The Study Circle

by Haroun Khan

  ‘I’m cool like Scooby or even Scrappy; you’re a proper muggy bone-head Shaggy.’

  ‘Get stuffed, at least Shaggy is a geezer. You’re that bare dry wannabe preppy one no one remembers the name of.’

  Ishaq laughed. As they neared the stoop a white boy with grubby dreads, and in a military coat, shouted out to Ishaq, ‘This is barbaric slaughter. Look at these pictures? Are you seriously going to eat out of this canteen?’ The kid thrust a leaflet into Ishaq’s face. Ishaq took a look and saw pictures of distressed sheep being slaughtered, their eyes pleading and betraying fear. Ishaq looked at the boy. After nearly three years he still struggled to maintain eye contact with people. Here and in the outside world it was a form of assurance and confidence building, while at home firm eye contact was a hostile challenge, a prelude to confrontation. Grinning outside your close social circle was seen as naivety and weakness, while here he noticed everyone gave rapid smiles that caused distrust if not reciprocated. Ishaq still had not mastered the continual fluctuation between the two codes and walked around worried that he was too stern faced. His vex-up ‘screwface’ as Marwane put it.

  Ishaq pocketed the leaflet. ‘Sorry fella, I can’t afford to eat in the canteen, I live at home and my mum makes me a pack lunch, but thanks for the info.’

  Marwane was given a leaflet too, he took one look, squashed it into a ball and threw it on the floor. ‘Yo Duuude, why do you rich kids love to dress down so much. Need a cause to fill that empty hole, do ya? I would listen to you if you were a little less smelly.’

  Ishaq put his hand over his eyes and whispered to Marwane, ‘C’mon Marwane, give it a break, let’s just go.’

  ‘Fucking animal-killer arsehole. You people should know better. Karma, you know? You need another Gandhi,’ the boy shouted, as Marwane laughed.

  ‘Mate. Totally wrong people.’

  Ishaq looked around at other students, making a subtle disassociation from his friend and his new mate. He spied another student. Looking like an experiment gone wrong, dressed like the lovechild of Where’s Wally with one of those Mormon missionaries, he could only be from the Conservative Party. The man held aloft a blown-up version of a tabloid front page, which read ‘BRITAIN SECRETLY GOES HALAL. WHAT NEXT?’

  ‘Ok, you’re right. Let’s shift.’

  Seeing the duo turning on their heels, one of the Muslims, a girl in a bright red headscarf with a flowered pattern, came up and said to Ishaq, ‘Brother, it’s your duty to get involved. We must defend our rights.’ Ishaq noted her accent – in his world of glottal stops, Received Pronunciation nearly always meant Received Wisdom.

  Before Marwane could make an inappropriate reply, Ishaq said, ‘Uh…sorry sis, but we’re late for a class.’

  Marwane ignored Ishaq and the obvious lie. ‘Look sis, I respect your activism, but I’m really not bothered about this. Like your hijab by the way, mashallah, is it from Laura Ashley?’

  The girl gave Marwane a terse look, ‘But it’s about halal meat first, then everything else. Prayer hall. Women wearing hijab at uni. It’s the thin end of the wedge. People like you want to avoid issues but the reality of our life is that we can’t avoid them. It’s on all of us to pitch in.’

  ‘Well a lot of Muslims in this country are too lazy and fat.’ Marwane puffed out his cheeks and started waddling around, arms outstretched, mimicking an over-fed belly. ‘So eating a load more veggie stuff might be good for them.’

  ‘This isn’t a joke, brother, this is about our rights as Britons.’

  Ishaq put a mollifying hand on his sidekick, and smiled at the sister. ‘Well, how much so-called halal meat is really halal in the UK? There are strict rules on animal care in the Sharia. I doubt battery-farmed chickens qualify for that.’ He saw that the girl was unhappy with this reply. ‘Ok, well, just settle on Kosher meat. It’s halal for us, and most non-Muslims will be too scared to complain about Jews.’

  ‘That’s really helpful,’ she said, deadpan and with a look of disapproval. ‘Maybe you would be interested in this instead?’ She gave Ishaq a leaflet with the headline ‘THE ISLAMIC REFORMATION’ and a list of talks that were taking place over the next week. ‘It’s a conference on integration of Muslims. They are covering all the issues, with major European political leaders talking as well. You may not want to take part in demos but you should stay informed.’

