His Other Wife

by Umm Zakiyyah

  Aliyah surveyed the room then lowered her hand and pointed toward the flat carpet. “Okay, now look at the masking tape markings on the floor. Anyone who has a LAN 1 card should go to the area marked as number one. LAN 2 cards go to area two, and LAN 3 cards to area three.” The interns surveyed the floor and moved themselves accordingly. A hint of a smile was on Aliyah’s face as she saw them comparing cards to see who would be their group partners. She always found it heartwarming to see youth interacting with each other during group activities.

  “On the back of each card are words, numbers, diagrams, or graphs,” she said after the interns were in groups of ten. “Some are followed by a mathematical symbol. In each LAN group, nine members are holding a part of a single mathematical problem, and one member is holding the answer. For this activity, you will take the role of either a switch or a router. Your first task is to figure out who is who. If you are holding part of the problem, you are one of the switches in your group. If you are holding the answer, you are the router in your group.” The interns began to read their cards and glance at the card of the person next to them.

  “The first group to arrange themselves in proper mathematical order earns ten points,” Aliyah said, gesturing a hand toward the scoring chart on the large dry erase board. Immediately, the students began reading their cards and asking to see the group members’ cards. “You have five minutes, starting…now.” The noise level in the room immediately rose as the students mingled and shuffled around as they tried to figure out their mathematical problems.

  “Mentors,” Aliyah said into the microphone as her eyes scanned the walls where her colleagues and superiors stood, “you are permitted to help the interns, but only in understanding their cards. You cannot give them the answer or tell them which group member comes before or after them.”

  The mentors nodded gratefully and walked toward the groups with an air of purpose. Aliyah could tell that they were relieved that they would not be relegated to the usual role of wall flies as a fellow mentor headed an activity. The previous week she had assumed that useless role and was left wondering why mentors had to attend the group activity at all.

  Aliyah turned off the portable microphone and set it on the table that held a large cardboard “WAN” sign, where she would instruct the “routers” to come after their LAN group solved the mathematical problem. As Aliyah rounded the room and observed the interns and mentors interacting with each other, she felt that everything was right in her life. Her love for math and science education filled her so much that at times she imagined that if she remained only a mother and an educator for the rest of her life, she would be content.

  Marriage is half your faith, she had learned in her Islamic studies classes. But no matter how eloquently the concept was explained, she never quite fully grasped what the prophetic teaching meant. When Aliyah was first exposed to the concept years after becoming Muslim, she had thought it meant that she had to get married.

  But Aliyah hadn’t been particularly interested in marriage. It wasn’t that she frowned upon the arrangement. But she had grown up believing that she would meet her soul mate one day and fall in love. And because she hadn’t yet met “the one”, she saw no reason to get married.

  Muslims don’t fall in love before marriage. It was something that Aliyah would hear over and over again in Islamic classes and lectures. But her heart had recoiled at the idea. How can you marry someone you don’t love? she wondered. But the more imams and scholars repeated the words, the more convinced she became that her dislike for the statement was due to religious ignorance and weak faith.

  “True believers marry for the sake of Allah, not for their nafs,” the local imam had told her when she spoke to him about Matt’s proposal. Deanna had pushed the marriage so much that Aliyah had begun to doubt her Islamic sincerity in refusing Matt. Her internal turmoil eventually inspired her to seek advice from the imam. “But why can’t we marry for our nafs?” Aliyah had asked him. “My nafs has to live in the marriage. I don’t see what’s wrong with wanting something for myself.” “If you truly believe in Allah and the Hereafter,” the imam had told her, “a good Muslim brother is all you’d want in a marriage.”

  Aliyah gritted her teeth at the memory. It was only in the last few months that she was beginning to explore her own feelings and needs guilt-free. After mustering the courage to cut off Deanna as a friend, Aliyah found that there were many other attachments that needed abating, the first of which was her blind trust of anyone labeled an imam, scholar, or Islamic teacher. It angered her that she had been so naïve as to assume that the imam’s marital advice reflected divine guidance more than it did human opinion.

