Love in a Headscarf

by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed

  Marvellous Mary

  I decided that if I couldn’t find a man, then I would have a wedding anyway. I hadn’t lost hope – just started to prepare myself for the idea that it might not happen. Pretty dress, romantic venue, lots of good food, wonderful company. It was time for me to be the centre of attention. Without Prince Charming I may not be able to reap the benefits of marriage, but at least I could have a lovely wedding. Did I need a groom? I was tempted to buy my dream wedding dress because what if I never got to wear one otherwise? I pictured a long, white flowing robe, encrusted with sparkling crystals all over it, and a translucent ephemeral veil to reveal my smile of pure happiness. I imagined ivory silk and hand-embroidered beads.

  Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a wonderful inspiration to me during this time. She was mentioned with great reverence in Islamic traditions and was considered to be one of the ‘women of paradise’. Even a chapter in the Qur’an was named after her. Mary’s father had desperately wanted a child and prayed to God that if he was blessed with one, he would dedicate his offspring to serving God in the temple. Mary’s father was delighted when his wife gave birth to a child, but he was surprised that it was a girl. He pointed out to God that being given a girl rather than a boy was an unexpected turn of events. He had made a vow to dedicate the child to God, but only boys used to serve in the temple.

  God was fully aware of this fact, obviously, as God knows everything. In His wisdom He had created a girl, to be dedicated in His way, and this challenged people’s ideas at that time, establishing that a woman was equally worthy in the eyes of God. Her presence destroyed the cultural traditions that a female was a subservient creature and not worthy to worship the Divine. Those who excluded women from the act of worship did so because they believed only ‘real’ human beings could worship God, and women were not considered to be fully human. Mary’s birth itself was a stand for equality for women, and established by Divine Decree that women were of equal value and spiritual worth.

  Despite the traditions of that era, Mary was given to the temple and grew up to be a woman known for her exemplary character and immense spirituality. Her being was entirely focused on creating a strong relationship with the Divine. Her uncle would come to visit her in the temple, and was surprised to find her eating delicious fresh food. When he enquired as to its provenance, she told him that whilst she was engaged in prayer, the food was brought to her by an angel, as a gift from God.

  Since Mary was considered amongst the purest of all women, God chose her for the most amazing of miracles – a virgin birth. But in Islamic tradition, there is no Joseph involved in the story of the birth, no man to diminish the central role of the woman in this story. Instead, she is in her own right a shining independent icon, a woman leading her own life.

  When Mary is about to give birth, she finds a quiet place under the shade of a tree. Her response to being in labour is described in the Qur’an through words that all women can relate to. She is not a distant unattainable figure, but shares the same experiences of womanhood as the rest of us. During the pain of giving birth, she cries out, ‘I wish I was dead.’ Many women seem to say the same thing in the agony of labour. My mum says she wished it as well, right up until the second she saw me in her arms, and then forgot about the pain. Mary holds on to the tree and squeezes it with all her might to be able to get through the pain.

  Despite her unblemished reputation, the gossiping Aunties of her time accused her of immoral behaviour and they are supported by the power-wielding patriarchs. In order to protect her character, the little baby speaks by a miracle to explain that Mary is pure and untouched, and that he is the baby Jesus, sent as a prophet from God to deliver the truth and the scripture, and the message that people should pray, give charity and worship God.

  I don’t believe Mary ever married but in fact brought up Jesus on her own. I admired her because she was the very embodiment of the equality of women in worship and in social life. God had deliberately sent her as a sign of the worth of women. Her challenges were also very real, living with the people around her as a single mother, as a woman being talked about, as a human being living the best life she could. And if she brought up an amazing child like Jesus, then she must have been quite some mother.

  I particularly liked the story of Mary and her role as a mother because my own mother’s name, Maryam, was the Arabic version of Mary. She, too, had been unperturbed by the gossiping of those around her, and had supported me through my search and given me inspiration. Both of them gave me hope that as a woman, whether a man was present or not, I could still pursue magical dreams and be a marvellous human being.

  The groom-less wedding was never to happen. Instead, I kept hoping that the new methods of meeting someone that were blossoming would eventually deliver Prince Charming to me. And that is how I found myself one evening, with Noreen, at a speed dating event. We decided that if on arrival it was too awful, we would leave together. The speed dating event organisers promised us something that we couldn’t get elsewhere: men in the flesh, and plenty of them. The event was due to have twenty men and twenty women, and every participant would spend three minutes with each person of the opposite gender to decide if that person might be the one.

  We eventually located the obscure address for the venue, only to discover it was a nightclub-cum-bar. This immediately made us feel uncomfortable. Were we in the right place to find a suitable husband? As teetotal Muslims we did not spend time in bars. And since we were both looking for practising Muslim men, we were dubious as to whether the men who attended would meet our expectations. The room was large and low lit, with red and orange lanterns and luscious exotic fabrics giving the whole place a sensual feel. It immediately made the whole speed dating concept even more challenging than we had anticipated.

