Once Were Radicals

by Irfan Yusuf

  I sat with my group in the prayer hall, my cassette player wrapped in my prayer mat. At precisely midnight on New Year’s Eve, I played the song ‘New Year’s Day’ from the U2 album War. I turned up the volume to full blast. Sheikh Fehmi rushed up to me screaming. ‘No, turn it off! This is haraam!’

  Haraam? How could U2 be haraam? They were a good Christian band whose lyrics had no sexual or other sinful content. Plus Qaradawi never said music was haraam. A Lebanese boy named Carter said that most forms of music were haraam, especially when string instruments such as guitars were used. It wasn’t the first time I heard this distinction. Mum taught me that music was sinful, especially when the lyrics contain sexual content. However, she never said music was haraam.

  The usual hijab rule was enforced at the camp. Most girls complied by wearing long skirts or loose pants, long-sleeved tops and their hair had to be covered with a hijab. I didn’t mind this rule at all. For starters, it didn’t affect me. I wasn’t supposed to wear a hijab. And that wasn’t the only element of selfishness. I also found the girls looked more attractive in hijab. It made them look gorgeous but with more piety and a lesser element of … well … sexiness. For many of us, it was a case of guilt-free perving.

  I remember sitting outside with an allegedly more religious ‘brother’ from my cabin during a recreation period. We noticed some ‘sisters in Islam’ walking past. We greeted the sisters with the usual religious greetings and exchanged a few pleasantries. When they were outside earshot, my brother made this pious observation.

  ‘Subhanallah [God is above all imperfections], those sisters look like they are almost ready to marry. I wouldn’t mind marrying the one needing a longer, looser hijab.’

  ‘Why would she need that, brother?’

  My brother looked at me, shocked at my naivety. He then provided a less pious and more blunt explanation.

  ‘Brother, it’s because she’s got big tits!’

  I was stunned, and even more so when another group of sisters walked within earshot of the brother’s comment.

  ‘Astaghfirullah [God have mercy on us]! Brother, how dare you say that about my cousin and your sister in Islam!’ one of these sisters remarked.

  It felt really strange calling the Pakistani girls ‘sister’, especially the ones I had grown up with. Pakistani girls wore traditional shalwar kameez outfits but were resistant to wearing a hijab. Instead, they followed their mothers’ (and my mother’s) example and wore a loose shawl or a thin piece of cloth called a dupatta over part of their hair. They regarded hijab not as a religious requirement but rather as a cultural matter.

  Mum used to often complain about non-Indo-Pakistani Muslim women who were so particular about hijab but who wore shorter skirts or body-hugging jeans. I could hear an echo of her sentiment during a debate about the issue of hijab. One of the debaters, a Lebanese sister, complained about Pakistani women who refused to wear hijab and insisted on wearing cultural clothes. She set off a firestorm, with one Pakistani girl after another standing up and complaining about the Lebanese sister’s comment. One Pakistani sister couldn’t help herself.

  ‘You complain about me not covering my hair. But you wear jeans that are so tight that if you put a ten-cent coin in your back pocket, I could tell if it was heads or tails. And you think covering your hair with a hijab will make you look less of a slut!’

  Spoken like a true disciple of my mum! Islamic Sister-hood had its limits.

  There was one Lebanese sister named Zena who had joined the Pakistani girls by going on strike when it came to hijab. I’d constantly remind her to put it on whenever I saw her, telling her about the punishment of the hellfire that awaited her because of her disobedience to God’s command.

  ‘Sister Zena, I am telling you this for your own good. I would not like to see my own sister in Islam go to hell.’

  ‘Well, my good brother Irfan, what makes you so sure that you won’t end up joining me?’

  Of course, I never had the guts to lecture her Pakistani colleagues lest they report me to my mother and I cop an earful. Still, I wasn’t always obsessed with Islamic movement politics and hijabs. On the last night of the camp, we had a review night. During the camp, I had gained a reputation for doing some pretty good impersonations including one of the leader of a sex-crazy Indian cult known as ‘the Orange People’. The cult leader was known as Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh. My friend Arfeen did a superb Punjabi accent. He was particularly good at impersonating that organiser with the heavy accent. Our mock debate between the Bhagwan and the Canberra academic went down like a lead balloon. However, we followed this up with a rather silly rendition of a one-hit wonder by an Aussie band called The Choirboys. The lyrics of ‘Run to Paradise’ became ‘Run to Jindabyne’, and we used tennis rackets and cricket bats to mime guitars.

