Laughing All the Way to the Mosque

by Zarqa Nawaz

  When the crowd eventually dissipated, Sami and I went home. He was furious that people had behaved in this manner. I was hoping the whole thing would just disappear, but a few days later the Islamic Association of Saskatchewan was presented with a petition to have me removed from the mosque. Sami was the secretary of the board at the time. He recused himself during the meetings where I was the topic of discussion. The board ruled that they couldn’t control how a member of the community behaved, but the petitioners persisted.

  “What do you want us to do?” said a member of the board. “Should we burn her house down?” I wondered if that’s what would have happened if I lived anywhere else in the world. But I lived in Regina, where I was safe to poke fun at Muslims, even if they had trouble dealing with it. I decided to put the board out of its misery by resigning from the Islamic Association of Saskatchewan. They returned my twenty-five-dollar membership fee.

  “I really thought Muslims would love this show,” I said that evening. I was alone with Sami, scrolling through blogs. I felt a little broken, discouraged and despondent. It was difficult to belong to a community that treated me like an outcast.

  “Look, this is the first television show about a mosque-based Muslim community in North America, possibly the world,” said Sami. “And you tipped some sacred cows.” He took the computer away from me.

  “I didn’t mean to tip them. I just wanted to show them some new pastures,” I said, trying to sort out the last few confusing days.

  “Write the show you want,” he said. “Trust me, they’ll move on to something else. One day the same people who hate Little Mosque might end up loving it.”

  I doubted it. Conservative Muslims were a tough nut to crack. I felt crushed under the weight of their collective judgment. I took Sami’s advice and stopped reading Internet comments, but it would be a while before I could go to the mosque again. The mosque had once been a place of repose, but now it was a place with a lot of bad memories.

  “I’m not sure I want to be around Muslims right now.”

  It turned out that I didn’t have to see much of my community after all. I got a call from Michael Snook.

  “Zarqa, the CBC’s decided to green-light the series. They’ve ordered twenty episodes,” he said.

  “That’s great news,” I said, my disappointment washing away. I was officially excited again. “And did they make a decision about where to shoot the show?”

  “Toronto,” said Michael. “I know that’s disappointing for you, but CBC feels it’s best. We’ll need you back here.”

  “For how long?”

  “Six months.”

  We had shot the first two episodes of Little Mosque in Regina, using my kitchen for some of the Hamoudi family scenes. After an exhausting two years of travelling for Me and the Mosque, it had been a relief to be able to come home to Sami and the kids every night. But Corner Gas was also being shot in Saskatchewan at the time, and it was a monster hit. There was some concern that there wasn’t going to be enough space in the small Regina production studio for two shows shooting simultaneously. The remaining six episodes had been shot in Toronto, which took me away for three months. Now, with Michael and I being the only members of the team living in Saskatchewan, the CBC executives, who were known for wanting to be closely involved in all aspects of a show’s creation, wanted the show to be shot in Toronto, where they could continue to nurture it.

  “Sami, I’m going to tell Anton I can’t do it,” I said, looking at Zayn colouring at the dining room table.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because of the kids,” I said. “What will happen to them?”

  “Nothing will happen to them,” said Sami. “They have their father.”

  Zayn looked up. “Is Mama going again?” He burst into tears.

  “Look what’s happening to him,” I said, perturbed. “He’s crying.”

  “It’s called emotional manipulation.”

  “It’s working. Maybe the writers could do it without me?”

  “A bunch of white writers who’ve never darkened the door of a mosque can’t suddenly be expected to make a comedy about mosque life. Plus this is the biggest thing that’s happened in your career.”

  I had worked so hard to make it as a writer, and now the success felt bittersweet. Somehow I figured my career and family would always be in tandem. But with the kids no longer portable, I’d have to leave them all behind. I flew to Toronto and, to my mother’s great annoyance, moved into a rented condo. I couldn’t live with her. I already felt guilty about leaving my family and she would just add to my turmoil.

