The Scope of Permissibility, page 1
Contents
Title Page
1 Sara
2 Abida
3 Naeem
4 Sara
5 Abida
6 Naeem
7 Sara
8 Abida
9 Naeem
10 Sara
11 Abida
12 Naeem
13 Sara
14 Abida
15 Naeem
16 Sara
17 Abida
18 Naeem
19 Sara
20 Abida
21 Naeem
22 Sara
23 Abida
24 Naeem
25 Sara
26 Abida
27 Naeem
28 Sara
29 Abida
30 Naeem
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
1
Sara
She would not look at Naeem, she simply would not. Sara had made the same resolution before, but today it would stick. She sat in a chair alongside the other girls and placed her hands in her lap. Around the room, she heard the low rumble of voices, smelled the sharp chemical whiff of deodorant that signalled the arrival of the boys. She kept her head lowered. Naeem would have arrived by now, would be seated on the other side of the table where the boys maintained an appropriate distance from the girls. But she had to focus. It was the first Muslim Students’ Association meeting of the university semester and there was so much to discuss.
A sheet of paper was passed around the table. When it was placed in front of her, Sara scanned the names on the list before adding her own next to Ahlam Dib. Naeem’s name was already on the adjoining side of the page below Wahid Faridi and Ziad Allouche. Naeem Kazi. For Sara, names held weight. She knew that Ahlam, for instance, would be forever marked by the inability of Australian English to cater for the deepthroated ‘h’ sound, which would have skimmed over the tongue in Arabic. Ahlam would have learned from her early years to spot the furrowed brow of the teacher as they arrived at her name on the classroom roll, trained her ears to recognise the approximation of her name they conjured into being. Naeem would not have experienced this difficulty, his name being phonetic and orderly, while her own name could not be of interest to anyone except to wonder how it was that Sara Andrews was born to two Muslim parents.
Sara passed the paper on to Abida, the last person to mark their name. Three boys, three girls, a tiny subset of the much larger MSA cohort on campus. There were the hundreds who came to pray at the musallah but who were uninvolved in the MSA, the dozens who drifted in and out of their events, and then there were the dedicated few who made events happen. More recently Sara had found herself in the latter category. She noted the liberal application of pink blush across Ahlam’s high cheekbones, the nascent wisps of hair on Abida’s chin jutting out from under her hijab. There was no one else to look at now, not unless she chanced a glance across the empty space demarcating male from female. Instead, she examined the thin carpeted floorings of the musallah, a former science classroom the university had allocated to its Muslim students for prayer. It was shabby, hidden down an obscure corridor at the edge of campus, but it was theirs. Sara leaned over to Abida, intending to whisper something about going to the cafeteria for a meal afterwards, but just as she did Ziad rapped his knuckles against the table and began to speak.
‘Assalamu alaykum, all, and thanks for coming to the first meeting of the Muslim Students’ Association for this year. We don’t have a big turnout today and our president, Mustafa, sends his apologies, so it should be a quick one. Does anyone want to write on the board as we go through the agenda?’
Abida would volunteer, she was noisy and impassioned, but it was Naeem who reached for the marker and walked towards the whiteboard at the front of the room, standing alongside it with his arms folded. His beard did not sprout beyond his chin, indicating that he was still in that transitional phase approaching manhood, but his height and pressed dark denim jeans suggested to Sara that he was some way along. She twisted about in her seat, wondering if she could reposition her chair so that her view of him was unobstructed. Already, she was faltering. She was so seldom afforded a pretext to observe him.
‘The first item on the agenda is Islamic Awareness Week. Although it’s still a while away, there’s so much to do that we really need to start planning the theme and events now. This is our biggest opportunity to really get the message of Islam out to all the students here on campus, so if anyone has an idea for a theme, let’s hear it,’ Ziad said.
‘I was thinking it would be nice to do something about Islam and its contribution to arts and literature. Everyone loves Rumi poetry and apparently Leonardo DiCaprio is going to be playing him in a movie soon, so there’s bound to be a lot of interest,’ Ahlam said.
