by Esther Ahmad
I ran out of the room and headed upstairs to my bedroom, retrieving the box at the bottom of my closet. In less than a minute, I was back at the daras, my hands letting go of the gold chains and earrings that I’d owned for as long as I could remember. They were the most precious possessions I had, and I wanted to give them to Allah.
Once the meeting was over, I sat quietly on the carpet while the guests drifted out. It felt good to be generous. I wanted to help the poor, but I also wanted Allah to smile on me. I wanted our family to be blessed, and I knew that my gold was a small price to pay for Allah’s favor.
A pair of shoeless feet stopped in front of me. I looked up to see my father staring down at me. I felt flustered, nervous to be so close to him.
“Stand up,” he said. “Follow me.”
When we got out to the front courtyard, my mother was talking to my sisters. My father had me stand beside him and addressed my mother, along with whoever else was within earshot.
“I am proud of this girl!” he said. “She gave the very best she had to give. She did it all for Allah’s cause.” I was so happy I thought I would burst. “I’m proud of you,” he said. “You never thought about yourself.”
He looked at my mother again. “Go and buy her some more jewelry. But this time buy bigger, thicker chains.”
My sisters looked at me in shock. I allowed myself the briefest of smiles, dropped my eyes to the ground, and gave silent praise to Allah. The thought of being given more valuable jewelry was wonderful, but even that excitement paled in comparison to the joy I felt after hearing my father speak about me like that in public. It was almost too much to take in.
3
I knew it was a risk, but I was desperate. So I pulled my dupatta tighter and walked toward my father and the mullah. The daras had ended a while earlier, but Anwar, the mullah, had remained in the meeting room to talk.
I fell to my knees at the mullah’s feet and tried to deliver the brief speech I’d prepared. But instead of “Please, if Allah wills it, may you grant me the privilege of continuing my education?” all that came out of my mouth were wordless sobs.
“Why is she crying?” the mullah asked my father.
I could hear the anger in my father’s voice when he spoke. “She wants to go to school next year, but there is no need. She has already completed five years, and what girl needs more than that? She’s only going to wash clothes and dishes and work at home. I’ll never send her for a job, nor will her husband when she marries. Five years was enough education for her older sisters, and it is enough for her.”
I had heard all his arguments already—more than once. Most of the time when my father spoke like this, I felt enraged at him. But as I listened to him in the meeting room that Friday afternoon, I felt overwhelmed with sadness.
The five years I’d spent in school had made a deep impact on me. Education had given me an opportunity to try to win not just my father’s approval but also the affirmation of my teachers and fellow students. I had carried out my responsibilities diligently, and I liked being thought of as a leader. I knew that these opportunities were precious, that not every girl in Pakistan could afford even just a few years of education.
Still, there was more to it than glowing report cards and good grades. I liked learning. The school was state run and followed a broad curriculum. The lessons in science and math offered a window into a world that thrilled me—a world where I was allowed, even encouraged, to ask questions. And with every answer came another mystery to try to solve. Studying both satisfied my appetite and left me ravenous for more knowledge. When I was at school, I was no longer the girl my father rejected. I was the pupil outperforming all the others.
Yet I was facing the same predicament that many other girls my age faced. The end of middle school was a natural cutoff point for parents with traditional views like my father. Five years was considered enough education to allow a girl to become the kind of wife they envisioned: submissive, unambitious, and tethered to the home.
I had begged my father to read the words of my final report, to take the advice of the teachers: “We believe Zakhira can go forward. She cannot stop here.” But so far my pleading had achieved nothing. And as I pressed my face down at the feet of the mullah, I realized what a fool I was. What was I thinking? Of all the people in the city, this devout follower of Islam was the least likely to grant a twelve-year-old girl’s wish for an education.
“How is she in her studies?” he asked.
“Oh, she is very good,” my father replied, the anger in his voice replaced by pride. “She has won many trophies for her schoolwork, and her report cards are always exemplary.”
“Well,” the mullah said after a pause, “if she is good, then perhaps you should let her go. But only to the right school. A child like this needs careful nurturing.”
I was stunned and a little confused.
“The madrassa?” my father asked.
“Yes. Of course, she would have to dress appropriately.”
“I will!” I shouted. I hadn’t worn a burka before, but if that was what it took to stay in school, I was more than willing. “Thank you,” I said to the mullah. “You are just like an angel.”
†
At the end of summer break, I enrolled in my new school. Though it was run by clerics from the same militant organization my father was affiliated with, I didn’t notice many differences from my old school at first. We still studied math and science, as well as English. We spent more time learning about the Qur’an, but I didn’t mind. In fact, those lessons gave me more opportunities to shine.
A few weeks into the first term, I heard about a competition between five different madrassas in the city. The aim was to see which student could give the best presentation about the life of Muhammad. I knew immediately that I wanted to participate—and I wanted to win. My mother had taught me well, and our conversations about the Prophet flowed as easily as the fabric through her sewing machines.
