The Scope of Permissibility, page 7
Taraweeh was always challenging, as much for the imam as for the congregation. Ingesting food and drink after a day’s deprivation rendered standing, bending and prostrating cumbersome, especially when the imam opted for the full set of twenty rak’at rather than the shorter set of eight. She had assumed that hearing Naeem’s recitation would make it more bearable, and while his Fatiha was sweet and light, he began to falter once it was completed. His tongue tripped over the verses; again and again he forgot which verse followed and had to be prompted by the low rumble of the front row. Sara was mortified on his behalf and found respite in the silence of sujud, her forehead and nose pressed against the ground. She wished someone in the congregation would step in, but he was forced to labour through prayer after prayer until he reached the end of the eighth rak’at. She caught a glimpse of him in a white thawb, his bare feet poking out underneath, before he was swallowed in the crowd.
‘Poor guy, subhanAllah. It must be so difficult to remember everything when you’re up there.’
Sara could not discern if Ahlam sounded kind or condescending, deciding that sympathy was a strange combination of both. She shook her head as they rolled up the woven plastic prayer mat for the boys to carry back to the musallah.
‘I know, especially in front of all those people. It can’t be easy,’ Abida agreed.
‘Maybe he should have practised more then,’ Sara said. The other girls looked at her and she was aware that she had been too forceful in her pronouncement. She was unaccustomed to discussions of this nature, where others spoke about Naeem and she was expected to participate as if he was someone she could be impartial about. She knew Abida would ask her about it later and she would have to think of something to fob her off.
‘He practises all the time. Mustafa was saying brother Naeem is always reading the Quran in the musallah when he’s not in the library or at the hospital.’ Ahlam spoke with finality.
Despite her embarrassment, Sara felt a pinprick of jealousy that Ahlam had procured information about Naeem that she had not. Perhaps Ahlam also harboured feelings for Naeem and she hadn’t realised it. According to Abida – whose cynicism was piercing and cruel, but usually accurate – overlaps of romantic interest were frequent in MSA circles. There were only so many of them; in the search for a Muslim boy or girl to love, they were bound to bump up against each other. Abida had put it much more plainly. Sloppy seconds, she labelled it.
Sara looked at Ahlam and waited for her to continue.
‘Anyway, girls, I want to tell you something.’ Ahlam leaned in as Mariam joined them, linking arms as they walked towards Sara’s car across the deserted campus. A lone boy with a Velcro headband holding back his afro walked in front of them.
‘What is it?’ Sara opened the car door and turned the key in the ignition, Abida seated in the front next to her. She could guess what Ahlam’s news was. It had to be something related to a boy. There was little else that would be imparted with such ceremony.
‘Well, brother Ziad has expressed interest in getting to know me through Abida.’
Sara was surprised, not at the information but that Abida had known and withheld it from her. She looked at Abida, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. They had always operated on the principle that it didn’t count as divulging if they only told each other.
‘That’s awesome, alhamdulillah. What’s going to happen now?’ Mariam shifted in the back seat but was otherwise unaffected by the announcement.
‘We’re going to meet up for coffee with Abida chaperoning. If it goes well, he’ll come over and meet my parents,’ Ahlam replied.
The complexities of the marriage process eluded Sara. Abida understood it all instinctively and had tried many times to explain it to her. You could ‘get to know’ someone, but you couldn’t call them your boyfriend. You should never be seen in public with anyone you were getting to know unless you were already engaged. If he told his parents about you, he was legit, if not, he was just stringing you along like an fboy. Everything was shrouded in secrecy, but the more clandestine something was supposed to be, the more people seemed to talk about it.
‘That’s so exciting. How are you feeling about it?’ Even as Sara asked the question, she thought of Naeem. She attempted to imagine her parents meeting his, the ceremonious conversations they might have about the weather and the ambitions of their respective children.
‘I’m hoping this is the one, girls. I’ve already gotten to know three guys before and it didn’t work out. I just can’t take another failure.’ Ahlam sighed, sinking into the seat before directing Sara to take the next turn on to Auburn Road. There were still large masses of Muslims out on the street, purchasing kebabs and avocado cocktails for a post-taraweeh treat.
‘Amen, sister. My parents are always trying to get me to meet random guys and I can’t stomach it,’ Mariam said.
‘Yeah, I had to say no to so many guys before my parents even let them in the house,’ Ahlam said. ‘They’re going to love Ziad after the parade of losers they’ve subjected me to!’
Sara remained silent, looking out the window at a woman in niqab holding a bottle of fresh carrot juice in her gloved hand. She could add little to these exchanges about things Muslim parents do. She felt her difference again, the way her heritage was so fractured that even her parents had no idea how other Muslims behaved. Her parents had dated for years in Cape Town. They had gone to the movies and the park, and no one had said it was wrong. Soraya and Amin did not mention the topic of marriage at all, joking that their daughter must have her pick of the boys in her engineering cohort as one of its very few girls. They commented on her comings and goings with mild interest; if she was at home, they would venture out for ice cream or to a movie as a trio, and if not, Soraya and Amin went on their own.