Someone clicked their tongue on the boys’ side of the table. The sound was too immediate for it to have emanated from Naeem, and she did not think Ziad would have been so unkind. This eliminated everyone except Wahid, who now leaned forward in his chair.
‘No offence, sis, but you’re not going to get anyone coming if you make Islamic Awareness Week all about things like that,’ he said. ‘People come to our events for hard-hitting topical discussions on Islam and contemporary issues, not fluff.’
‘I would hardly call Rumi fluff.’ Ahlam addressed Wahid’s vicinity without seeking to meet his eye. Sara had learned that this imprecision of manner was expected in the MSA when a boy spoke to a girl and vice versa. Elsewhere on campus, flirtation was obsolete, a relic from a pre-Tinder age, but she thought it touching that the spectre of it was still alive in here, colouring even the most innocuous of gestures.
Wahid shrugged and ran his hand through his backcombed hair. Afghan and burly, he was the most handsome boy Sara had encountered in the MSA, his shirt fitted to the precise contours of his upper arms. But she turned now to Naeem, who had written the words ISLAM AND CULTURE on the board in capitals. His fingers were long and slim with trimmed nails. As her gaze travelled up the planes of his neck and towards his eyes, Sara realised that he too was looking at her, and they both looked down at the floor.
‘If people want a dose of controversy and Islam they can just pick up their phone any day of the week, not come to Islamic Awareness Week events,’ Abida said, gesturing at Wahid with her index finger as she spoke. ‘We need to show people the flaws in their understanding and make them think differently.’
Abida had been a prefect at the competitive selective school she and Sara had attended and was accustomed to leading, to shepherding people into agreement with her views. Unlike his deputy, Ziad, Mustafa possessed enough gravitas to manage the differing perspectives within the group. But Sara liked Ziad, liked his ungainliness. Many of the MSA boys possessed the mannerisms of much older men, assuming a form of stiff ceremoniousness she presumed they equated with piety. They wore hoodies and pinstriped shirts and chunky, expensive sneakers. The girls were far more varied, in anything from formless dresses like Abida’s oversized mauve abayas to boyfriend jeans and spiky bejewelled necklaces placed atop their hijabs coiled like snakes.
‘What would you suggest then, sis?’ Ziad flicked his phone about in his palm, rotating it until it fell to the table.
‘I was thinking we could explore a theme on the wreckage of the post-colonial Muslim world, looking at a range of countries people think they’re experts on just because they’ve read a headline about how backwards and war-torn they are. And, of course, we can’t forget the ongoing colonial invasion and genocide of the First Nations People of this very country,’ Abida said, her hands moving about before her, the scalloped fringe of her hijab dusting Sara’s shoulder.
Of late, Abida made frequent references to colonialism and feminism and neoliberalism and other isms Sara did not always recognise. She wrote lengthy online diatribes about it and reproached MSA boys who shared memes and videos she deemed misogynistic. She decried Jordan Peterson as a ‘proto-fascist’ and wore Black Lives Matter t-shirts over her abayas. Sara supposed she ought to care about these issues too, but she thought it was taxing to perceive the world as Abida did, as a series of vexations and slights to be redressed. She was resigned to the world’s ills, to the surname and green eyes she had inherited from slave-masters and settlers of centuries ago.
‘I think that’s a good idea, actually,’ Wahid said. ‘It builds on our theme from last year, Extremely Moderate, on the pressure to be a so-called “moderate Muslim” and how it’s always outsiders who get to define what that means.’
Naeem continued to write on the board as the others spoke. Sara noted, not for the first time, the slick of his black hair, the erect posture which denoted money and rigorous parenting and ironed shirts appearing with regularity on his bedside table.
‘We’ll leave it at that for now,’ Ziad said, ‘and we can have further discussions on the group chat, inshaAllah. Now on to the next agenda item, our upcoming charity bake sale to raise money for the crisis in Yemen.’
