Love in a Headscarf (14 page)

“I would,” he said softly, unapologetically. “But I’d still really like to meet you,” he cajoled. “Please think about it.”

I recounted the sorry tale to my father, who was wiser and more perceptive. He made a simple statement: “Tell him that women are not sold by the yard.”

Irrationally, I failed to decline his invitation and I did meet him for dinner. Curiosity? Attraction? Uncowed optimism? Attraction to doom? I should have noted that because he had already defined me as unsuitable, he had left himself with the option to carry on with the relationship but he had taken away any choice I might have had to reject him. He had kept all the power for himself and, weakly, I went along with it.

At dinner he insisted we “go Dutch.” He reiterated that he had already made his intentions clear. We were simply friends. “You are very pretty though.
Very
attractive,” he emphasized. “But just way too short, it’s a shame.” I wondered if he thought short people had no feelings.

I seethed inside at how ungallant he was. He failed to meet the universal standards of good manners that were present equally in British, Asian, and Islamic etiquette. He was stingy. It would still be courteous of the man to pay, or at least to make a pretense of wanting to pay. I would have contributed anyway.

We left the restaurant. He insisted that he wanted to eat dessert. I was feeling bloated after our meal but I agreed to have some tea while he ate his pudding. I ordered tea, he ordered tea, dessert, and after dinner chocolates. Neither of us had change to settle the bill, so we put in a ten-pound note each. The waiter returned the saucer with our receipt and the balance of the money. He took all the change and put his share as well as mine in his pocket without batting an eyelid.

I thought again about how the intensity of looking for love can reveal so much about a person. The feeling that Khalil had evoked inside me had made me forget how important character was. The words of the Prophet rang clearly in my head: “Don’t select a partner on the basis of looks or wealth, because those qualities will disappear.” Khalil had rejected me because he had a fixed idea of how I should look—and a completely irrational idea at that. It was not a companion that he wanted but a doll, a plaything built to his exact specification. And what should I make of the strange behavior with the money? I wanted to share my life with someone who had generosity of spirit. That would be the kind of man who would take me closer to the Creator. I wanted to learn from my husband how to be a better person. I couldn’t afford to marry a man who was miserly and didn’t think anything of it.

Khalil’s unrealistic and irrational expectations had denied him possibilities, including the possibility to be with someone who would make a good companion. And although he was polite and well-spoken, his actions showed how little respect he had for others. I couldn’t spend a lifetime with someone who would control and manipulate, no matter how wonderful they seemed to be. In a few days of speaking on the phone, within a few hours of meeting, the starkness of the process had forced Khalil to show his hand. Had we been dating, he could have strung me along for months before revealing his preconceived ideas.

I confronted myself and challenged my own inner being to be honest: were my expectations just as rigid? Was I just as irrational and blind to any unrealistic demands of my own? The questions swam around and around in my mind, making me nauseous.

Soon after, I met Mobeen and tried to be more open-minded. Again we arranged to meet in central London away from the eyes of gossips. I was waiting for him outside the ice-cream shop we had chosen for our rendezvous when my phone rang.

“
Salam alaikum
,” said the voice.

I responded, “
Alaikum salam.
”

“Er, hi, it’s Mobeen.” He had a nice clear voice, smart and sophisticated.

“Hello, Mobeen,” I replied.

“Listen, I’m really sorry, but I’m running a bit late.”

Late. My life always seemed to run late.

“That’s okay,” I answered. I wanted to be gracious, give him a chance, not prejudge him, not find myself guilty as charged. Perhaps he had a genuine reason. At least he had called to let me know. But how was it that so many of the men were always late? I still cringed whenever cricket was on TV.

“How long do you think you’ll be?” I asked him.

“About half an hour.”

“I’ll see you then.” I closed my phone, tucked it into my handbag, and walked toward the shops to browse. I would easily be back before he arrived and he could always ring me. No point standing forlornly in public. I became immersed in the window displays, making the best of the situation. I wouldn’t let myself become distressed over a thirty-minute delay. I resolved to make the most of the extra time.

