The Study Circle

by Haroun Khan

  THE

  STUDY

  CIRCLE

  Haroun Khan

  dead ink

  Copyright © Haroun Khan 2018

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Haroun Khan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Dead Ink, an imprint of Cinder House Publishing Limited.

  Paperback ISBN 9781911585336

  Hardback ISBN 9781911585329

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc.

  www.deadinkbooks.com

  Let me write of the students

  Those seekers of the truth.

  Who came seeking the truth at the doorstep

  Of the great and mighty.

  These innocents who, with their dim flickering lamps

  Came seeking light

  Where they sell naught but the darkness of long endless nights

  Dedication by Faiz

  1.

  Circles never end, but they close.

  Ishaq stole a look at the darkness descending outside. Week after week you could find him here, kneeling on the floor in respectful attentiveness. The coarse rug, unable to hide the numbing resolve of hard ground, forcing him cross-legged and back again as the lack of feeling in his limbs became unbearable. Unlike the others, he was not used to sitting in these positions. He envied and felt reproached by their ease. It exposed the lack of time he had spent in these gatherings.

  The orator continued:

  ‘As Allah, glorified and exalted be he, says in Surah Ikhlas: “Say: He is God, the One and Only, Allah, the Eternal, Absolute, He begetteth not, nor is He begotten, and there is none like unto Him”’

  Ishaq adjusted his long cotton tunic so as to avoid it getting stuck under his loose salwar trousers. He felt a bead of sweat gather on his forehead, threaten to break free and drip. Uncomfortable as it was, he waited until he was sure no one was looking before taking a swipe at it with a embroidered cuff. He continued on to massage his forehead as he struggled with the pungent aroma of agarwood oil that wafted through the room and enveloped all.

  He had attended this gathering for so many years now, listening to discourses on subjects ranging from those of the theologically highest import like Tawhid – the indivisible and absolute oneness of God – to areas of basic Islamic jurisprudence such as performing your prayers exactly in accordance with the prophetic tradition.

  ‘As the prophet, peace be upon him, told us: “Just this sura or chapter is like a third of the Quran, in that it contains a third of the message and beauty of Al-Islam that we have been honoured with. In the days of ignorance, and even in our times, people have worshipped Fire or Stone. They have taken statues and shrines as objects of worship, their ancestors or even the sun and stars. They have put intercessors, priests or saints and holy men, between themselves and the Creator.”’

  He admired the speaker’s delivery. Sometimes sombre, sometimes solemn, occasionally austere, the style was slow, measured, and pensive. It bestowed added authority on the knowledge that was imparted even though the content had become all too familiar. In unison with the speaker’s steady drum-like intonation it produced a soporific effect in Ishaq. His eyelids felt heavy. He wanted to close them and rest. But was all too aware that other eyes watched. Still, Ishaq took great comfort from the feeling of communality washing over the group, their familiarity eliciting an undercurrent of ease, comfort, and even frivolity, that contrasted with the hefty burden of the subject matter.

  ‘However, Islam came continuing the true message of Abraham, Moses, Noah, and Jesus. Strengthening our natural inclination, our fitra, and affirming that the Creator is above and separate from creation and there is no likeness unto him. That we worship him alone, the most Beneficent, the All-merciful.’

  For nearly five years now Ishaq had attended this pure assembly. Persevering. What Ishaq found in the undiluted form of Islam was wondrous and timeless. The Quran and Hadith held answers to the most fundamental of our questions about life. Why am I here? What is my purpose? How do we live a good life? What happens when I die? Alongside came a body of knowledge and ideals on how to organise society, and economics, and politics, contemplated and ruminated on by scholars in works over hundreds of years, and across numerous civilisations. Indians, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Africans and so many others; an endless torrent of thought instigated by an unlettered man promulgating a divine revelation in another millennium.