‘I’m happy to take charge of this one, Ziad,’ Ahlam said, quickly.
‘Thanks, sis. Can I please get everyone to send through what they’re making to sister Ahlam by the end of the week so we can coordinate the display? We really want to raise a thousand dollars at least, so let’s put on our best baking hats. Or should I say baking hijabs, for the ladies?’
There was a collective groan, a splutter of muted laughter. Sara smiled, to show Ziad that she appreci
‘Okay, let’s move on to our mentoring scheme for the new MSA members starting at university this semester. We’ve already started matching the first years with some of our second and third year members –’
‘Brothers are only being matched up with brothers, right? And sisters with sisters?’ Wahid said.
‘That goes without saying, bro.’ Ziad glanced across the table to the girls, seeking an affirmation that did not come.
‘Good,’ Wahid said. ‘We want to show the new students that, while the rest of the university gets on with all their toga parties and hook-ups, we in the MSA can maintain some standards.’
‘But some MSA people hang out with the opposite sex too, surely?’ Sara spoke without forethought. The steady thrum of her internal radio had somehow transmuted into audible speech; Naeem’s presence had interfered with its transmission. When Naeem was in her vicinity, she found herself behaving in a manner she did not always recognise. Her voice seemed too brash for the setting now, and she was conscious of Abida pinching the soft fat of her upper thigh under the table, of the tightening of Naeem’s fingers around the whiteboard marker.
‘Some do, definitely,’ Wahid said. ‘And the ones who don’t could be chatting on their phones, where no one can see what they’re up to – I could be doing it right now – but we can at least try to ensure that we don’t give them opportunities to do it.’ He enunciated all the consonants in the word opportunities, his elbows raised from the table as he gesticulated. From the vagueness of his address, it was obvious that he had no idea who she was. Sara did not speak at meetings, did not offer observations on the frequent and lively group chat discussions. They discussed everything from climate change to the Taliban, Harry and Meghan to the permissibility of Botox injections. She was a silent observer throughout, embedded in their midst, devouring their content and discussions, but set apart by her own unwillingness to be noticed and pinned down on her stances.
‘I guess so,’ Sara said eventually. She had no desire to engage in arguments, theological or otherwise. In any case she held no opinion on the issue – ‘freemixing’, as she’d seen it referred to on group chats. She had spoken more out of curiosity than conviction. Her Capetonian parents had not prepared her for the correct way to interact with boys. They were careless about such things, kissing men and women alike on the cheek in greeting. In her time in the MSA Sara had attempted to learn it all through Abida and through covert observations of her own. She had seen some of the cool MSA boys and girls in the cafeteria together or walking to the train station in threes or fours. She, too, was friendly with boys from her engineering course, who she exchanged notes and trivialities with as they chomped on kebab boxes. But the MSA position seemed to be one of controlled exposure, requiring the boys and girls to interact in group chats, meetings and events while simultaneously demanding formality and distance. It was cruel, Sara thought, all this obsequious dangling of the forbidden carrot.
‘Sara might have a point though. Most Muslims at our university aren’t part of the MSA and don’t attend any of our events, and you have to wonder why,’ Naeem said.
Naeem’s voice projected from where he was standing, a little bit posh and from north of the Harbour Bridge. He knew her name! Sara was both ecstatic and afraid. She wondered now if the others had discerned the glances they had exchanged, if Wahid categorised them as those who behaved with reserve in the day while sexting by night. Abida said that some of the Muslim boys on campus were disgusting hypocrites, that they planned to marry virginal little princesses Mummy picked out but were having sex with anyone they could get their hands on in the meantime. They went to nightclubs and parties; they swiped right on apps or very likely had sex with girls they sat across the MSA table from. Even so, Sara felt her mouth twitch with the beginnings of a smile.