  Like so many other converts to Islam and inexperienced, gullible Muslims, Aliyah had made the erroneous assumption that a “knowledgeable person” was actually a knowledgeable person. The Islamic classes she had attended had left her feeling so helplessly ignorant and in need of scholarly guidance that the obvious had escaped her. Any “knowledgeable person” was knowledgeable in only a certain field, not in every field. Only God had full knowledge and understanding of every aspect of life; thus, only He had the right to speak with authority on what someone should or should not do. Yet even God himself remained silent on exactly whom a person should marry. He gave a few basic, general guidelines then left the rest to human choice, desire, and opinion. Why then had the imam made Aliyah feel guilty for wanting a marriage that pleased her nafs? And why had Aliyah assumed that pleasing her nafs—her human choice, desire, and opinion—was mutually exclusive to pleasing Allah?

  Would Aliyah’s life had turned out differently if she had trusted her intuition more than she had trusted the imam? What if she had realized twelve years ago that, while the imam had a lot of knowledge regarding Islamic concepts, his understanding of the practical application of that knowledge might be lacking?

  “We’re done! We’re done!” some interns from LAN 2 shouted, interrupting Aliyah’s thoughts.

  Aliyah smiled as she walked to the front of the room and retrieved the microphone and turned it back on. “Congratulations LAN 2,” she said, prompting some clapping and cheers from the group. “But before you get your ten points, we need to check your mathematical problem and solution.”

  “We’re done too!” the groups LAN 3 and LAN 1 shouted one after the other.

  “Mentors,” Aliyah said, nodding toward her colleagues and superiors, “see if LAN 2 have correctly assigned themselves to the roles of switches and router and if their problem is in the correct order for the solution they are proposing. If so, instruct the router to come to the WAN table. If not, then check the problem and solution of LAN 3.”

  “You must not know how it feels to be in love,” Reem had said when, a few days prior, Aliyah mentioned her thoughts on remaining single for the rest of her life and investing her time and energy into her son and her students. “If you knew how true love felt, you wouldn’t think you’d be content without it.”

  Maybe Reem is right, Aliyah thought to herself. But even so, Aliyah was unwilling to trust Reem’s thoughts over her own. She might be more knowledgeable than me about Islam, Aliyah considered. But she’s not more knowledgeable than me about me.

  ***

  “I like that.” Jacob pointed to the framed quote on the wall of Aliyah’s office from where he stood in the open doorway late Friday afternoon. He had already packed up and was dropping by Aliyah’s office before leaving for the day.

  Aliyah halted gathering her belongings to glance at the wall from where she stood behind her desk. We are anxious to improve our circumstances, but are unwilling to improve ourselves. We therefore remain bound. She’d hung the quote next to her desk earlier that week.

  She smiled. “It’s supposed to say, ‘Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound,’” she said, a shadow of a smile on her face. “But I figured Dr. Warren would ask me to take it down on the grounds of sexism.”
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  Jacob chuckled in agreement. “Adapted from a quote by James Allen,” he read aloud. “That was smart.”

  “I liked the pronoun we better anyway,” Aliyah said sincerely. “I’m trying to get to a place where I focus on myself, and I think sticking to I and we helps when I’m being critical.”

  “It’s a far cry from ‘Don’t argue with a stupid person,’ huh?” Jacob said jokingly.

  “You remember that?” she said self-consciously, laughter in her voice.

  “Yes, because I’m trying to get away from the negativity myself,” he said. “I’ve spent too many years being reactive and critical. It’s time to focus on being proactive and self-reflective.”

  Aliyah rolled her eyes in agreement as she leaned forward to shut down her computer. “You can say that again. Sometimes I feel like I was sleepwalking for the last twenty years. It’s unbelievable how much power I gave other people over my life.”

  “For me, it isn’t so much other people as it is guilt and obligation,” Jacob said. “I swear, those two feelings have been in the driver seat of my life for too long.”