The teachers left the students to prepare on their own, giving us one simple piece of advice: if we told any facts or stories about Muhammad that weren’t true, we’d still get a point as long as it sounded good.
I studied hard, questioning my mother about the parts of the Qur’an that I struggled to understand. On the day of the competition, I was so nervous I felt sure I was going to lose the chapattis I had eaten for lunch. I was one of the last to speak, and it was nerve racking to hear the impressive presentations given by the girls and boys before me. Yet while a lot of them told a range of stories, including some I had never heard before, many of my fellow contestants kept their eyes nervously on their papers. Watching them and waiting for my turn, I decided to take a risk.
I stood on the stage and lowered the microphone. My legs were shaking and my stomach felt like it was going to drop out from beneath me, but I folded my paper and placed it on the lectern. I looked out at the hundred people gathered, spotted my mother and a few other relatives, took a deep breath, and began. “Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was born on a Monday morning, sometime in AD 570. It was reported that the mother of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said that when he was born, a great light shone out of her insides and lit the palaces of Syria.”
I paused and looked around. There were nods of approval. I took another breath, glad that I had started well but still terrified that I would make a mistake. “The character of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, can be described as honest, kind, and true in all his words. Three times the angel Gabriel came and hugged him. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, spread Islam and went through trials but did not deny Almighty Allah.”
There was more nodding. My heart was finally slowing down from its frantic pace. I said a little more about Islam, making sure that every word was based on the Qur’an and the hadith. I was too scared to make up any stories.
Finally, I was almost done. I ended with a poem about the five pillars of Islam that I had memorized. As the first words formed on my lips, I c
ould feel my lungs grow strong within me. My voice filled the room as I called out, “Allah is One and like no one / He has no partner, nor a son / He is kind and just and wise / And has no form, shape or size.”
I sat down to the largest applause of the day. A little while later, I collected my winner’s trophy and listened as my teachers and my mother talked about what a good job I had done. I listened as long as I thought necessary to be polite and then asked if I could be excused.
I ran the mile home clutching my trophy, desperate to put it on the shelf in the family room next to my other tokens of success. I rearranged my report cards and the other trophies, placing this latest one in the middle.
I did not hear the footsteps behind me. My first indication that my father was watching was when I heard him say, “That’s good, Daughter.”
I finished arranging the shelf before turning around to thank him. He had already left the room.
†
I’d never been on a field trip before, so when the teachers loaded all the girls onto one bus and the boys onto another, I was about as excited as I’d ever been. The two male teachers at the front of the bus knew how to work a crowd, and they spent half an hour leading us in a series of chants and shouts, seeing which side of the bus could call out the loudest. As we edged out of the city and into the countryside, it was turning out to be the best day I could remember.
Our destination was an art exhibition that was on display in an old farmhouse. I had never seen anything like this collection of pictures before—mostly flowers and landscapes—but they did not inspire me. I would have preferred a science museum or a visit to a factory. Still, the teachers served up a good picnic, and the ride back was just as much fun as the journey there.
A month later, we boarded the buses for another field trip. Once again, our lungs were bursting and our throats were raw from chanting by the time we reached our destination—a low-slung building on the edge of a dusty village.
The teachers had not told us anything about what we were going to see. I was excited and curious, especially when they led us inside a room full of low wooden benches, dimmed the lights, and turned on a data projector.
I had never seen a piece of equipment like this before. I stared at the rectangle of white light that filled the wall facing us, entranced by the way the light forged across the room and turned the dust into stars.
A mullah appeared at the front of the room. “Today we’re going to show you what’s happening to our Muslim brothers and sisters around the world.”
The white rectangle changed in an instant. In front of us was a boy lying facedown on the ground. At first I thought he was sleeping, though why anyone would choose to sleep on the sidewalk in the middle of a muddy puddle was beyond me. But as I looked closer, I saw that his legs were bent at an impossible angle. His eyes were not shut in peace but swollen over. It was not mud on his face; it was blood.
“This is what our brothers and sisters are facing,” said the mullah. “And who is doing this? It’s the Christians and Jews.”
The images I saw that day were seared into my mind. Women with arms burned by cigarettes. Men with wounds flowing with blood, their faces locked in terror. Bodies stripped naked and beaten so badly that their skin looked like filthy rags. Prisoners who had been shaved and starved and trapped behind wire, their bones protruding so much I wondered how they could even stand.
For each photo that covered the wall, the mullah had a new story to tell. He spoke of Bosnia and Chechnya, of massacres in cities I had never heard of. He explained in explicit terms what was happening in the world: that Muslims living in the West were the victims of cruel persecution.
This was all new to me. I was vaguely aware that Pakistan and India often fought, and I’d heard of the occasional attack on mosques, but to see evidence that we Muslims were actually at war was shocking. It was difficult for me to believe that my brothers and sisters around the world were being attacked and tortured.