  We called our amateur musical outfit ‘Pakattack’. Our sad attempt at being hard Islamic (or un-Islamic, depending on your perspective) rockers gained us a cult following from the sisters, many of whom had a good scream when Arfeen and I jumped in the air simultaneously at the end. Sheikh Fehmi, on the other hand, almost had a cardiac arrest. I wasn’t sure if it was our clumsy lyrical transformation or our nonexistent guitar skills or even our lewd bodily moves that caused such a stir with the sisters. What I do know is that Sheikh Fehmi was so disgusted with our performance that he walked out. We never saw him at any future AFIC camp.

  Sister Zena also wasn’t terribly impressed. ‘So brother Irfan, you have spent the whole camp lecturing me about how I’m heading for hell. You then finish off the camp by impersonating one of our elders and then dancing lewdly on stage. Perhaps you should be the one wearing a hijab!’

  Sister Zena’s dressing down didn’t stop my hijab antics. I started reading more conservative books on the subject. Among them was a book by Maududi called Purdah and the Status of Women in Islam. I never heard the word ‘purdah’ used at camps, probably because it was more of a cultural practice that reflected class snobbery than religious modesty. Afterwards, at one of the IYA study circles in Lakemba, one of the youth supervisors from the camp told us that Indo-Pakistani Muslims tend to be too strict with gender segregation.

  Mum started to become quite annoyed with my constantly badgering her and my sisters about wearing hijab. When I dared to suggest she would earn gunna (negative spiritual currency) and be punished by God if she didn’t start wearing hijab when she went shopping, Mum used her full Urdu and Hindlish vocabulary to express her displeasure.

  ‘How dare you lecture me on appropriate attire, young man. I am perfectly aware of what my God expects of me. Yoo no right tell me vaat I cover head ven go shopping. Look your Lebniz so-call sister vare tight is-skirt and show all bi-reast and think the God happy with only cover with hijab! They doing haraam! I would relish the opportunity to repeat these words in the presence of your alleged sisters in Islam.’

  My obsession with this issue became so great that I even tried my hand at lecturing my eldest sister.

  ‘Seriously, there is so much evidence from the Koran and hadith that hijab is fardh [compulsory].’

  ‘So Irfan, let me get this right. You are saying to me that I should wear hijab to the office.’

  ‘Well, if God requires you to do that then you must.’

  ‘And would you grow a beard and wear a cap and long robes to uni?’

  ‘Well, I don’t have to. It’s not compulsory for me to do this.’

  ‘And you think it’s compulsory for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So what should I do about my job? Will you work on my behalf so that my husband and I can afford to pay rent and food and save up to buy a house?’

  ‘Well, why can’t you at least try to wear hijab? I mean, what means more to you—keeping your job or obeying God? Would you rather show your hair and your legs to your workmates or …’

  My sister’s husband could see where this was leading. He carefully laid a trap.

  ‘So Irfan, are you telling your sister
that if she doesn’t wear a hijab, then she shouldn’t work?’

  ‘Well, I guess I am.’

  That was it. I was fenced in. Not even in my most conservative state could I imagine women in my family not working. It went against everything Mum had instilled in us. Mum always told my sisters that they must be educated and have the ability to earn money so that they could be financially independent. She even insisted that I marry a woman who was educated and could earn a living. I felt ashamed of myself for not being able to balance my (privately held and recently acquired) attitudes towards religion and my relationship with my family. Even worse, I had embarrassed my sister in the presence of her husband, someone who I treated as my elder brother.

  By now, readers might imagine my mother to be a tough cookie. When it comes to my sister, they should multiply Mum’s toughness by at least one hundred. She was employed in a senior management role in a publicly listed company, and her husband was even more senior in the corporate world. My attempts to micro-manage my sister’s dress sense led to her serving my ears with a generous main course of lashing, my parents happily following this with dessert and finally pouring my ears with piping hot tea and coffee. I mean that metaphorically, but at the time it felt almost as painful as if administered literally.