  Looking around, he saw all of that diversity and unity around him. Black, brown, and white. Brothers in Islam, in flowing garments, all listening with intent, deliberating on an eternal and unalterable message. This brotherhood of man across all races and strata nourished Ishaq. All were equal before God, only differentiated by their goodness, piety, and knowledge. A life of dignity was within reach of all. One could be rich or poor, surrounded by loved ones or alone, have a life of ease or of hardship, yet Allah would judge them all equally within their means. No secret knowledge. No priests standing between you and God. No church with a hierarchy claiming a sole path of access to the divine.

  Ishaq had internalised all of this and felt blessed in being party, but day-by-day he had grown uneasier within the circle. Yet, on this occasion, just as on all others, he stayed, listening on as the speaker made a finishing supplication in Arabic.

  ‘How perfect you are ya Allah and I praise you. I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except you. I seek your forgiveness and turn to you in repentance’

  The circle’s attendants relaxed as the sermon ended. With their large beards and smiling faces, they faced their neighbours and started to indulge in smaller talk, catching up with their beloved friends. They poured each other generously laden vessels of steaming tea, as was the traditional custom in this, Ishaq’s native land.

  Not wishing to engage them in case they noticed his unrest, Ishaq pushed himself up from the floor with his hands and grabbed his shoes, stumbling while putting them on in haste. He gathered his overcoat, opened the door, and spilled out into the South London night.

  A delicate chill spread over his body. His skin tingled, his face smarting and glowing as the heat generated by the Islamic gathering collided with the solitary cold of the English night. Closing the residential flat’s door behind him and moving onto the balcony, here on the 17th floor of a twenty-storey block, the vast council estate was revealed to Ishaq. A sterile panorama of ashen granite that, from most vantage points, dominated the totality of your vision. Blotting out the rest of the world. A demand to be your sole reality. Spawned from the popular post-war Brutalist style, the estate consisted of half a dozen twenty-storey towers. Monolithic structures that thrust upwards and stood like forbidding sentinels, forever gazing. Joining them were ten, small, four-storey blocks that interlocked with the larger buildings through bridges and tunnels. A cold grey stone covered the larger blocks, peppered by the grubby windows of their constituent flats. In the daytime, sunrays ricocheted downwards between the buildings, adding a grimness to the light that trickled down to those below. At night these huddled edifices looked giant and conspiratorial, their intentions opaque and inscrutable; they created not so much a blackness but a quiet abscess in the loud and beating heart of the city that was London.

  Ishaq’s estate covered half a square mile between Tooting and Streatham, in South London. The word ‘estate’ evoked the idea of a large manor in a green and pleasant land, but this place could never be mistaken for that. In other parts of the world they used words like ‘project’, which seemed even worse, as if the inhabitants were lab subjects to be experimented on. However, in line with the inceptive vision, this
may have indeed been more appropriate. In the sixties, the white working-class that originally inhabited the estate were swept up from other parts of London and placed here, in order to uplift their conditions through this architects’ utopian idyll. Those imperious and idealistic town-planners had talked about ‘streets in the sky’, a benefaction they could bestow on the common folk so they could live in harmony and solidarity cheek by jowl. The thought went that high density housing, while solving the issue of space and poor post-war housing in London, could also promote community and sharing. That was the theory, an idealised and proletarian Laputa, except the cold reality was an underclass, forced to live in confined spaces, pent up in frustration, immobile and stagnating, with no say in who they lived beside.

  Former subjects of the British Empire, such as Ishaq’s parents, joined these initial settlers and came to claim what had been promised. Many of his elders laughed when Muslims were accused of ghettoising themselves, as if there was some planned idea to congregate and concentrate themselves in the most rundown parts of the UK. Their faces had seen the white scrunched-up stares that welcomed them. Quickly urging the council to move their accommodation, and pulling their kids out of schools, these initial white families started a cascading effect that actually resulted in their own complete displacement. Over the last couple of decades they had moved out to areas around Croydon, and to hidden and less salubrious parts of Surrey and Kent. There was no need to be in London, as they didn’t seem to want to do the jobs of serfdom that the Pakistanis and Ghanaians and West Indians and Bangladeshis did. The jobs that made London run; stewarding buses and trains, steering the underground, driving mini-cabs, and cleaning offices. The jobs that kept this city, this great money-making engine, well-oiled and firing, churning out wealth for an international elite.

