyah said jokingly. “You consider yourself self-centered and insecure?”

  “Don’t you?” Salima spoke as if it were the most natural assumption in the world.

  “No…” Aliyah said, as if waiting for the punch line of the joke.

  “Well, you should,” Salima said matter-of-factly.

  Aliyah laughed out loud. “Are you serious?”

  “Dead,” Salima said. “Everybody’s self-centered and insecure about something. It’s just a matter of staying away from the selfishness and insecurity that doesn’t benefit you.”

  “And when is either of those beneficial?” Aliyah said.

  “When you’re trying to save your soul or get married.”

  Aliyah started to ask what Salima meant then stopped herself. “All marriage choices are selfish on some level,” Benjamin had said during their conversation about American culture.

  “You better be selfish when it comes to saving your soul,” Salima said, “no matter whose feelings get hurt.”

  When Aliyah thought of how her family was hurt after she became Muslim, she realized that she was living proof of believing that she had to put herself first sometimes.

  “And like I told you when you were stressing over Jacob,” Salima said. “When you’re deciding about marriage, then all you need to consider are Allah, the man, and you.”

  Aliyah slowed her car behind a long line of cars at a stoplight down the street from the masjid. “But what about insecurity?” she said. “How is that good?”

  “You should never be too sure of yourself,” Salima said. “That’s why we have naseehah and Istikhaarah.” She grunted. “And trust me, I didn’t seek advice or ask Allah’s guidance before I treated Kalimah like I did. That’s why I say I was a bit more self-centered and insecure than I am now,” she said. “And for all the wrong reasons.”

  “But it’s a difficult subject,” Aliyah said. “I don’t think I would’ve ever married Jacob while he was married to Deanna.”

  “And I think you’re right for that,” Salima said. “I’m not pro-polygamy. But today, I’m a bit wiser when it comes to staying out of matters that don’t concern me. Now I just know polygamy isn’t something I want for myself.”

  Aliyah immediately thought of the hadith, Part of a person’s good Islam is that he stays out of matters that don’t concern him.

  “But,” Salima added, “not wanting it for myself is a far cry from screaming, ‘What women in her right mind would marry an already married man, especially in a country where it’s not allowed? You reap what you sow!’” Salima grunted. “Astaghfirullah,” she said in self-reproach. “I used to say that all the time.’”

  Aliyah was quiet momentarily. “I guess knowing someone in polygyny kind of brings a human face to it though,” she said in thoughtful reflection, wondering how she would feel about plural marriage if she had someone like Kalimah as a friend. “So t
hat helps.”

  Aliyah heard Salima cough laughter. “Not necessarily,” Salima said. “For most of us, it just gives us a tangible target for our vitriol. And believe me, we’re searching for their faults so we can announce to everyone why nobody should do it.”

  “SubhaanAllah,” Aliyah said. “In a way, I think I’m guilty of that. I know it’s allowed, but I still can’t wrap my mind around it.”

  “Like you said, racism makes sense,” Salima replied. “We can tell a lot about what’s really in our hearts based on what we defend and what we condemn.” Salima added, “And what we work to fix and what we work to tear down.”

  Aliyah nodded thoughtfully as the light turned green, and she lifted her foot off the break pedal and eased the car forward. The masjid came into view, and her thoughts immediately shifted to Ibrahim.

  “Marriages have always been fraught with problems,” she heard Salima’s voice through the earpiece. “But Muslim communities are constantly working to fix problems in monogamous marriages,” Salima said.

  “That’s true,” Aliyah uttered non-committedly.

  “We have lectures, counseling, and of course community support,” Salima said. “But with plural marriages, we do everything we can to tear them down.” She huffed. “And we guilt men and women into never doing it. We use legal arguments, we pass around bad stories as cautionary tales, and in some communities,” she said, her voice rising in disapproval, “imams refuse to even perform the ceremonies.”

  Aliyah put on her right signal before turning into the parking lot. “But that’s to protect women from being taken advantage of,” she said.

  Salima coughed laughter. “No, it’s to protect the imams and masjids from legal and social backlash if they’re ever accused of supporting bigamy in this country,” she said. “But it sounds better to say they’re doing it for women’s protection.”