  ‘Ok, jazakallahukhair, I’ll have a think.’ Ishaq showed the leaflet to Marwane. ‘What do you think?’

  Marwane slipped on a pile of soggy pamphlets, the ground a paper flood. ‘What is it with all these leaflets and conferences? Seriously, I couldn’t care less. Whoopee doo, we’ve got politicians talking about us…again. You’re the cafe latte socialist type. That’s more your thing, isn’t it? Thinking too much and being moody.’

  ‘Go on Marwane, it looks interesting. You can keep me company.’

  ‘What? Are you like five years old and need me to hold your hand? I’m playing footy tonight in the cages on the estate. You should sack this conference off and come with.’

  Ishaq pulled the leaflet back and stashed it in a pocket. ‘I think I’ll go to it…If it’s dry I’ll see if I can make the game.’

  Marwane kissed his teeth as he peeled a mashy sheet off the bottom of his new hi-tops. ‘I really don’t now why you bother. It’s a load of hot air. The Muslims there will be the oh-so-into Persian poetry, airy-fairy, magic-carpet types. Really annoying.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’ll buy a copy of some Rumi or Ferdowsi, wear a kaftan and start whirling.’

  ‘I swear bruv, if you do that I’ll definitely come.’

  Listening to their conversation, the girl politely tried to offer Marwane another option in her Oxford English. ‘Brother, if you are interested, we are also creating a flash mob to feed the poor. It is for the homeless in the East End.’

  Both boys took one glance at each other and started cracking up. Ishaq couldn’t hold himself and doubled-over in hysterics. Tears streamed down Marwane’s face as he held onto Ishaq to keep him up. Slowly, as the laughter subsided and Ishaq composed himself, he saw the sister’s face had contorted in offence.

  In between dampened chuckles he said, ‘Sister, I’m really sorry, I don’t mean to offend but seriously, a bunch of guys, in big beards, and veiled women, appearing out of the middle of nowhere. And then descending on a bunch of unsuspecting homeless people, trying to shove samosas in their mouth? It’ll have them scared out of their wits, no? Even I’m scared thinking about it. They’ll think Bethnal Green is being invaded by the Taliban and a bunch of ninjas. The Prime Minister will call in COBRA.’

  Holding her disdain for the two, she scolded them like wayward children. ‘It’s important we try to help the local community, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Immature attitudes do not help. You guys are real idiots, you know that?’

  ‘I know, sorry sis, sorry. I’ll definitely make the conference. May Allah reward you for your time and patience with us.’ With this Ishaq pulled the still sniggering Marwane away.

  ‘Let me ask her about the scarf again.’

  ‘You’re not asking jack. Let’s go.’

  Just a few steps past, Ishaq and Marwane saw a third group, slightly removed. Garbed mostly in black, they held aloft placards: ‘CAPITALISM = SLAVERY’, ‘THE CALIPHATE IS THE ANSWER’, ‘ISLAM WILL DOMINATE ALL’. The ringleader of the third group, a rotund individual, was looking their way. Ishaq dipped his eyes and lengthened his stride. Marwane whispered, ‘I told you we should get out of here. As night follows day, these flippin’ jokers would be here.’

  ‘You told me? Idiot. We wouldn’t be hanging around if you hadn’t created a flippin’ tamasha,’ hissed Ishaq in reply.

  Abdul-Majid’s mass filled their path, his chubby cheeks framed by a dense but scraggly carpet of a beard. With his wide but short frame this gave him the look of a sweet but alarmed hedgehog. Ishaq resisted the impulse to grab one of those cherubic prickled cheeks and give them a good wiggle.

  Ear
ly on in their university days, Ishaq had spent some time with him through the Islamic society. Abdul-Majid was once a gauche kid from some vague coastal town in Dorset. It was obvious that this was the first time he had been to a big city and been surrounded by Muslim company. They had bonded slightly. He would listen as Abdul-Majid articulated the painful racism he had experienced. About having no backup. No one to talk to.

  As time wore on, when around them, he started to talk as if he was from the ‘ghetto’. He would lower the register of his voice, and descend into what must have seemed a semblance of street talk that he probably coined from bad grime records, and YouTube clips of people he thought were like Ishaq and Marwane. Lots of ‘yea, blud’ and ‘wagwan’. The boys tried to sympathise but couldn’t help smirking, at which point he would ask why they were ‘gassed’, which only served to crack them up. But that was back then, now Abdul-Majid had realised an ambition and wasn’t funny anymore. An ersatz youth from the streets, he grew into a self-constructed Golem.

