Love in a Headscarf

by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed

  Despite my criticisms of those who upheld all these different traditions over what Islam was trying to teach, I found myself doing the same. I loved the story of Khadijah, the first and most beloved wife of the Prophet Muhammad sending someone to approach him directly to see if he would be interested in marrying her. Safura, too, had taken things into her own hands, asking her father to invite Moses into their home and into their business. I held up these empowered, independent and determined women as inspiration for Muslims, and yet I was falling short.

  Jack explained that if I shared my feelings with Mohamed, it would not be an ultimatum, and I should not fear it as such. I realised that I could have the same conversation with Mohamed that I had in introductions with other men. It would be the beginning of a discussion about whether we could see ourselves as a married couple. I had been through so many of them already, I should not be scared. If I really believed that Mohamed was the one, I had to grab this chance to talk to him about the possibility of spending our lives together.

  I had been through so much, met so many different suitors, worked with the process, rejected culture and then found my own place in it again. I had learnt about what love was and what love could be. If I did not take this opportunity, I would let myself down. I decided that I would not abandon the journey that had brought me to this point. I had learnt too much about myself to do that.

  Over coffee, Mohamed and I chatted aimlessly about work, mosques, literature, art, holidays, food. And then, in a quiet moment as we sipped our drinks, I told him.

  ‘I like you.’

  He squinted curiously at me.

  ‘I just thought I should tell you, you know …’ I stuttered, not sure what to say next.

  Be brave, I told myself, you’ve come this far.

  ‘And I was wondering …’ I lost the nerve to ask him directly if he liked me too. My voice deserted me at that moment, absent without leave. I managed to croak, ‘I was wondering what you thought about that.’

  There, I had said it. I picked up my cup and hid my face in the dark, opaque liquid. It felt very quiet in the room.

  His silence continued. At first, I thought it was because I had made such an unexpected statement. Perhaps he was reflecting on what I had said, perhaps my words had stirred emotions that he had hidden deep inside. He still said nothing. Now that he had reflected, he might be crafting his words to express the depth of his feelings. I started to feel uncomfortable. Surely his feelings couldn’t be that majestic and ponderous that he needed this much time to work out how to convey them to me?

  I fidgeted, wanting to break the silence. But that would mean I would have to reiterate what I had just said – which would exacerbate the silence further – or I would have to change the subject. I had expended so much energy and bravery to make him this offering of my feelings that I would just wait to see what he said. I would not change the subject now.

  I should have known that the silence was foreboding. But I wanted to hear it, to know for sure. A rejection would hurt but at least I would go away in the knowledge I had tried. I would have to find a way to recover from having been so close to the husband I had been searching for and then being turned away.

  Being brave enough to ask him about his feelings openly was about to pay off, because his response revealed more to me about his emotional state than years of marriage could have uncovered. As I had learnt, people reveal their true character at times of intense emotional duress.

  His answer was even better, even more informative, than I could have expected. It showed me his obliviousness to my bravery and vulnerability, and that made it starkly obvious that he wasn’t as suitable for me as the life-companion I had hoped him to be.

  The answer was worse than I had anticipated. Not only did he crush my feelings, but he did it without respect or grace.

  ‘Shelina,’ he said, looking at his coffee, ‘I am a scientist. I have just discovered that Einstein’s theory of relativity might not be true. This has turned my world upside down and I can think of nothing else at all. Nothing. I’m consumed.’ And with that he continued sipping his coffee.

  EIGHT

  Multiversal

  View from the Shelf

  PITY

  The Aunties started to feel sorry for me. ‘Such a nice girl,’ they would exclaim. ‘So well-mannered.’

  ‘I can’t understand why she isn’t married,’ said one to the other, emphasising the words.

  I expected them to lay the blame at my door for not marrying earlier or for not choosing one of the inappropriate men that had been recommended. I italicised the words in my own head for irony. Instead, the Aunties surprised me.

  ‘So pretty, so intelligent, so lovely and religious, I just can’t imagine who could be right for her,’ sighed the other in return.

  I was unnerved by their compassion. Had they forgotten their complicity in the tortuousness of my search? Or had they too been on a journey of their own?

  They turned their heads to face me whenever I appeared and then stroked my hair lovingly.

  ‘When you find the right person, then you’ll know it has been worth waiting for,’ they consoled me. ‘You’re still young and so pretty, plenty of time! A man would be crazy not to want to marry you.’

  I felt tearful. I felt that I had achieved so much: education, independence, career, travel. Through all of it I had retained a close relationship with my family, my community and my faith. Like many other single Muslim women, I had negotiated the complexities of growing up in a new environment, of wanting to excel in education and career, and of keeping my respect for the importance of ethnicity, faith and identity. I was at once ‘independent’ and ‘community-minded’, ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’. In short, I had earned the Aunties’ respect.

  Whether their words were hurtful or compassionate, the Aunties still pointed to that one thing I wanted most – companionship. For them, a husband had secured them social status and perpetuated tradition. The structure of marriage had worked for them and they had found their place through it.