  On set, the designer had built the interior of the mosque, just as I’d asked, complete with colourful carpets, five tacky wall clocks and a half-barrier between the men and the women—I had to be accurate, after all. It miraculously faced northeast, so on my first day I decided to do my prayers there. It was a piece of home, but unlike home, it was calm and restful. I was a congregation of one. That space became my sanctuary—my little mosque in the city.

  Six tumultuous seasons later, Little Mosque ended its run. I was watching a new series entitled Citizen Khan on the BBC, a hilarious and irreverent sitcom about the British Muslim community.

  I scrolled down to the comments section on the BBC website and read the predictable rants from outraged Muslims until I came to one that stopped me.

  “This is no Little Mosque on the Prairie. Now that was a show that was respectful to everyone.”

  I smiled.

  Jinn–A Muslim Thing

  I ran back from the gas station store to the pumps where Sami was filling up the minivan.

  “I need you to come with me while I pee,” I told him.

  “Why, did you forget how?” he said, startled. “It’s like riding a bike, you can’t forget.”

  I thrust out a key attached by a chain to a plank of wood. My hand was actually shaking. “The washroom isn’t inside the gas station. The owner told me to walk a few metres into the forest where they built the outhouse.”

  “Are you worried about getting lost?” he asked. “I can see it from here.”

  “Just hold my hand. Why is it so hard to be a good husband?” I was frustrated by his thick-headedness.

  “As a good husband I hold your hand in times of stress, which this is not.” He got into the minivan and started the engine. “Let’s go.”

  “No, I have to pee!” I cried.

  He took the key out of the ignition. “So go!”

  “What kind of gas station has an outhouse?” I wailed, and got into the passenger seat so he could better see my panic. He needed to understand that this was deathly important.

  “This kind,” says Sami. He wasn’t taking my fears of imminent doom seriously. “Why are you freaking out about this? Wait, what movie were you watching as we pulled in? Did it, by chance, involve someone being possessed?”

  “Um. No, it was the story of a nice girl named Emily Rose. Kind of like an Anne of Green Gables thing? But it wigged me out.” I am the worst liar. “So I need you to come with me.”

  We were on our way home from a family holiday in Panorama, Alberta, and I had foolishly brought along a DVD of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Sami discouraged me from watching movies involving possession, because I always became a little unhinged afterwards and he had to deal with the fallout. So I’d had to sneak Emily Rose into my laptop, watching it surreptitiously while he was watching the road. I mean, really, no one does exorcism better than the Catholics.

  “What does possessed mean?” asked Zayn from the back.

  “It means when they take something back because you can’t pay for it,” said Inaya.

  “Did Abbu forget to pay for Mama?” he asked.

  “No, you’re all silly,” said Maysa, displaying all the wisdom of a twelve-year-old. “Being possessed means having an ability you never had before, right, Abbu? Like speaking French.”

  “Or becoming invisible,” said Inaya, mesmerized. “Is Mama going to d
isappear?”

  “Only if I leave without her,” replied Sami. “Which I’m seriously thinking about. Why did you bring that movie? You know how crazy you get.”

  Herein lies the crux of my problem. Superman’s superpower is his incredible strength, and mine is the ability to watch horror movies without flinching or suffering nightmares. Even the Saw movies were fine until they got a little tedious: yet another guy waking up in the basement with some sort of meat grinder attached to his testicles, ready to pulverize his twig and berries if he didn’t answer some question properly. Yawn. But possession is my kryptonite.

  Muslims don’t believe in ghosts or in zombie viruses that allow you to go on undead forever, eating the living for nourishment (with the exception of Hugh Hefner). Once you’re put into the ground, you’re never coming back to haunt anyone. If you didn’t have a chance to say goodbye properly, wanted to tell the police who murdered you or needed to pass on an urgent secret, it’s too late. A Muslim never has the chance to scrawl the words “a spoonful of grape jelly in the meat sauce was my secret to the lasagna” on a steamed mirror after someone’s shower. If Patrick Swayze’s character had been Muslim, Ghost would have been over in five minutes.