  ‘Assalmu alaikum, my wasteman brothers. Doing a runner from the issues as usual?’

  ‘Wa alaikum salaam. Not really. Brother. Just busy getting some munch. Hope you are doing well,’ said Ishaq, tasting that empty word of kinship as he brushed past.

  Abdul-Majid took a skip backwards and held a hand out, pressing it slightly against Ishaq’s chest. ‘Woah, what’s the rush. Just trying to be civil, bruv. You lot always ‘praying’ and ‘studying’,’ he said, while making quotation signs. ‘Let’s catch up. You should look around a bit…at the protests, no? When it comes to the reality of the lives of the Muslims you lot do nothing, see nothing, as usual?’

  This group always did a great line in righteous indignation. These people saw themselves as the intellectual renewers of Islam. Abdul-Majid himself became skilled at bombast and histrionic speeches about the debased state of Muslims, and how his group’s way would be a panacea to all their ills. Ishaq did his utmost to avoid them, and now he grinned, took a lethargic look from left to right, finishing with a once-over of this crew. ‘Done. Well it was nice to see you too. I’m sure you are busy making safe that supply of halal hotdogs. We’ll move along. Ta.’

  Abdul-Majid skipped back again, this time with a firmer touch that was almost a push. ‘Hot dogs! You like mocking. Number one at taking the mick, aren’t ya? People like you are the root cause of all our ills? You focus on one small part of the religion and forgo the other bigger responsibilities. Like that hidden pillar of Islam, creating an Islamic state and upholding the law so we don’t have to deal with petty issues like this halal meat nonsense.’

  Abdul-Majid once had little idea of Islamic practices. At uni he fell in with, and then became a leading light for, the Party for the Restoration of the Caliphate. The group that would reanimate the concept of the Islamic State that was lost with the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate. Everything else was subordinate. They saw it as incumbent on all to fight for such a state, via word and maybe deed. The change had felt sudden, but maybe there was always something there, some resentment, waiting for a vessel to hold it. Some grievance, waiting for a channel. Ishaq wasn’t sure what he should have looked for, it hadn’t occurred to him that he should be looking for anything. Abdul-Majid’s jovial demeanour fell away to reveal a boy puffed up in anger.

  ‘Yea, Abdul-Majid. Brah. You know why it’s so well hidden? It’s because it doesn’t actually exist. You’ve just made it up. You help yourself and those around you, and that spreads through the community. Any decent state can come through grassroots change. We’ve been through this loads of times, just be cool and let us through.’

  ‘Ah ha, so you do believe in an Islamic state?’ Abdul-Majid pushed a finger on Ishaq’s sternum.

  Marwane pried the finger off and grabbed Ishaq’s shoulder, while checking his friend’s tensing face. He had seen this circus before. ‘C’mon let’s go, proper rubber dinghy rapids, bro.’

  Ishaq shook his head, pawing off Marwane’s hand, and poked his antagonist back. ‘What do you mean “believe”…I can’t “believe” I get drawn into this again and again with you lot. Yes, an Islamic state in theory is all nice. Self-determination without Western invasion. Without all that constant interference. But you have to be balanced. Be reasonable. Look back in history, look at Hajaj Bin Yusuf. He was a tyrant, and by your ideas we would be forced to live under his fist. Just shouting ‘Islamic State’ won’t solve anything until the people change first.’

  ‘I know my history. I have read far more widely than you. You can’t tell me jack. We had safety and dignity under the state.’ Abdul-Majid’s stance relaxed, as he put his hands on his hips and looked to his colleagues.

  There were some fond memories of this guy. A proud Abdul-Majid had showed him his collection of pretty much every Star Trek novel available. He was passionate in talking about which books were ‘canon’, and had forced Ishaq to sit and watch his favourite film The Wrath of Khan, and went on and on about how The Empire Strikes Back was the best Star Wars episode. Now Wesley Crusher had become Che Intifada.