She was relieved when the girls were duly dropped off at their homes, with Ahlam requesting their dua for a successful outcome with Ziad, and Abida saying that it was going to work out, no doubt about it, Ziad was keen as mustard. Sara promised to make dua, but her mind clambered its way back to Naeem as she drove along King Georges Road, her window open to allow in the cool night air. He would be suffering, of this she was sure. He would take care to present the same reticent façade to others, but Sara imagined him sinking into an anguished sujud in solitude, asking Allah for forgiveness for failing His Book and His Words. She longed to be his source of comfort, despite knowing he would neither request nor accept any with ease.
The house was silent when she entered, but her parents had left the hallway light on so she would not have to fumble in the dark. Sara whispered a dua for their continued good health, closing her bedroom door quietly and turning her tall foldable bedside lamp on, her fingers now stiff from cold. She rubbed them together before sitting on the edge of her made-up bed and reaching for her phone and navigating to the message she had sent Naeem all those weeks ago.
He had unblocked her! He had thought about what he had done and decided against it. Although she supposed he could have said something to her, apologised for what he had done, she felt vindicated. Something had compelled a change in his behaviour and he had reopened a door she had presumed closed.
Sara sat on her bed, crossing her legs beneath her and settling herself against her pillow. In her haste, she accidentally swiped her way to her own profile rather than Naeem’s, zooming in on her current profile picture, a travel snap of Angkor Wat she had taken last year. She was indifferent to social media, checking it once or twice a week as opposed to the hourly foraging her friends did. She swiped across to Naeem’s profile, his profile picture was one of him and someone she took to be his younger sister, also taken some time ago judging by the length of his hair. It had pleased her to learn that he too was inactive online. She would have found him far less appealing if the quotidian details of his life were displayed for all to see.
She had two options: to say something, or to wait for him to say something. Neither option was appealing. After some minutes Sara decided to initiate, thinking that at least this would bring about some conclusion.
Salam, Naeem.
He began typing a response, and she allowed herself to believe that he had been waiting for her.
Salam, Sara.
There was an expectant moment of cyber-silence. Sara was unsure of what to say next. She knew how to talk to boys, but not how to talk to the boy. She uncrossed her legs and ran a hand through her bobbed hair, feeling the blunt choppiness of its edges where her mother had trimmed it. She would have to continue this conversation, clumsy and inelegant as it was. Did you have a good time at the event tonight?
It was good, alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
The same banal filler Muslim phrases, trotted out at timed intervals. Sara did not know what it was she was undertaking, initiating conversation with this boy with whom she had shared approximately two minutes of strained conversation. She was aware of the desire but not of its origins.
A reply came through from Naeem: Who am I kidding, I was a fucking mess tonight.
Her heart thumped inside her chest, a bird trapped in a room with a low ceiling and all windows latched. To swear was to invite intimacy, to mark a clear departure from convention. Naeem would not speak to her in this way unless he was experiencing the same inexplicable pull. Sara thought of how best to respond to him, not wishing to repay his confidence in her with glib words of reassurance. I felt so bad for you. I can’t imagine what it’s like to try and recite the Quran from memory in front of so many people.
I’ve done it so many times before, but tonight was just terrible. I just couldn’t seem to get it together and the words froze in my mouth, Naeem replied.
I can’t say I know what that feels like, but I’m always embarrassing myself, so welcome to the club I guess? Sara attempted to divert his wretchedness, feeling the inadequacy of her offerings as she did. She could not provide him with the absolution he was seeking; she could not allow herself to picture comforting him in a manner which would do so. They were confined by both their inexperience and all the things they didn’t know about each other.
I’m sorry about blocking you. Sometimes I do things because I’m scared of what might happen if I don’t. Do you know what I mean? Sorry if that doesn’t make any sense.
Sara’s heart now thumped with such urgency that she was certain her parents would be awoken at the other end of the corridor. There was something dangerous about the way he was unburdening himself to her, the angst and exaggerated melodrama of these revelations. It was far too easy to do through this medium, at this late hour of night when they were both ensconced in their separate bedrooms. They were play-acting intimacy without having read the script. But it was thrilling, nonetheless. She began typing a reply.
8
Abida
An unscheduled MSA meeting had been called. Abida supposed that Mustafa had, at last, made his decision to stand down and that an election would now be forthcoming. It was generally understood that Ziad would not volunteer for the job. He wouldn’t believe himself capable of it; he had already proven to have a very apt grasp of his own limitations. Besides, Abida knew romance preoccupied people, blunted the once sharp edges of their ambitions. Abida was assisting Ziad and Ahlam, facilitating their meeting, which she would be chaperoning, but she knew it would detract from their ability to do anything else.