A young Asian man approached me. “Excuse me, I think I know you.”

My blind date is running late, and now I’m being chatted up by a complete stranger.

He looked at me with such assurance that I wondered if I just simply didn’t recognize him. Maybe I did know him? If I told him bluntly that I didn’t know him, and he turned out to be a family friend, then I would appear very rude. I was cautious in my response just in case I did know him.

“Where do you think we’ve met?”

He looked at me genuinely. “At sixth form college.” He smiled, encouraging me to participate. I returned his gaze blankly. “You know, in A level class together,” he added.

I’d caught him out. “I went to a girls’ only school, no boys in class,” I retorted, and turning heel I walked off. He ran after me.

Oh no
, I thought, picking up speed,
I’m attracting strange men who stalk me in public.
I started walking more furiously.

“Shelina! Shelina!” he yelped. How did he know my name? I felt scared now.

“Shelina! Shelina! It’s me, Mobeen!” I stopped and swiveled.

“Mobeen? But, but, you’re running late!” I blurted out. Mobeen was thirty minutes away.

I turned to look at the spot where the stranger had just approached and propositioned me.

“But, you, but, just now, over there, but …” I looked at him in confusion and distress. He responded by grinning at me. He sat me down at a nearby café and ordered two coffees for us.

He smiled happily, like a little beam of sunlight, but I felt a dark menacing cloud inside me. I kept repeating my mantra not to prejudge, not to be guilty of fixed expectations. Maybe he was a bit nervous, that was all?

“I wanted to see if you had a sense of humor,” he began. “And so I thought I would play a little practical joke on you.” He smiled, happier still. “You have a very good sense of humor, you took it very well!” He kept grinning. “I really like that, most girls don’t show such humor.”

I was pleased that I had passed the GSOH test. I was more pleased I had held on to my own respect and dignity. Sadly, Mobeen had not. In the race to think about what he wanted in a partner, he had forgotten that he was in the process of making an impression on me. And he had forgotten his actions would tell me more about his character than any number of words could have done.

My grandmother had recounted to me the process of selecting a suitor when she was young. If a boy presented himself to a family, and if they deemed that he was of good character and background, could earn a living, and had no untoward characteristics, then the family had no choice but to accept his proposal. There was no exploration of “compatibility” or “attraction.” You couldn’t be too picky. If a family kept a daughter in the house too long it was considered shameful. What reason could they give for refusing the first offer that came along? What if that was going to be the best or only offer that she got?

I asked my grandmother many questions about growing up as an Asian woman in the first half of the twentieth century in Tanzania. I don’t believe that her experiences were necessarily unique to her being Muslim but reflected her time and provenance from the Asian community. I imagine her Hindu, Sikh, and Christian Asian counterparts, who were quite numerous in the town where she grew up, would have experienced much the same as she did.

She told me that one day, when she was fifteen, her father—who by all accounts was a very kind, generous, and compassionate man and also deeply pious—took her to the window of their house and pulled the curtains back slightly. He pointed at a small man walking away from the house and told her, “You are engaged to this man.” She was married soon after.

My grandmother recounted the story without surprise, as though this was an experience typical of her time. I believe this was the way things were done and that her father had nothing but love for her. My mother tells me that he was more loving to his daughters than his sons. When a son was born to his wife, he would give a monetary gift to the midwife and helpers. When a daughter was born, he would give them twice that. He had seven children in total. In a time when sons, as in many cultures even today, reigned supreme over daughters, this was an incredibly unusual, pioneering—and most of all Islamic—action. So I can only believe that the way he found partners for his daughters was with the same dignity, piety, and love. How else was a young woman to be married and to have her own home?

My grandmother, like her peers, would most likely have had little knowledge of the men of the world, having been rarely exposed to them, and so she relied on her father’s judgment and connections to find someone suitable. If she didn’t marry at around fifteen, what else was she to do? A young woman would be quite mature by this age and considered to be an adult.