  Deep in thought, Ishaq’s body jolted as he felt a strong hand clamp onto his shoulder.

  ‘Ishaq, assalmu alaikum, what’s the rush? Been a while since I last saw you. What’s up?’

  He looked round and saw Ayub giving him a mischievous smile that radiated from a bearded face. Ishaq turned to face him, gave a limp shake of the hands and a half-hearted embrace.

  Ayub, like Ishaq, was of Pakistani parentage, though a decade-and–a-half older, with salt-and-pepper hair that seemed well matched to the estate. The main speaker for the circle, it was Ayub’s manner that so impressed Ishaq. Ayub was respected by all of the brothers for his Islamic knowledge, as well as being someone of patience and warmth. A man of good judgement and gentility.

  Ishaq replied with polite formality. ‘Alhamdulillah, I’m good, may Allah reward you for the tadhkirah. It was really beneficial as usual. How are things with you? Your family?’

  Ishaq had been employing a more refined mode of speech as of late. Regularly using Islamic etiquette and salutations. Nice manners, but others noticed how he used it as a stick to ward off intimacy. Ayub said, ‘Alhamdulillah, thank you. Same as normal. Work, and family. My younger brother and sister are growing up quickly. I’m having to keep an eagle eye on them…I haven’t seen you around for a while. Hope you and your family are doing well. Do you still go with them to the car-boot on Sundays?’

  ‘Of course. It’s boring, I don’t like it but they’re getting old. I want to spend as much time with them as possible…other than that I’m just busy with Uni.’ Ishaq’s face forced a smile then retreated to its previous aspect, he hunched his shoulders and made himself small in an attempt to ward off any further inquisition.

  ‘Of course. It’s your final year, right? Subhanallah, makes me feel ancient. I remember you running around the estate with your gang of really heavy ten-year-olds, creating havoc. You were like the Bash Street Kids, with you as Dennis the Menace’ said Ayub, with his face struggling between cheer and concern.

  Ishaq always found Ayub’s stilted attempts at small talk both painful and endearing. Not recognising Ayub’s reference at all, Ishaq forced a laugh, ‘Aha, yea…probably looked something like that…’

  Ayub nodded slightly, his face drew more serious. ‘Brother, you looked a bit preoccupied in there and then you bolted. Like you had seen a jinn. Anything you want to share? It’s not like you.’

  ‘Uhh…nothing. Just busy with studies…deciding what to do once I’ve finished…’ He didn’t want to get into anything with Ayub but, seeing his care and out of respect, he felt obliged to offer some form of answer. ‘I know…I’m sorry…but we do seem to cover the same stuff every week.’

  ‘I’m sorry Ishaq, but I’m not an alim. I cover what basics I know and pass it on. It’s like a tadhkirah, as you say, a reminder to everyone and myself.’

  ‘Akh, I really appreciate that…but it’s more …’ Ishaq paused, and scanned Ayub’s face.

  ‘Go on, I won’t be offended. Saying that, it’s hard not to be after you’ve just been told your talks are really boring,’ Ayub said, once again breaking out a smile. ‘As I said, I’m not a scholar, and nor is anyone else here. We do what we can and do our best to remind each other of the basics. Striving to improve our piety and character, right?’

  Ishaq studied Ayub, this man who did so much for everyone but who somehow seemed from another era. It was best to not stray, move to safer subjects. ‘Did you hear about the march? Those English Defence lot wanting to march right past the mosque sticking two fingers up at us; I’ve been thinking about that a lot.’

  Ayub laughed. It looked genuine. He placed an assuring hand on Ishaq’s shoulder. ‘Subhanallah, well that’s another set of matters. I admit they are a concern. The worst people. They only want to cause trouble. They don’t know us, or want to know. All they are certain of is that they want to start something. To kick-off big time. Like the mosque says, best to stay out and let the authorities deal with it. Ok?’