‘That’s their prerogative, bro,’ Wahid said, shrugging once again. ‘If they think it’s too tough, then there’s plenty of other places where that kind of thing is acceptable. The entire campus in fact.’
A silence now pervaded the room, save for the smacking of Ahlam’s chewing gum, filling the air with a strawberry tang that mingled with the musallah’s ever-present odour of damp and feet. All mosques and musallahs Sara attended smelled of this same mix of sweet and rancid. The university had installed custom foot-washing stalls in its bathrooms after numerous complaints about the Muslim kids perching their feet in sinks before prayers, but she thought this had the unfortunate effect of scattering the water around the bathroom, the floors slushy with fetid water and paper towels.
‘Okay, let’s get all of these ideas typed up and sent around and we’ll continue the discussion on the group chat,’ Ziad said. ‘Thanks for a productive first meeting everyone. Let’s make this our biggest year yet, inshaAllah. We’ll end the meeting with a recitation of the Quran from brother Naeem.’
Without preamble, Naeem commenced his recitation. Sara closed her eyes. Naeem’s voice was now a rich, mellifluous warble emanating from the back of his throat. It did not seem to align with what Sara had just seen of him, nor did it align with the broader picture she had assembled to date: he was twenty years old, studying a medical degree and had been privately educated at an Islamic school in Sydney’s inner western suburbs. He donned long-sleeved shirts and pants in all seasons and when he had a pimple, it would hover somewhere in the region of his right eyebrow and then disappear without leaving any sign of its presence.
When she opened her eyes, Sara saw that Naeem’s were now closed as he continued to recite. Naeem had memorised all thirty chapters of the Quran; this was another fact she had acquired some time ago, when she had first noticed his presence at meetings and events. It lent him distinction among the other boys, and caused her to question whether she could hold any interest for him or whether she was nursing an inane crush, entirely one-sided in its dimensions.
When Naeem concluded no one clapped; she had learned that this was deemed unseemly. They murmured among themselves and began placing chairs back against the wall, preparing for the roller door separating the side of the musallah apportioned to the boys and the side apportioned to the girls to be fastened once again. Ahlam departed first, followed by Ziad and Wahid.
‘You never say a word in MSA meetings, and then suddenly you want to debate gender mixing?’ Abida said. ‘Even I wouldn’t go there, girl. Let’s go eat and we can debrief.’ She walked ahead of Sara without waiting for a reply, joining Wahid and Ziad where they stood in the corridor.
Sara reached for her backpack and followed. At the doorway, she paused. Naeem had lingered in the room and was wiping the board with his sleeve to erase its contents. Sara relied on Abida’s pronouncements on most topics, including on the opposite sex, but Naeem did not look disgusting or like he had sex with anyone. His back was too rigid, his movements smooth and assured. He did not seem to be aware that he was being watched. She cleared her throat, jiggled her foot.
‘No need to get your sleeve all messed up. The eraser is over there,’ Sara said, pointing to the windowsill.
Naeem turned around in a single deft motion, his head dipped. From this angle, Sara could see only his eyelashes, far longer and thicker than her own.
‘Thanks,’ he said. He bent down and grasped the eraser in his outstretched hand. As he straightened, he looked at her face. Sara felt that she had not been mistaken in her initial appraisal, that Naeem was not the kind of boy who looked very much at girls, let alone had sex with them. He held her gaze for a moment. He stood as straight as a ruler. What would it require for such a boy to slacken, to whimper with pleasure or pain?
‘No worries,’ Sara said, adopting a briskness she did not feel before turning away. Her face burned, her fingers cold and clammy. She could not conjure any additional words to prolong their conversation. It was too precarious a situation, with several MSA members standing just outside in the corridor. But there were other ways. Sara had contemplated attempting it on previous occasions, but there had been an implicit challenge in Wahid’s speech she now could not resist. As she joined Abida in the corridor and laced up her boots, Sara thought that he was right: it would be easy enough to chat on their phones, where no one else could see.
