Two Sisters
Page 9
Life was one big delightful drama.
* * *
Ayan came across as tough and self-confident. She was indignant at the oppression of women, the focus on body image, and was critical of fashion magazines for reinforcing girls’ insecurities. “Are you unhappy about the way you look? Stressed out? How many boys looked at you tonight? When did you last have sex? All these sly questions that make you feel like an outdoor toilet in India,” she wrote, in an essay called “Women’s Liberation.” “And what’s worse, we have to give birth to little rat males who we look after and hold dear, right up until they turn from boys into men who in turn go on to oppress yet another woman.”
She was prone to digression in her writing, often failing to bring her reasoning to a satisfactory conclusion. “Explain!” the teacher wrote in the margin. “Where does this fit in?” or “Disjointed!” But also “Well put!” or “Good!”
“In the distant past in Saudi Arabia, the brutal oppression of women was such that if you gave birth to a girl, she was buried alive,” Ayan wrote. “Then the Prophet Muhammad came, the man of the Muslims, and ensured that women were treated equally to men. After his death the oppression of women began afresh, and still exists, but in the wake of the Second World War more and more women grew tired of being seen as housewives.”
Ayan concluded “Women’s Liberation” by paying tribute to those who had paved the way: “Even though you were stoned, called witches and often killed. Thank you for telling the truth and setting us free.” She got an average mark along with the comments that she had made several good points but the text was somewhat rambling and the paragraph division questionable.
It was in religion class that Ayan excelled. She was not only knowledgeable about several faiths but also made her own critical evaluations. There was a lot about Islam she disliked, she declared, especially how the religion was used to subjugate women. They did not hold the same position as men or have the same rights. But she was not going to stand for it, she informed the class, because if it continued, then she would not be a part of that religion!
When she graduated lower secondary, her diploma contained an equal number of A−’s and Bs. She made an ambitious choice and applied to one of the most prestigious schools in the county—Nesbru Upper Secondary—in the hope of being accepted in their International Baccalaureate program. The school described the course of study as academically challenging, and one of “the best programs in the world for university preparation.” The instruction was in English in all subjects except Norwegian and foreign languages—appropriate for an aspiring diplomat.
Ayan was accepted into the first year. During the summer, however, she began to regret her choice. At Nesbru she would not hang out with her friends anymore; they had applied to vocational school in Rud. Ela was to attend the music program and Ivana was doing the drama course.
Ayan wrote to their little Christian Chinese piano player, who was at a camp in Toronto. “Hello, Norway calling ☺ Heard you got yourself a dude ☺ you GO girl ☺ bored out of mind here and dreading starting school have heard lots of shit about Nesbru and I miss my little yellow friend. Try to have a bit of fun, even though it’s a Christian arrangement, be a little bad!”
Her first year’s results would determine whether or not she could continue on in the IB program, which would open the doors to the big wide world. She could become the first person in her family to go far academically.
Nesbru included Nesøya in its catchment area, an island renowned for the wealth of its inhabitants and the mansions with a view of Oslo Fjord. Ayan did not know anyone, did not resemble anyone; she was different—a girl with golden skin, soft round cheeks, a high forehead, and a sparkle in her eyes. She cut an upright, proud figure and dressed in tight jeans and colorful hijabs.
English had been her favorite subject in lower secondary, which now stood her in good stead, but her form teacher, Knut Gundersen, was surprised at the discrepancy between her oral and written skills and suspected she had mild dyslexia. Her economics teacher, a woman of Iranian descent who had been educated in the United States and had herself learned Norwegian as an adult, attributed Ayan’s spelling mistakes to a lack of grounding in her mother tongue. “She knows a string of languages,” the teacher said, “but not one for real.”
Gundersen believed Ayan had an aptitude for considered thought and reflection that many of her classmates lacked. She was able to relate what they discussed in class to her own experiences in an interesting and thought-provoking manner. She was simply on another level.
In the autumn, each pupil was to attend a parent-teacher meeting with the form teacher. Ayan came with her father. The teacher told Sadiq that Ayan was a pleasure to have in the class and that she was hardworking and well-informed. “That’s what we like to hear!” Sadiq smiled.
They resemble each other, the teacher thought. Both of them are cheery, laugh a lot, it is obvious that they get along. Strong family ties, he concluded.
Gundersen, who taught Norwegian, rarely gave his students creative assignments, viewing them as not particularly successful, but he sometimes allowed the pupils the freedom to write whatever they wanted. Ayan wrote a piece titled “Journey into the Unknown.”
There were once two young girls who wanted to go out into the world and find themselves. At home they had always got everything they wanted, attended the best school, worn the newest clothes, but had never been given the opportunity to decide anything for themselves, something young women strongly desire. For a long time they had planned a trip, or rather they had planned how they were going to get away, because where they were headed they did not know. Late one summer evening, when their parents were not at home, they wrote a text message: “Mom, Dad, we’re going out for a while, don’t wait up.”