  There was something about marriage that they had only begun at this late stage to explain clearly and which I wished that they had spelt out from the start: the satisfaction of having Someone To Be With. My parents echoed their sentiments: ‘We just want you to have someone of your own so you can have some company, someone to go out, someone to do things with.’

  They were right. I had already done all the things I wanted to do on my own. I hadn’t let expectations, gossip or stereotyping hold me back. I had discovered that I could do all the things that I wanted to do on my own. I just didn’t want to do them on my own anymore. The experiences would be richer and more meaningful if I had someone to share them with. Once I wanted Prince Charming. I still did, but now Cosy Companion would have sufficed, someone to spend time with, to move on in life with, someone, anyone, anyone at all?

  Auntie Jee: We must find someone for Shelina.

  Auntie Aitch: What about that nice doctor? What is he called? Something beginning with ‘Muh’. Is it Mehdi? Masood? Malik?

  Auntie Jee: Maazin?

  Auntie Aitch: No, no, let me think …

  Auntie Jee: Muna?

  Auntie Aitch: No, not Musa, not Munir.

  Auntie Jee: Malcolm?

  Auntie Aitch: Malcolm? Who is Malcolm?

  Auntie Jee: Sabin’s son. You know they were very modern when the kids were born, called them all sorts of things. Now she is more religious than the Maulana himself! Do you mean Mahbub?

  Auntie Aitch: Yes, yes, that’s it! Mahbub!

  Auntie Jee: But he is almost 50 years old! Much too old! And previously divorced with three children who live with him. No, no, no! Not suitable. And you know there were terrible rumours about why his wife left him. Girlfriends, affairs, drinking.

  Auntie Aitch: She can’t be too picky you know, at her age, and having turned down so many very good boys. Fussy is as fussy gets. You know what they say about the fussy crow?

  A
untie Jee emits a weary sigh of knowledge.

  Auntie Aitch: The fussy crow turns his nose up at the rich pickings and ends up sitting on the pile of dung.

  ANGER

  Wherever I went I was looked at with sadness. The community couldn’t understand why I had not been snapped up. In my head I played back the conversations I would like to have had with them.

  ‘You said I was too educated to make a good wife …’

  ‘You said that the boys wanted a younger girl …’

  ‘You said I was too religious …’

  ‘You said I wasn’t religious enough …’

  I felt angry and let down. To make matters worse, I was not the only woman on the shelf. It was a veritable riot up at this height.

  The community had finally started to recognise that there were problems and that it was harder for people to find a suitable match. Although there were plenty of young unmarried women, there was still a mysterious lack of young men. Some really had disappeared. Others were continuing to go ‘back home’ to marry. This was their prerogative of course; the choice of a partner is an entirely personal matter. The consequence of their decision, though, was that the gaps they would have filled in making wonderful matches for women like me, based on compatibility, life experience, identity and our new British Muslim values and culture, remained vacant. Why did the men not feel the same way about what a good match we would make for them?

  It seemed to me that the answer was that women had been forced to redefine themselves through the opportunities and experiences they had lived through. Femininity had changed and been updated by the challenges we had faced, and the outcome was stronger and more centred women. What appeared to be missing was the challenge to men to trigger them to update their own notions of masculinity. Instead of rising to the challenge, some of them now felt at worst threatened by the lively, energetic women who wanted a proactive spiritual and material life, or at best uninterested in them.

  What we needed was a collective reassessment of what it meant to be a man and what it meant to be a woman, a new gender reconstruction going back to the very roots of Islam, where men and women were partners and companions rather than disjointed and dysfunctional. After all, as the Qur’an said, men and women were created in pairs. The gender constructs that we needed to operate as a fully functioning society – and that was within my own small community, as well as in wider society – had become blurred, or even lost, and that meant we had lost the ability to love each other for who we were.

  Was the social pressure and pain that I and my friends had endured the price of being a pioneer and creating change? We had had no-one to point to as role models or leaders, but had to break the mould ourselves. Even some of the mosques and Imams needed changes: not only did young women need to be taught about relationships and marriage, but men, too, in order to redress the asymmetry of marriage and the search for a partner. What good was berating women for being single or for the growing divorce rate if men were not ready or did not have the skills to deal with being married?

  The Community Leaders got together to discuss the issue. They agreed that there were huge problems around arranging suitable marriages and keeping them together. They agreed that they must get together again and discuss the problems. They reconvened and discussed that the problems were growing and that solving them was a community priority. After all, a community is made up from the building blocks of solid families. They planned out a series of seminars to brainstorm ideas and engage the community. The community duly held the meetings and agreed that the problem was now of significant magnitude and that Something Must Be Done. They concluded that it was important that young people should get married. They would discuss further with experts. The experts agreed that the situation was dire and that doing nothing was Not An Option. If nothing was done then things would go from bad to worse. Action was demanded. They would reconvene to discuss the matter.

  SADNESS

  My parents visited a number of local mosques to recruit help from the Imams, Shaikhs and Maulanas. In one of them, the gentle Shaikh pulled out a large tome from under the desk. It was an enormous binder, which he turned to face towards my parents, who were sitting on the opposite side of the desk. Each page contained a piece of A4 paper inside a clear plastic holder and listed the details of someone who was looking fervently enough for a partner to place an advert in the Big Book. It showed a photograph and then listed their biodata.