  The organisers handed each of us a card. Down the left-hand side were the numbers one to twenty. Then there were three columns: definitely, maybe and no. Finally there was a column for notes. We wrote our own profile numbers in the top right-hand corner. All participants had a sticky label that they attached to their lapel with their profile number in big writing. No-one was permitted to share their own name.

  Each woman was given her own table, and every three minutes the men would stand up and move onto the next table. Eventually each of the twenty men would have spoken to each of the twenty women. We were advised to take any notes on the card to remind ourselves about a particular person, and then to decide if that person was a ‘definite’, a ‘maybe’ or a ‘no’. The cards would be collected at the end, and if a two-way match of ‘definite’ was detected by the organisers, they would swap e-mail addresses and leave the participants to continue their conversation directly. If one was a definite and one a maybe, they would investigate with the ‘maybe’ to see if he or she wanted to pursue an e-mail address exchange.

  Eventually a critical mass of participants had arrived: twenty women and sixteen men. As always, there were fewer men. The women sat by the tables which formed a perimeter round the room while the men hovered nervously around the closed bar in the centre. I noticed that I was the only woman in the room wearing a headscarf. Some of the women looked as though they had come after work in their suits, others looked dressed up to attend a Bollywood awards ceremony. After an introduction from the host, the men were dispersed randomly to take their places, one at each table. We were advised not to ask the usual ‘what is your name and where do you come from?’ questions but rather to open with conversation pieces so we could get a feel of personality rather than vital statistics.

  The first few men who came to my table looked superficially enthusiastic. The next girl on from me was a glamorous, curvaceous entity who had caused a mass sweep of eyes as she had entered the room. The boys who sat at my table had to scoop their tongues into their mouths in order to maintain even a courteous conversation with me. At first they tried, but it was obvious that my headscarf had turned them off completely. And besides, with the Aishwari Rai lookalike next t
o me, they didn’t have much blood flowing through their heads. As the evening wore on, it became plain – because I eventually decided just to ask them directly – that they had come to find a wife who was Muslim for cultural or family reasons, not for reasons of faith. Therefore I was not an option they would consider. As an experiment, I ticked every single ‘definite’ box to see if anyone had shown any interest in me. I got no responses.

  Although disheartened, I told myself that I would not have chosen any of the men who attended. However, the pit of my stomach was sore from disappointment, no matter how irrational that feeling was.

  Inspired by Mary’s determination, I picked myself up and decided to try again. I assumed that this was the wrong speed dating event for me, as it was aimed at a different audience. Perhaps others might have more appropriate suitors for me.

  I came across another company that claimed to conduct a more sophisticated method of speed dating. The organiser insisted that all prospective attendees should be first cleared through a vetting process. Only if an individual met the criteria for right attitude, realistic expectations and good quality of intellect, personality and personal success would they be permitted to attend. He said that this avoided timewasters and those who were not looking for ‘the kind of marital relationship’ that we had in mind. It sounded very promising, like an all-encompassing Auntie process where every suitor – male or female – would be of an appropriate calibre.

  I was given a time to call the assessor, and rang at the appointed slot for my interview. I was grilled for about 30 minutes on all aspects of my views on marriage, what I was looking for and what I had to offer. At the end of the session I was congratulated on being admitted to the event. I felt smug and validated in my womanhood. I had been anointed as a catch. It was great marketing by the speed dating company. The organiser offered me a selection of dates and quoted a price to attend. It was high, very high, but not much above the cost of a good night out. And who knew? Perhaps I would walk away with a well-vetted, high-calibre, potential husband. It wasn’t an exorbitant amount of money, but it made the event much more serious than ‘it’s not too expensive, I’ll give it a go, and if it’s horrid I’ll leave’. He sensed my nervousness and said that if I booked to attend three or more sessions to start with, I would get a discount. I was tempted, but something niggled about the assumption on the part of the organisers that I would want to – that I would need to – attend several sessions. After my previous disheartening speed dating event, I decided I would try one out on its own to start with.

  Again I decided to attend with Noreen, to ensure I had moral support. This event was much smarter than the previous one, with formal round tables for six set out. Once the proceedings had begun, each table would be composed of three men and three women. After twenty minutes the men would rotate tables. The group setting was designed to make it easier for conversation to flow and the longer session should allow for deeper discussion. Based on my previous experience it made good sense and I felt hopeful.

  There was a delay to the start of the proceedings. Again there were about twenty women, yet at the appointed start time only a handful of men. We were advised that since it was a weekday, some of the men were running late from work and would be joining us imminently. We waited patiently for them to arrive but about 45 minutes later, as the women were starting to get agitated, we were informed that some of the men had pulled out at the last minute. Apparently they were scared and too nervous to attend.

  The organisers disappeared and tempers began to fray. Many of the women had experienced several other events with poor male turnout and demanded a refund. The organiser ran hurriedly hither and thither, scraping his hair back from his worried brow. Another 45 minutes later and a trail of men trickled into the hall. Despite the rising anger, the women started to look more hopeful. Men! Finally!