The sisters came to a taxi stand. A number of handsome drivers offered them a lift, an old crone wanted to trick them, and then they met a “peculiar man.” Finally they made it to the airport and took a flight to Turkey, a land “west of the sun and east of the moon.” They traveled far, as far as can be, before they finally arrived. They had terrible jet lag, but they had to continue on until they saw three suns and three moons and then take a right by the abyss of lost souls. When they got there, they found their journey was at an end. Whether or not they had found themselves we do not know, but they lived there happily for the rest of their lives.
Knut Gundersen awarded her a B and wrote in green ballpoint: “a fine story, with a lot of good points, but a rather unsatisfactory ending & some grammatical errors (you haven’t quite got your dyslexia under control yet).”
He paused, pondered for a moment. Granted, the story was confused and rambling, but was it saying something else, something deeper, something he did not comprehend?
6
THE MISSION
That first autumn at upper secondary, Ayan was introduced to a new religious phenomenon: a Muslim youth organization based on puritanical principles. The preaching was charismatic; feelings were to be awakened, thoughts would follow, life was to be pure and true.
Islam Net held a series of lectures at Oslo University College. They began simply enough, with the Five Pillars of Islam. She knew about that, about the Prophet’s life and teachings, his successors, it was familiar stuff.
But still it was exciting, the people were cool, and it felt right. Plus, there were a lot of cute boys there.
Over the course of the evening lectures, where girls and boys sat on separate rows of benches, a foursome developed: Aisha, Emira, Dilal, and Ayan.
Aisha was the driving force. She was energetic and engaged but could be slightly brusque, making hurtful comments. Proud and sometimes aloof, she’d adopted the habit of holding her head slightly back with her chin up when speaking to people.
In Dilal’s opinion she was actually kind, just not really in tune with people’s feelings, owing to the fact that from a young age she had closed herself off from her own, to protect herself from an abusive father.
Dilal was a Kurd from Iran, who had lived in Iraq until the family moved to Bærum when she was small. She looked like a Middle Eastern model, with made-up almond-shaped eyes, powdered skin, and a little aquiline nose. She was hooked on exercise, mostly yoga, Pilates, and light weight lifting. She would chastise Aisha, with whom she had attended lower secondary, for eating junk food and having a trashy lifestyle that was ruining her skin and figure. Aisha responded that what was on the inside counted and admonished Dilal in turn for not covering her hair. Islam required it, she said. Dilal disagreed. Both of them found verses of the Koran to back up their views.
Together they all grew strong. A four-leaf clover with one stalk.
* * *
Islam Net had started out as a Facebook page two years previously, in 2008. Ten or so engineering students at Oslo University College were behind it.
The wave that gave the engineering students direction, and that they would continue to surf, was Salafism. Salafists emulate al-salaf al-salih—the first three pious generations after the Prophet Muhammad.
Salafism is ultraconservative, seeking radical change and looking to the past for inspiration. Islamic practice is to be built upon the foundations of Islam—upon the Koran and hadith. One should strive to follow the messages and maxims of the Prophet literally and rise above the local culture and more recent handed-down exegetical traditions. The roots of the movement are deep, but its growth worldwide has occurred in the last fifty years.
In the 1950s, Saudi Arabia began its efforts to Islamize nearby regions. Over time, the kingdom financed a global missionary network to carry out dawa, which means “to invite” and is used in the sense of “to proselytize.” The movement’s mode of thought and interpretations streamed out of the Arabian desert, financed by oil money. Mosques and madrasas the world over accrued generous gifts. Stipends and scholarships to study in Mecca and Medina were granted to obedient young men.
The organizers of Islam Net did not term themselves Salafists, but said they were Muslims who were “guided by the four major schools of Sunni Islam.” Salafism had received negative attention in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and the students wanted to avoid that label.
When their Facebook page proved a success, the engineering students decided to make a web page. They discussed the possible content.
Someone had already blazed a trail for them. Their icon was Zakir Naik, a Salafi-oriented Muslim televangelist close to the Saudi royal family. One of the students suggested that they copy the concept from his book Answers to Non-Muslims’ Common Questions About Islam, which aimed to “clear up misunderstandings about Islam.” Naik’s speeches, which were available on YouTube, were put on Islam Net’s home page. On his channel, Peace TV, the young men were discovering new preachers all the time. Their message seemed fresh, new—and true.
The students now had friends on Facebook and followers on their home page. During a conversation in the prayer room at the university, one of them suggested expanding. In order to recruit more people, they had to hold get-togethers where people could meet.