  I soon realised that I was probably more fearful of the wrath of my Indo-Pakistani family elders than of God Almighty. This whole idea of dedicating myself to establishing God’s law on earth wasn’t so easy. I’d read stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions being tortured and subjected to social and economic boycotts and having to face armies between three and twenty times their size. And here I was, fourteen centuries later, unable to convince my believing sister that she might believe in a more proper manner. Reading about the Islamic movement was clearly much easier than implementing it.

  My parents were quite concerned about the books I was reading and the people I was mixing with. It was one thing to debate divinity teachers about doctrine but something else to openly try to impose restrictions on the behaviour of one’s elders. My parents were on the verge of imposing some restrictions of their own. The arrival of my HSC results provided the perfect opportunity.

  Before sitting for my HSC, I often boasted to my parents that I’d definitely get enough marks to get into medicine. After the exams, I realised it was time to reduce their expectations. I knew I must have bombed out in my Physics exam, but couldn’t have predicted bombing out in Chemistry as well. However, I still boasted that I’d at least get enough marks to get into law at the University of Sydney.

  The envelope finally arrived. I had a casual job at the time, and Mum telephoned me at work in tears.

  That afternoon when I got home, Dad was talking my marks up, but I could tell he was extremely disappointed. I’d only managed 408 out of 500.

  Only? My best mate from school, Don, couldn’t believe my parents and I were upset I’d ‘only’ achieved 81.6 per cent while he and his parents were happy he’d managed to scrape a pass. Don had also done some intelligence work and discovered I had only been beaten by seven other guys in our school year.

  My parents were not appeased by this information. My sister who sat the HSC immediately before me had scored well over 430 and had almost finished medicine. Faced with my parents’ disenchantment I plunged into a state of near depression. Dad and I drove to Taylor Square at 11 p.m. where the next day’s paper showing university placements would be published so we could find out early. Dad was hoping I’d at least get into dentistry so that I might then transfer to medicine. No such luck. I missed out by three marks. I didn’t even get into law at Sydney Uni. The best choices I had were law at Macquarie or ANU in Canberra.

  I remembered what my English teacher had told me at the end of Year 11 about considering a career in journalism. The cut-off mark for mass communications was exactly 408, the same as for law. I spoke to Dad. He gave me the best advice in the worst possible manner: ‘You must do law. If you want to do journalism, do it under someone else’s roof.’

  Later, he softened the blow by explaining his reasoning. ‘I know you are an excellent writer and an excellent debater. It shows in your English results. My father studied law, and he died early in life when I was only sixteen. He never wanted me to do law. He always wanted me to do medicine. I failed my matriculation exam the first time and he was very disappointed. But the next time around, I did really well and got into a pre-medical course. I tried doing it for a year, but I just couldn’t stand the sight of blood. So I switched to mathematics.’

  From medicine to mathematics? It didn’t make much sense to me. I tried to understand what he was getting at. I took a stab in the dark.

  ‘Dad, do you want me to repeat the HSC?’

  ‘No way. You will waste a year of your life. I want you to do law at Macquarie. Try your best and work really hard. You might end up getting a transfer to medicine or even to law at Sydney University. Don’t do mass communications. If you become a lawyer, you can always change to journalism or writing later in life. But doing journalism and then trying to make the transition to law will be much harder. And try to reduce your interest in Islam. Religion isn’t everything in life. No one will employ you if you are a fanatic. And no woman wants to have a fanatic for a boyfriend or a husband.’

  It was excellent advice, only part of which I followed. I enrolled in law, but didn’t study too hard. Instead, I immersed myself in sorting out exactly what kind of Muslim I wanted to be. Instead of attending lectures and tutorials, I would drive to religious gatherings or have religious discussions with fellow Muslim students. Instead of reading my course notes or preparing assignments, I was preparing lessons to give at the IYA study circles on Saturday afternoons where I was reminding myself as well as those listening of the need to find God and spread His word.