Since her discussion with the MSA girls Abida had been busy. She had contacted a psychologist, Dr Rania, whose videos on love and intimacy and assertiveness for Muslim women she had long admired. She had found an Islamic scholar in Pennsylvania, Ustadha Halima, who specialised in traditional Islamic sources on marriage and sex and had agreed to appear via video call. She had sought out speakers who were grounded in Islamic orthodoxy – she wanted none of those whose minds she viewed as colonised and embarrassed by the tenets of their faith – and she had been pleased to find them. She had pretended that the MSA had agreed to have a conversation about sex and patriarchy. We need to drive this conversation ourselves or white people will keep doing it for us, she had said. When she had told Sara about what she had done, Sara shook her head and said Abida was well and truly in her renegade era.
Sara had not responded to her text message about whether she was attending the meeting, and if so, whether they could drive into university together. She and Sara lost each other occasionally in the smog of everyday life, resurfacing without explanation and talking for hours once they did. They exchanged hundreds of messages, then they did not talk at all. None of it blunted the closeness she felt to Sara. Although Abida felt that she had been at least responsible for crafting the person Sara was today, she felt, in doing so, she had imparted something of herself too. She had played at being Sara’s teacher before she had known her own mind, and Sara had shaped Abida in turn.
As she waited for the train to arrive at Leumeah, Abida ensured not to make eye contact with the two white teenaged boys kicking a glass bottle back and forth with boredom and barely-disguised animal ferocity. Leumeah was not as unkempt as Lakemba or Auburn, but beneath its wide streets and yellowing fields lay a very real sense of menace which those areas, for all their stray cats and bearded loiterers, did not possess. There were still white Australians here, and they were angry at being too poor to get away from the masses of Bangladeshis who had moved into the area, lured by the promise of large blocks of land to build their mansions on for a fraction of the price of the eastern suburbs.
When the train arrived, the boys got on and sat just two places in front of her, their feet splayed across the ripped seat. Abida kept her phone in her hand, recalling the spate of recent racial vitriol on Sydney trains and buses documented on phone cameras and circulated via popular news outlets. Although she did not like conceding it, even if only to herself, she knew that some small part of her would derive perverse pleasure from being the subject of public racial abuse. Not only would it provide confirmation of her academic understanding of Australia as a racist country, but she could post about it online, maybe use it as a springboard to write for a publication lambasting Australia for its inability to curtail its fear and loathing of anyone who wasn’t white. You needed a real tragedy to be heard amid the online chatter. But to her slight disappointment, the boys were far too preoccupied with lifting up their singlets and filming the results to pay her any attention. Abida plugged in her headphones and played a recitation of the Quran, leaning her head against the grimy window and closing her eyes. She felt sluggish, bereft of the usual spiritual uplift Ramadan afforded.
When she entered the musallah she was surprised to see Sara sitting alongside Ahlam and the twins, Lina and Mariam. She gave the others perfunctory kisses and squeezed her chair in beside Sara’s.
‘You didn’t reply to my message! I didn’t think you’d be here,’ Abida chastised.
‘I’m here now, aren’t I? I must have forgotten.’
Ordinarily, Abida found Sara’s plainness of speech pleasing. Other people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, made statements they did not mean, like promising to catch up at some unspecified time in the future. Sara did not do any of that, but Abida wished that on this occasion Sara could have at least apologised, even if they both knew it was disingenuous.
Any further conversation was prevented by the appearance of Mustafa, his smile wide, his eyes grave.
‘Assalamu alaykum, guys. I called this meeting to discuss a few things. First, thanks for making the time to come here on such short notice and especially during Ramadan, it’s much appreciated.’
He cleared his throat. Abida attempted to catch Sara’s eye and make a ghoulish face at her, but Sara was resolute in looking towards the front of the room where Mustafa stood.
‘As some of you may know, I’m going to be starting full-time work shortly, which means I’ll be dropping to part-time study. As we’re all aware, the MSA presidency is a full-time commitment and one which requires a lot of time and energy. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to give it the time and energy it deserves and since Ziad has declined to step in, our constitution states that we’ll need to have an election for a new president much earlier than anticipated. But I’m giving you plenty of notice. We have the winter break coming up in a few days, which at least gives us some time to plan, and I’ll be staying on until after Islamic Awareness Week.’
Ziad bowed his head, as though his declination had condemned the MSA to mutinous bedlam.
‘It’s been an absolute honour and privilege to have led this MSA, but its success has always been due to the quality of the brothers and sisters we have here and not any one person. I have no doubt that whoever the new president is will lead the MSA on to bigger and better things, inshaAllah.’
It was a gracious speech, but throughout it Abida had been distracted by the realisation that this was it, the juncture at which she would assume leadership. This was her opportunity to shape the conversations of the Muslim kids on campus, to mould and influence the agenda the MSA pursued with the university community and beyond. Her event was just the beginning. She could expand their consciousness beyond a narrow focus on da’wah and proving the existence of God and on to the greater Muslim world, like the faded glory of the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa or the deadly mass deportations of the North Caucasian Muslims by Stalin during World War II. She could talk about orientalism, privilege and power and lateral violence. There was so much to absorb, so much to discuss and debate. The MSA was small beginnings, but beginnings nonetheless. Female MSA presidents were still a rarity, and she could galvanise the other girls into seizing the momentum and giving the boys a much-needed knock from their pedestal.