  The evening slowly changed gears from apprehension to activity. There was something strange about the attitude of the men, they seemed too relaxed and not engaged enough in the process. They didn’t ask many details about the women, instead they talked between themselves. As we met twelve or so men – not the twenty we had been promised – I realised that again I was the only woman in a headscarf and that none of the men present were interested in a hijab-wearing wife. I felt conned by the whole evening: a promise of high-calibre candidates but a delivery of a few mediocre specimens. At least I wished it had been even that – one of the men let slip that in fact they had been paid to attend.

  Round and round the speed dating tables, getting giddy, raising hopes, falling harder each time. It felt like ever decreasing circles, with ever-diminishing hope, spinning round, hoping that one day a man would appear and the maniacal haunting music would stop.

  The circles of speed dating and the marriage circuit were utterly forgotten as I stood in front of the Kaba in Mecca, ready to perform the hajj, the pilgrimage that each Muslim should undertake at least once in their lifetime. The circulating movement of the ocean of humanity evoked emotions from the very depth of my being. This was the place the Prophet Muhammad had grown up in. It was the place which cradled the footsteps of Abraham, who had built the Kaba; it was the location for the birth of Islam as we knew it today; and it was the place which I faced every day when I carried out my salat, the ritual prayers. Round and round went the enormous swirling crowd.

  The Kaba towers above all its surroundings, at fifteen metres high, twelve metres in depth and ten metres wide. This large, cube-shaped construction is usually covered in black cloth, which is what gives it its iconic look. It is known as the House of God, but since God has no physical location, it is more a concept for Muslims to focus on than an actual abode for the Divine. In one corner is the Black Stone, a meteor believed to be a piece of rock from heaven itself. Around the Kaba is a vast courtyard with white marble flooring, which is the setting for the hundreds of thousands of people that walk around the Kaba in anti-clockwise direction. When they have walked around it seven times, they have completed the tawaf, which is the first component of the hajj.

  Around the edge of the courtyard is a vast mosque built in a circle around the Kaba. It ushers in the pilgrims and offers shade and rest from the extreme heat of the Arabian desert during the daytime. As I stood on the steps of the great mosque looking at the point that is the focus of all Muslims around the world, I saw wave upon wave of thousands and thousands of men and women dressed in white, walking slowly around the black cube. They had come here – just like me – to perform the pilgrimage of the hajj. Were it not for the requirement to perform hajj, they might never have travelled outside their villages or countries. For many Muslims from less affluent backgrounds it would be a dream to be here. For those of us who had grown up in comfort in the West but outside the traditional old Muslim heartland, it created a new view of Islam, one that was holistic, ever present and in the majority.

  The hajj was a physical as well as a spiritual journey. Almost three million people were all trying to focus their spiritual energies towards the Divine. They found themselves also having to be physically part of the world’s most global and diverse community. Everyone was instructed to wear white, in as simple a fashion as possible. Men wore two white unstitched cloths to cover themselves, women wore simple, long white dresses. Whether it was a queen or a commoner next to you, you would never know. And that was the idea: the inequalities of the material and physical world were erased and replaced by spiritual status. What you knew of the person next to you was not their wealth or job title, but whether they smiled in greeting, whether they pushed or shoved, how nicely they treated you. With everybody wearing white clothes, with no decoration, styling or accessories, they were no longer judged by fashion, style or wealth. Everyone was just a soul.

  Across the Muslim world, although Muslims were loath to admit it, racial prejudice was rife, and yet here, at the height of religious devotion, people of all ethnicities imaginable mixed on a par. The interconnections were immediate and proximate. You m
ight find yourself next to someone from the game parks of Africa one moment, the next from the Uyghurs in China, a second later circulating with someone who had grown up in the foothills of the Incas, or being given a helping hand by a Bedouin Arab, blonde-haired Bosnian or a bright-smiled Nigerian. The moment I realised, it seemed obvious: we were all human beings. All the confusions I had faced growing up living a life divided into tangled and disconnected identities all suddenly became clear. I saw the reality of how it could work in front of my eyes: so many different identities occupying the same place, flowing into each other. You could pick each of them out separately, bold and proud of what they were.

  ‘That’s how we need to live in Britain,’ I thought to myself as I watched all these different people from around the world walk on the same journey, ‘side by side, working, studying, living, communicating, respecting, whatever our ethnicity, religion or belief. Seeing the people around us as “other” is not an option.’ At the heart of it, we were all like the white-clothed souls that walked in front of my eyes – we were the same underneath, human beings.

  On my search for a husband, and for my faith, I had learnt to be comfortable in myself and to see the connections to other people as human beings, no matter what their faith or belief. We were all on the same search to find meaning and truth. Looking in front of me at the crowd swirling past, I knew that I was different because I was me, but I was also the same as everyone, because I was a human being. Each of us occupied so many spaces and identities, and that made us multiversal, not identical.