  ‘Look in history, that wasn’t under people like you. Going on about revolutions and illegitimate rulers. You’re more like brown chocolate Bolsheviks.’ Ishaq’s hand rose with his voice. ‘If you want to go and do that, then go abroad and try your luck. Don’t bother me. You lot couldn’t pull this stuff, these demonstrations, in most Muslim countries, because you’d be arrested’

  ‘Arrested, because we fight for the haq, the truth? Any oppression we get just proclaims our legtimacy and strengthens us. What we need is a political struggle against the imperialists and their agents, those government scholars who give fatwa against the righteous for money and power, and their lapdog acolytes.’ Abdul-Majid’s popping eyes looked at Marwane and then Ishaq. ‘And you talk about character and being religious, but look at how haughty and disdainful you talk.’

  The boys were used to this strangely formal speech. The upright tone. It was a disguise. An unwavering certainty used in offence and defence. An act of self-reinforcement. Assert something strongly enough, without pause, and any doubts were purged in fiery righteousness. ‘I’m sorry, we do this dance every time and it’s tiresome, bruv. All you do is get angry and talk about politics. I’ve been taught that if there is no sincere belief under all of your bluster, no mention of Allah, of being humble in worshipping him, then there is no point. Listen, sincere advice. You go on like this then in ten to fifteen years’ time you’re going to be an empty husk, dried out by all that fiery talk. All your beliefs are built on vapour.’

  ‘And what? We should sit in the mosque and pray all day? We uphold the good and forbid the evil. We want…’

  Ishaq watched this old friend rant. Meekness buried by the armour of God. Residual softness hidden under impenetrable verbal screeds. Ninety percent political and ideological, with a dash of religion on the end. It was so disheartening; no good could come of it.

  ‘Where’s the religion, the deen. The balance of the heart, mind, and action. You guys are so angry. You put people off Islam. How about talking about pleasing Allah? Abdul-Majid, people can’t build whole lives around defiance and hate. You must work for something, not against all the time. These placards…it just seems like you enjoy spitting in people’s faces and trying to wind them up. Where does that get anyone?’

  Abdul-Majid felt this was pleading and looked pleased that he had entrapped Ishaq. Surrounded by his party colleagues who were urging him on. ‘No, we are just proud and brave Muslims, who uphold the truth anytime and anyplace. The same truth everywhere. The prophet peace be upon him said, “Whoever of you sees an injustice, let him change it with his hand. And if he is unable to do so, then let him change it with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then let him hate the injustice with his heart – and that is the weakest level of faith.” Not cowardly like you, skulking away when it gets difficult.’

  ‘Don’t twist things like that Shams…I mean, Abdul-Majid,’ shouted Ishaq, his voice swelling,
‘you lack integrity, you encourage extremists on the sly with words that you think are fancy, but don’t want to get your hands dirty. You take proper liberties as well, you use and abuse the rights in this country. A proper lack of honour.’

  ‘We support the mujahedeen everywhere in spirit. We take the prophetic message that forbids harming non-combatants, and children, and the old. That is far more than the western jackals. We are open that we have a pact of security in that we live in Western lands and the party will not cause harm here as long as we have our right to speak.’

  ‘You can’t even think for yourself, just regurgitate speech because you think it sounds deep or smart. You guys couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything anyway. As for the lot you support “in spirit”, look at what they did in Algeria, and then Afghanistan, then Syria. They get impatient and kill, and this results in a cycle of killing more. And you guys just sit on the side-lines, passively encouraging this behaviour of the jahiliyah by not condemning it, and so you yourselves are part of that jahiliyah.’

  Dumb mistake. A word that shouldn’t be idly thrown. A jahil! One of those pre-Islamic, uncivilised creatures. Those tribal days of idol worship, female infanticide, and spilling of blood. Times before the call of conscience and submission to a higher purpose. Abdul-Majid’s cheeks puffed even further and flushed, his arms outstretched to bring in his mates for support, and he started stabbing in Ishaq’s direction, ‘How dare you call us jahil? You, who live in mental and religious poverty. You, who collaborate with the authorities against the Ummah. I bet you’re working for them now.’

  Ishaq lip wavered. He bit to dampen it. He could feel other students look around as voices became raised. The discussion with the prof was fresh. Even though he had just been threatened an hour previously, his silence made him feel complicit. He was hauling around a secret that was a burden. Abdul-Majid’s colleagues crowded around further, cutting off his view. He could feel the erratic rhythm of the other boy’s breathing. He did always desire a civil conversation with them. Tell them that he felt their anger, at the treatments of their parents, their ancestral countries, how hard it was for all of us today, how they should work together and try to open their hearts as Islamic brothers. He wanted to say all of these things…