  Ishaq nodded. ‘Well let’s see what happens, inshallah, and hope for the best. Anyway, may Allah bless you for the advice. I’ll definitely bear it in mind. I’m just tired…Listen, I’d best get back to the books.’

  ‘Ok Ishaq, you know that my door is open anytime. Just remember, be soft of heart, go easy. Give my salams to your family.’ Ayub gave Ishaq a quick embrace and walked back into the flat.

  Ishaq gave his hood a controlled pull up and fastened the zip so that his black coat was tighter. He always took the stairs when in the big blocks, no matter how high up. There was no way he would risk being stuck in a lift with some of the characters around here. Ishaq, like Ayub, was lucky to reside in one of the smaller buildings. Although the situation had drastically improved in recent years, the large blocks, especially the upper floors, were a law unto themselves. You could find yourself trapped, like a battery-caged chicken. He thought of Mrs Siddiq, up on the 20th, varicosed hands clutching at her shawl waiting for his mum’s weekly visit, while the council placed a procession of ashen-faced users either side of her.

  Ishaq scrunched his nose as he passed a set of lifts, the smell of warm urine stinging his nostrils. Like the piss-stained lifts, the floors stank of squalor and menace. Ishaq bounded down the steps three at a time, jumping and using a hand on the bannister to swing round to face every new tier. Graffiti adorned many of the levels; slurs about who slept with whom, who reputedly gave free and easy blow jobs, which flat numbers sold drugs, defiant messages to the police, and badly drawn tags on behalf of a gang or, more likely, a bored teenager. Gliding by the tenth floor, Ishaq saw the all-too-familiar mural that had been sponsored by some bygone well-meaning youth trust. It featured multi-ethnic faces from the youth of the estate, with beaming smiles enveloped in the patronage and radiated-light and white wings of an angel behind them. Ishaq liked it, something of beauty that looked even more luminescent given its location. He always slowed down to take a look before careering back off. On this occasion he saw that someone had scrawled ‘ROZ WOZ ERE’ in thick black spray paint across the whole facade, leaving those once beaming faces looking bereft and disfigured. Nothing ever lasts, he thought.

  Arriving on the 4th floor,
Ishaq used one of the grey stone bridges to get to the adjacent shorter building. From there he could access street level and hop, skip, jump to his place via memorised routes, minimising the time he spent exposed on the ground in the hope of bypassing trouble. As he reached a blind spot of the Estate, Ishaq raised his pace. It was possible to get on with your life, shuttling between work and home, without spending too much time on the streets or getting involved with the neighbours’ issues, good or bad. Still, during long, black, winter evenings when walking through shadows, Ishaq felt like he was rolling dice at a casino. Eyes forward. Body tensed. Breath held. Hoping that you weren’t the next victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Before the corner, he heard footfalls, their padding magnified by the glassy silence into loud pounding. Anytime he encountered someone unfamiliar, even from a distance, he made a quick, automatic assessment. Size. Weight. Gender. Race. Split-second decisions made about whether to walk past or try another route. Groups of young men were especially intimidating, both to older residents and to each other. Ishaq rounded the bend and saw that this time the way was clear. He inhaled rapidly, his fluttered breath grabbing new life, feeling a dangerous joy at a small survival, and a victory, however pyrrhic.

  Nearing home, he saw the crawling lights of a police car creep around the outskirts of the estate. Xenon beams blinding him, exposing him. And then passing over – writing his silhouette against a wall. Police rarely came into the estate proper and then only in large groups, for show or an armed raid. This car moved like a coiled cat, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting mouse that was brave enough to try and escape. Any criminal activity below the threshold of a large drugs arrest or a terrorism charge was normally allowed to fester. A tacit acknowledgement that the police were fine with the estate functioning like a loose anarchy. Haphazardly self-regulating through hidden allegiances and networks.