  Looking back now, it sounds just so silly that we were so absorbed in my Year 12 marks. At just about every school reunion, I meet guys who didn’t make it to uni and yet have paid off houses and investment properties. Academic achievement isn’t the sure road to financial security my parents and Indian uncles and aunties made it out to be.

  Some interesting developments were taking place in the Islamic movement around this time. Imam Chami was wrong about Islamic movement leaders not wanting to change their host countries. In the United Kingdom, a rather eccentric former journalist named Kalim Siddiqui had gone to the extent of forming his own Muslim Parliament. I often heard Dad and his more secular friends mutter about Kalim Siddiqui. The whole idea of English Muslims having a separate parliament to England’s House of Commons and House of Lords seemed absurd and unnecessarily provocative. Dad would later find Kalim Siddiqui particularly offensive after he supported Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa (religious ruling, though in Rushdie’s case it was really a death sentence) for Salman Rushdie to be murdered for writing The Satanic Verses.

  Kalim Siddiqui was criticised by some Sunni Muslims for being too pro-Iran. But in this regard Siddiqui did have a fan club in Sydney in the form of a small elite group, a motley mix of Sunni and Shia Muslims calling themselves the Senior Usrah Group. Their ideas were controversial, even revolutionary for their time. Yet they were individuals who commanded enormous influence in various sectors of ethnic Muslim communities and in various religious institutions.

  Among the Senior Usrah crowd was a rather jovial Indian chap named Zia. Also among their number was one pious-looking Arab Shia, Dr T, as well as an architect and Australian representative of the Afghan Jamiat-i-Islami mujahideen faction in Australia named Mahmud Saikal. Then there was an Anglo-Australian convert, Damien, and a Canberra student and ex-socialist of Malay origin named Imran. There was a handful of other people, including a Palestinian chap named Jamal. And on one occasion there was even an undergraduate Macquarie law student who probably should have been at home studying.

  It felt exciting to be part of such an elite group. They held secret meetings (called shura or consultative management) early on Sunday mor
nings just after sunrise, gathering at a small hut the University of NSW had allocated to its Muslim Students’ Association. The meetings apparently all had the same format—at least that’s what I was told. I only ever attended one of these secret meetings. When I was first invited to a meeting, I was warned not to tell anyone. But I was so excited about this invitation that I blurted it out to my old camp buddy Shaf. I expected him to be suitably impressed, perhaps even jealous. What I learned instead was that Shaf was part of the broad anti-Shia coalition which I called the supersonic Sunni faction.

  Shaf warned me against attending as the Senior Usrah engaged in bidah. The first time I heard this word, I imagined it referred to some dark, secret religious arts and ceremonies. But after hearing Shaf’s explanation, I learned it had a more benign meaning. ‘Bro, these Shia practise bidah, which means they do things that the Prophet never did.’

  Like what? Drive cars instead of camels? Use telephones instead of telepathy? ‘No. I mean they practise the religion in a way the Prophet never did,’ Shaf explained. This kind of supersonic Sunni sectarian prejudice laced as guidance proved about as clear as the contents of the sewage pipes of the Saudi embassy. Which was where it all came from anyway.

  Shaf told me that Shia Muslims apparently rejected anything from the Prophet’s first three caliphs and only followed the fourth one. Hence, they rejected the sunna and engaged in bidah. And now they wanted to get Sunni Muslims to also engage in bidah, hoping to take over the Muslim world by convincing well-meaning Muslims like me to act as their useful idiots. I didn’t believe him. As if I’d believe anyone who called me an idiot!

  The Senior Usra shura meeting started with the appointment of a chairman (known as a naqeeb). Different meetings would have a different naqeeb. This practice of having a rotating naqeeb proved particularly contentious among the supersonic Sunni faction. Apparently Sunni Muslims follow the sunna (example of the Prophet and his four caliphs or successors) and select one leader (called an amir) who runs the show for … well … pretty much until he drops dead. I thought it was so cool that the Senior Usrah were being all touchy-feely-ecumenicky in allowing ourselves to incorporate Shia principles of administration.