If the young woman didn’t marry, she would be “holding up the line” for any younger siblings. A younger sister could not marry until the older one had, otherwise the elder sister’s chances would be blown forever. Every choice a young woman made, or every action she undertook, was a communal affair—driven by, but also impacting those around her. Just like all human beings, the young woman did not—and still doesn’t—live in a vacuum. The destiny of those around her is intertwined with her own.

A young woman had to get married: for her to remain at home with her parents until she grew old would not allow her to fully flourish in the society of that era. It was also clearly impractical. Women were not able at that time to be entirely financially and socially independent—as was the case in Western societies, too—and society was family based. Once her parents died, who would look after her? What autonomy would she have? From a social and cultural perspective, marriage was a way for a woman to get status and some control over her destiny. It was believed that she could flower into womanhood in her own home, where she would be running her own show and experience a new level of happiness. From an Islamic perspective, both men and women were thought to be at their most complete when they were married. Besides, rightly or wrongly, it was believed that what women wanted most was to have their own home under their own control and then to have children.

The marriages of that time reflected the socially accepted split of responsibilities between the husband and the wife. The husband would bring in the wages: the wife would look after the home and the children. The Islamic marriage contract that bound them together does not enforce these duties on a wife. The husband certainly is responsible for providing maintenance and shelter for his wife and family. She can participate in meeting their financial needs if she wants to, or if she needs to, but she doesn’t have to. Her official obligations as a wife do not include cleaning, cooking, or even looking after the children. Her responsibility is to be a good companion to her husband. But in all aspects of Islamic law,
shari’ah
, a person’s obligations are set at the very minimum limit. If you fulfill those obligations then you have followed the letter of the law but not its spirit. As a Muslim, you are encouraged to be compassionate and kind and go beyond the rules and give more than you expect to receive in return. In marriage, certainly in my grandmother’s time, that meant men should support their wives in the home and women should look after the husband and family in return. The rules do not make you do any of these things: it is your love for each other that inspires you.

My grandmother had ten children. I remember her as constantly smiling, her Qur’an in one hand, her
tasbeeh
of prayer beads in another. She had woken up every night for more than fifty years to pray her middle-of-the-night prayers, and she stayed awake until the morning, reciting verses from the Qur’an. On the occasions she stayed, when I came down for breakfast in the morning she was already wide awake, making tea, smiling, always smiling.

She had the most radiant energy of anyone I remember, and this has left a lasting impact on me. No matter what troubles she faced, she was always content. My mother said that she was like that ever since she could recall. I could only attribute it to two things: her calm demeanor and her constant consciousness of God. She was always with her Creator, always thinking of her Sustainer, always connected. Her love for husband, children, and community was intertwined effortlessly with her Love for the Divine. I found her very comforting and soothing. I wanted to know her secret. But she didn’t appear to have any mysterious methods. She was simply dedicated to the Creator, and made sure to treat everyone with kindness. She was the embodiment of “Islam.” She was an ordinary unsung person, who hadn’t changed the big world out there. But she had completely changed the world inside herself, she had won over all the people around her, and all of that made her a hero in her own life.

She told me her stories of being a married woman and prayed that I would find a good husband. “Be kind to them and they will be kind to you,” she advised. “Look after your community. Work hard. There will be ups and downs in marriage. The way that the relationship within a marriage will work when you are married, will be the same today as it was when I got married.

“You must look after your husband. I know people have different ideas today, but if you look after him, then he will look after you, remember that, even when it feels hard, even when you don’t get what you want. Once you get married, then comes the difficult part. Remember to say sorry, even if it is not your fault. Men are different from women. When we are upset we hold it inside, men get it out of their system and then forget. In fifty years’ time, who will remember if it was your mistake or his? You’re on the same side, so does it matter if you apologize and he made the mistake? What he will remember is that he had a wife who loved him, and who he still cares about after so many years.”