But there was no hiding from the truth. My eyes had been opened. For the first time in my life, I knew I had an enemy.
When we had seen the last of the images and the wall was bright white again, the mullah continued speaking. “All of us must feel the pain of this suffering. If you don’t, then you are no longer a Muslim. But it’s not enough to feel it and do nothing. We must share their pain so we can take revenge. This is our struggle. This is our fight. And one day, it will be your fight too.”
As we drove back to the city, silence clung to the bus like a thick fog. I sat staring at the frayed fabric of the seat in front of me. I knew the mullah was right. I could feel my blood boiling—I could almost taste the rage within me.
I did not say anything to my mother when I first arrived at home. Partly it was because I wanted to be quiet for a while to understand what I had seen and heard. Also, she had been complaining of feeling unwell for some time, and I remember not wanting to scare her with my questions. But after a few days I could not keep the thoughts to myself. I went to find her while she was working in the garden, tending the vegetables she grew.
“Did you know that we’re at war, Ami?”
“Who told you that?” she said.
I thought about explaining what I had seen on the field trip, but something inside me told me not to. “There are Christians killing Muslims in the West. Did you know that?”
“Yes.” She kept plucking tomatoes from their vines. “But you don’t have to be scared. It happens far away from here, and there are hardly any Christians in Pakistan. You’re safe from them here.”
It had not occurred to me that I might be in danger in Pakistan. I went to bed that night even more troubled than I had been before.
†
We had another field trip the following month, and another the month after. Each time the venue was different, though we always had a wall with images shown on it. Some months those photos were even more brutal than the last. Other times the mullah introduced us to stories of people who had been born Christians but converted to Islam. Apparently there were many hundreds of thousands just like them.
“Islam is growing,” the mullah said. “Soon the whole world will bow down to Allah!”
On days like those, the bus rides home were a carnival of joy. Whenever the teachers started up a new chorus of call-and-response, we would shout louder than ever. Knowing that we were on the winning side—that the whole world would one day worship as we did—was so powerful that it left me feeling a little giddy.
Nothing, however, could compare with the last field trip of the year.
For the first time, there was no projector set up. There were no benches, either, and no sign of the usual mullah. We were ushered to a large, dimly lit room. In the middle was a long table draped with a heavy burlap blanket. We stood in silence, forty pairs of eyes staring at the table, wondering what secrets it was hiding.
I felt no fear. If these field trips had taught me anything, it was that I could trust the mullah and the rest of the teachers at the madrassa. After all, it was thanks to them that I now understood the truth about how the countries in the West were targeting Muslims.
After a few minutes, a door on the other side of the room opened and the mullah stepped in. Behind him was a man I had never seen before. He was about the same age as my father. Across one shoulder he carried a rifle.
The mullah walked over to the table. “Today we’re going to show you the tools we use to spread Islam.” He pulled hard on the sheet and threw it to the floor beside him.
Though none of us had spoken a word since we entered, the room fell into an even deeper silence. I could feel myself being drawn closer to the table, almost overcome with the desperate urge to reach out and touch what lay upon it. Before my eyes were a half-dozen pistols, three rifles, and at least ten grenades.
I had never seen rifles up close before, even though they were a regular part of life in the city. They seemed more powerful and dangerous now that I was at eye level with them. The same wa
s true for the pistols, and I wondered about the strange writing across them. But it was the grenades that caught my attention the most. Knowing that such power and destruction could be held back by a simple pin was truly mesmerizing. I wanted nothing more than to be able to pick one up and examine it.
Others must have felt the same way, because the mullah stepped in front of us and let out a laugh. “Not today, but one day you will get to handle these.”
He spent a few minutes talking about the different weapons. It was only when he pulled the blanket over the table again that I looked around me. Each of my fellow classmates was just as fascinated as I had been.
“The time will come when you’ll be ready for all of this,” the mullah said as he escorted us out of the room.
Soon we were eating our sandwiches and bananas. I could hear groups chattering about which weapon they liked the best and how they would fight against the infidels as soon as they were old enough. I sat apart. I had no interest in their foolish chatter. I had too many thoughts going on inside my head, and I needed to concentrate.
Why, when the mullah had spoken, did I feel like I was more alive than I had ever felt in my life? Why was my heart beating so quickly? Somehow I knew this moment was significant. But how? What on earth could it mean for my future?
4
After a year of learning at the feet of the mullahs, going on monthly field trips, and hearing that Muslims in the West were the victims of mass persecution at the hands of Christians and Jews, I was suddenly removed from the madrassa.
My mother heard that there was space available in one of the state-run schools in the city. She had nothing against the madrassa, but she hadn’t forgotten the praise my first teachers had heaped upon me. She hoped that I might continue my studies and perhaps even be able to attend university one day. Not that we spoke about this much. Dreams like these are so fragile that it is wise not to handle them too often. Better to keep them secret, stashed away from prying ears and eyes.