  There were pages and pages of young men and women who were looking for a partner to complete themselves and their faith. It was a post-modern journal of community woe that captured both collective failure to secure happy marriages and individual angst in finding the One. The Shaikh suggested to my parents that I should create my own one-pager with a photo and then come into the mosque to review the binder with him, as he was Custodian of the Best of the Singles Book. I couldn’t face the thought of putting an advert with a photo in the marriage catalogue for all to see. Should I have de-prioritised my pride in favour of finding a man? I realised from my reaction to the book that I still hadn’t acknowledged in my heart that admitting that you were looking for a partner was perfectly acceptable.

  Singledom was growing around me as well – women across wider society seemed to be suffering. We moped collectively at work. Emma was single. So were Elaine and Nicola. The men, peculiarly, were all married or in long-term relationships. Why suddenly this universal explosion of singleness?

  To revel in our womanhood we would buy glossy women’s magazines at lunch time and share the headlines, laughing at their larger than life claims and mourning at how they subtly pitied our status as single women.

  Emma picked one up. ‘We have to love ourselves before anyone else can love us,’ she read out.

  Elaine responded, ‘So that means if we’re single then we are unloved, and that means we are not even ready to be loved.’ She paused. ‘That’s awful. I should just give up now.’

  Nicola read out a whole series of commands from another magazine: ‘Who needs a man?’ ‘Independent is best!’ ‘Live your own life!’ ‘If he isn’t the one then move onto the next!’

  ‘This is crazy, you ridiculous magazines,’ I ranted at the glossy publications, ‘we tried being single and we’ve decided we do want a man! We can be independent and in a relationship. What if there is no such thing as the One? Maybe we have to turn him into the One?’

  I had always noticed that married men seemed more attractive to single women because they were more balanced, well-rounded and able to relate to women. Maybe this was precisely because they were married and had spent time with a woman in their lives? Maybe we should pick a man who had potential and hope that simply being married to him would turn him into Mr Right? As the Aunties said, it was like a river and the river bed moulding into each other over time to become a perfect fit.

  Maybe my father, too, had been right all along. He had said to pick out a man with four out of the six qualities and then work on perfecting the rest later. It meant accepting that no-one is perfect, not even me.

  ‘Maybe I’m being cynical,’ began Emma, ‘but perhaps the advertisers in the magazines want us to be single so that we spend our money on keeping ourselves all primped up because that is what the elusive Mr Right is looking for. But I have spent all my money and I still don’t have a man!’ Emma was letting her depression run amok.

  Emma had had a good solid Germanic upbringing. ‘Maybe they want to distract us away from being homely wives and we’ve fallen for it! Maybe they should be teaching us the old-fashioned habits of wifely budgeting and spending our pennies wisely on Tupperware and jam?’

  We all giggled at the idea of attending Tupperware parties.

  ‘I suppose they are not quite as glamorous and attractive as designer clothes,’ Emma added.

  Perhaps there was a happy medium the magazines hadn’t recognised or didn’t want to admit – that on the one hand we could be happily married to Mr-Nearly-Perfect, knowing that we were not pe
rfect either, but at the same time we could also be stylish and glamorous. Most importantly, the magazines didn’t offer us the possibility or aspiration to be contented. No wonder we felt constantly under pressure.

  Emma turned the conversation to her failures at the weekend: ‘I was a bridesmaid at a wedding and everyone was all loved up in couples. Apart from me. Even the Best Man was taken! What is wrong with me?’

  Jackie responded, ‘The only single men are the sleazy ones who have been dumped more times than a rubbish bin.’ It was an awful analogy but we let it go – she looked too distraught. ‘They all look like George from Seinfeld.’

  We shuddered collectively in disgust and sympathy.

  Elaine turned to me jealously: ‘At least you have people trying to find someone for you.’

  ‘It’s true,’ I agreed, ‘It’s hard enough trying to find a man when you have the world and their matchmaker-wife looking out for you and arranging meetings, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be on your own.’

  I turned my head away and blinked back tears. Whilst it was the case that my family had asked many people to help find a match for me, the introductions these days were rare. There was much nodding when we asked for help but little action, and the few suggestions were wildly unsuitable. I was forced to consider them because it seemed imperative to be grateful.

  I met Arif, who had been living in Hungary on his own for the last ten years. He was now back to recruit a wife. He was in his early forties and had been ordered by his long-suffering mother that he was not permitted to remain single any longer and must marry and multiply tout de suite. He had struggled to get a job in the UK and instead had found a post as the financial director in a small investment firm based outside Budapest, in one of its outlying suburbs. Despite his decade of residence there he recounted proudly that he kept himself to himself and had no friends, had no idea where the local mosque or community was and didn’t feel the need to spend time participating in Hungarian life or getting to know the locals. He saw himself living there long term and thought his wife would be happy to slot into his one-bedroom flat. Learning Hungarian, working or having a social life were not important factors in Arif’s consideration of his wife’s comforts.