  According to Islam, you get one shot at this life, and once your soul departs, it’s a one-way ticket straight into the light, no reminders about dry cleaning for the living. Muslims believe only white people coming out of comas see the white light. I don’t know what Muslims see after they come out of comas—probably bickering relatives. So horror movies have no effect on me at all. No nightmares or lingering worries. Unless they involve possession. Then I must watch with sick fascination until the end. But watching those movies comes at a price.

  “I could have a picnic in a graveyard,” I said. “That’s how brave I am.”

  “So prove it to me by going to the outhouse,” replied Sami drily. “I’d really like to leave soon.”

  I stared him down. “I could get possessed by a jinn,” I hissed.

  “And I could get eaten by a dingo,” Sami said.

  “What’s a jinn?” asked Zayn. Sami looked at me.

  “I got this,” I replied. “Okay, so you know how Muslims believe that humans are made from clay, and angels are made from light.”

  “Yep,” said Zayn.

  “We also believe in a third creation. They’re called jinn and they’re made from smokeless fire.”

  “Are jinn ghosts?” asked Zayn.

  “No, but they’re invisible to the human eye, like God and Wi-Fi.”

  “This is not the way kids should be taught about religion,” said Sami with apprehension.

  “Relax,” I replied. “Think of it as a real-world lesson.”

  “Except that it’s not very real,” he grumbled.

  “But what’s a jinn?” asked Zayn.

  “They’re kind of like people—they have free will, marry, have kids, follow different religions—but they’re invisible and live in areas that aren’t inhabited by humans. Outhouses in a forest are a magnet for jinn.”

  I knew that sounded crazy but that’s what I believed.

  “So that’s why Mama can’t pee outside,” said Maysa.

  “Apparently,” said Sami. “But she’s made jinn into monsters in her mind.” Sami believed that jinn were more like bad subconscious inclinations, like a devil and an angel on your shoulder. But I believed that sometimes the world of jinn and humans intersected. What to me was an outhouse could be a three-bedroom ranch split for a jinn. And then it would take me for an intruder, get mad and possess me in retaliation and I’d become just like Emily Rose.

  “Can jinn watch her while she pees?” asked Zayn.

  “No one watches you while you pee,” said Sami.

  “I watch Rashad sometimes,” said Zayn.

  “Abbu!” yelled Rashad.

  “No one watches you as long as you lock the door.” Sami looked at Zayn. “Stop watching your brother.”

  “How much longer before we get home?” I asked.

  “Really, you’re going to wait that long?”

  “Don’t you remember the stories growing up? They can change into the shape of a human except for one part, like a hairy paw, which stays in their true animal form.”

  “Mama’s pretty hairy,” said Zayn.

  “Yeah, she is,” said Inaya looking at me with curiosity. “Can you become invisible?”

  “My friend Anila told me that jinn can make themselves look human when it’s convenient for them,” said Maysa. “And that some of them are Muslim.”

  “Sometimes she just disappears when it’s story time,” said Rashad. “Like she became invisible.”

  The kids looked at me suspiciously.

  “I’m not a jinn,” I yelled, looking at Sami for support.

  “You started this,” he said unsympathetically.

  “Jinn eat poo and live in forests, which I do not do,” I said to Sami.

  “Gross,” said Maysa.

  “Or do they eat bones? What did you learn, poo or bones?”

  Sami just started the minivan again and didn’t have the decency to answer me. But I didn’t let it deter me.

  “What were the rules again? Don’t sit on them or pour hot water on them. But what I don’t get is if you can’t see them, how are you supposed to not step on them and make them mad enough to possess you?” I said. “It’s a huge dilemma.”

  “I’m sure for you it is,” he said.