A couple hundred people attended the first gathering, where Norwegian-Pakistani Zulqarnain Madani was the guest speaker. The imam, who had studied at the University of Medina, was invited to lambaste the Dutch politician and activist Geert Wilders’s film Fitna, but the question that caused the most debate was: Who was behind September 11? Madani argued that the attacks were planned by the Jews and the U.S. government.
After holding a handful of meetings, Islam Net swelled to several hundred paying members. The leaders wanted the organization to grow even larger and suggested that a Peace Conference would ensure this. The concept had originated in Mumbai, where for many years charismatic preachers had been awakening the Indian masses with rhetoric steeped in religious fervor.
In Norway, Islam Net illustrated a generation gap. The students were opposed to the tradition of ethnically divided mosques. When the first Muslims arrived in Norway in the 1970s, mosques were not considered a priority, as the immigrants’ stay seemed destined to be short. Only during the ’80s, when it became apparent most of them would be permanent residents, did the need arise. People wanted settings for the rituals of life—births, weddings, funerals—and a place to seek guidance when life proved difficult.
The older generation had used apartments, basements, and disused factory floors, consecrating them as places of worship. The mosques became venues to gather for Friday prayer and to meet one’s compatriots. The students viewed their parents as having blended culture with religion, continuing to pray as they had in the Punjab or in Mogadishu. For them it was more about tradition than having a conscious attitude toward Allah. The students believed that mosques divided along national lines did little to contribute to the collective interests of Muslims. If the cultural veils of these mosques were drawn away, true religion would form the framework. Then, the students felt, Islam would stand center stage.
They were second-generation immigrants, born and raised in Norway. Some members of this generation felt outside mainstream Norwegian society and did not believe they were given the same opportunities as ethnic Norwegians. No matter how much of an effort they made, they would never be wholly accepted.
Some protested their parents’ modest, traditional lifestyles by adopting a life of hedonism, with everything that went along with it and was haram in Islam. Others gave society the finger—if you don’t want me, then I don’t want you—and became gang members. Young men with Muslim backgrounds were overrepresented in crime statistics.
But most found an identity allowing them to stand with one foot planted in each culture, deciding which values they would take from their parents and which they would adopt from their own country of birth. Some attempted to claim their place among those seen as Norwegian through and through—first in education, then in the workplace—and succeeded. Others leaned to one side, lifted a foot, and balanced on one leg. They found Western secular values incompatible with Islam.
In the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, there were many who felt being Muslim became more difficult. Islam constituted the new image of the enemy. Fear of immigrants spilled over into criticism of Islam. The need to stand together with others grew stronger. Muslim identity gained in importance.
Some teenagers stuffed all their setbacks and growing pains in the same bag: It’s because I’m a Muslim. They believed the media were against them, that they were being met with misunderstanding and prejudice, and Western society wanted to offend them. The debate over the cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper exploded when the leaders of Islam Net were teenagers. They needed some form of defense.
Why be a second-class Norwegian when you can be a first-class Muslim?
* * *
Girls usually had stricter upbringings, and many entered traditionally male fields and enrolled in law and medical schools. Others were inspired by the revivalist wave and held the Koran aloft as an instruction manual. The ideal of chaste womanhood grew in popularity, even among girls at professional schools. The hijab came into fashion.
Dilal was given none-too-subtle hints. “You’re distracting boys at the meetings,” a girl whispered to her, “you should dress more modestly.” Dilal ignored the suggestion. Emira, on the other hand, began wearing a hijab, even while playing football. She went from sporty to Muslim sporty to just Muslim. Later that autumn she took to wearing a jilbab, also known as a Somali burqa—a covering for the hea
d and neck that descended into a long enveloping garment. She quit the soccer team.
Joining Islam Net could be a rebellion against family traditions. The demand to marry a cousin from your homeland felt like a burden for many. Islam Net encouraged girls to choose a partner for life from the whole ummah—among all strict Muslims. Islam should serve to unite them, it shouldn’t matter where their family hailed from or what nationality or ethnicity they had. In that respect, Islam Net was color-blind.
Emira was particularly receptive to the teachings on this matter. Her father had agreed to her marriage to his brother’s son when the children were small, a so-called import marriage, so that one more member of the family could have a future in Norway. Her single life was nearing an end. She implored her father, she begged him. But he was unyielding. She was to do as the family said.
The computer engineer wanted to make her own choice. And she already had. She was in love, she whispered to Dilal one day.
“With who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Enjoy it while you can,” Dilal said.
“He’s gorgeous,” Emira added. “And very religious.”
* * *
Aisha surprised her friends when she showed up at a talk in a full niqab. Only her eyes were visible.
“Brace yourself for a reaction!” Dilal said drily. “I don’t think Norway is ready for that.”