  “Make fun of me all you want, but some people believe that they can mate with humans. Maybe I’m totally the outhouse jinn’s type.”

  “No one is anyone’s type on the toilet,” responded Sami.

  “What if they wanted to eat my poo and mate with me and then possess me?”

  Sami refused to answer. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taking me seriously. I opened the door and got out cautiously. I returned moments later.

  “That was fast,” said Sami.

  “I was just returning the key,” I said glumly. “Let’s just go home as fast as possible.”

  Sami put the minivan into drive and we merged onto the highway, leaving my outhouse of doom behind. I felt every bump and jolt for the next two hours.

  Catholics believe that demons can possess bodies, and some Muslims, like me, believe that jinn can do the same thing. But Catholics demand that a person be put through a rigorous psychiatric evaluation to rule out mental illness before jumping to the possession diagnosis. Sami, who is a psychiatrist, must have come across the occasional possessed person.

  “None of your patients ever rotated their heads 180 degrees?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Anyone ever levitate on the psych unit?”

  “Nope.”

  “So you never whispered the last three chapters from the Qur’an to miraculously cure a patient?” Muslims believe reciting those three chapters is one way to repel a jinn.

  “Nope.”

  “People go crazy for all sorts of reasons, and possession could be one of them,” I said.

  But Sami believed all diseases of the mind—schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder—were caused by chemical imbalances and could be treated by modern medicine. How he still called himself a Muslim was beyond me. I should have asked him about his views on possession before I married him, but now it was too late. I had no one to hold my hand in an outhouse and now my bladder felt like it was about to have an aneurysm.

  By the time we pulled up to the house, it was 2 a.m.

  “I’ll get the luggage, you get the kids,” said Sami as I flew out of the van and hurtled towards the bathroom, which was mercifully free from supernatural beings. As I nearly cried from relief, I decided Sami was right. No more possession movies.

  I could hear the kids banging around the house getting ready to sleep.

  “I need to cuddle with you in bed,” I told Sami.

  “Fine. But you don’t get to complain you can’t sleep because of my snoring,” he said. I’m a notoriously
light sleeper, so when the snoring got too loud I often moved to another room or had him sleep in the basement. But tonight I didn’t feel like being alone. I popped in earplugs to block out the snoring and hung on to Sami for dear life as I finally fell asleep. I dreamt about adult diapers chasing demons.

  Then I sensed a presence hovering above my body. It couldn’t be. I was too frightened to open my eyes, since I knew what this meant: I was about to be possessed. A jinn must have decided I was his type after all and followed me home from the gas station, even if I’d never made it to the outhouse. So this is how it starts. I wondered if Sami would even notice that I was gone, in spirit if not body. It was getting closer and closer, and I could feel its hot breath on my face. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and opened my eyes.

  It was Zayn. A distinctly terrified and blue-looking Zayn.

  “You left me in the van,” he said with chattering teeth. Sami woke up.

  “What’s going on?” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Mama forgot me in the van, and I woke up when my toes got too cold.” Zayn squeezed in between the two of us. I rubbed his toes and fingers while trying to avoid Sami’s gaze. The prairies got chilly at night during the fall.

  “You didn’t check to see if all the kids were out of the van?” he asked.

  “I could hear them running around the house,” I stammered. “I just assumed that they were all out. I’m so sorry, Zayn.” I felt horrible. The kids weren’t babies anymore and were capable of getting out of the van on their own, but still I felt like I had failed my child.

  “Were you scared?” Sami asked him.

  “It was so dark. I got out really slowly and walked up the garage stairs.” He stopped shivering from the cold. “And I tried really hard not to think about jinn trying to eat me.”

  “They don’t eat you,” I started but then decided this wasn’t the time to sort out the niceties of possession. “I’m really sorry.” I smoothed out his hair. “I promise never to watch a movie about possession again.”

  “And you promise to pee in an outhouse toilet if the need calls for it,” said Sami.