  Aliyah nodded thoughtfully, and Jacob noticed how she seemed to be sincerely reflecting on his words. “That’s an interesting perspective,” she said as she put her iPad into her handbag and removed her keys. “You know, that might be where I went wrong myself.”

  “It’s where a lot of us went wrong.”

  Aliyah pulled the straps of her purse over her shoulder then picked up a bulging manila folder before walking around her desk, a finger looped through her key ring. Jacob stepped backwards into the hallway as Aliyah approached the door and pulled it closed.

  “SubhaanAllah,” Aliyah said as she locked the door, speaking as if realizing something for the first time. “I think that’s what has been bothering me all this time about some of my Islamic studies teachers. They made me feel guilty instead of inspired, so I did things out of obligation instead of trying to please Allah.”

  “You have to be careful with that though,” Jacob said cautiously as he and Aliyah walked toward the elevator. “Guilty obligation isn’t mutually exclusive to pleasing Allah.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Aliyah said. “It’s one thing to feel obligated to change because you know you’re doing wrong and feel guilty about it. But it’s another thing to feel obligated to change because someone made you feel guilty about something that you didn’t even think was wrong.”

  Jacob’s eyebrows rose in understanding. “That’s a big problem amongst Muslims,” he said reflectively. “But there’s so much we really don’t know, so sometimes it’s best to just trust someone more knowledgeable.”

  Aliyah rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Someone more knowledgeable in what though?” she said. “I swear, I’m so sick of hearing that. They act like studying Islam in a university gives them authority over people’s lives. You can teach me the basics of Islam, but don’t tell me your knowledge gives you the right to dictate my personal life.”

  “Whoa,” Jacob said, lighthearted teasing in his tone. “That’s why I said sometimes. Obviously, a scholar can’t tell you how to live your life. They can only teach you about Islam, and even that comes with conditions and limitations.”

  “If only they understood that,” Aliyah said, frustration in her voice. “Too many of us trust everything they say. Don’t they have an obligation to say ‘I don’t know’ when they don’t know?”

  Jacob was silent as he and Aliyah stood outside the elevator waiting for it to open. In the seconds that passed, some of their colleagues joined them, inspiring Jacob to remain silent longer than he intended. She’s hurting, he said to himself. This topic was obviously a sensitive one for Aliyah, and Jacob wondered what had happened in her life that hurt her so deeply.

  The elevator chimed, and the doors slowly slid open. Aliyah groaned when she saw that it was already full. “I’m taking the stairs,” she said. “You all have a good evening.”

  “See you Monday,” some of her colleagues called out in response.

  Instinctively, Jacob turned and followed Aliyah toward the staircase. He hadn’t asked her what he had intended when he stopped by her office.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jacob said as he hurried in front of Aliyah and pulled open the heavy exit door.

  Aliyah shrugged as she walked past him and started down the stairs. “Sure.”

  He stepped forward and let the door close behind him. “Would you object to me going on television to talk about what happened?”

  Aliyah halted her movements and turned toward him, a skeptical expression on her face. “Television?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I think it’s the only way to correct the rumors.”

  Aliyah drew in a deep breath and exhaled as she continued down the stairs, this time walking more slowly. “Is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I think it’s worth a try.”

  “Isn’t it a bit late?” she said. “I mean, why now?”

  “Because it’s the first time I was given the opportunity.”

  Aliyah grunted. “You actually read all those emails and inboxes from the media? I don’t trust those people.”

  “I don’t either,” Jacob said. “But I did respond to ones who sounded sincere.”

  “Sounded sincere?” Aliyah said skeptically. “Based on what?”

  “A hunch,” he said, shrugging. “And du’aa, of course.”

  Aliyah was quiet, but Jacob could tell she was listening, albeit reluctantly.

  “Responding to them wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be,” he said. “After I came up with a short, standard response, I just sent the same reply to all of them. It’s similar to the one I posted on my Facebook page.”

  “I didn’t see it,” Aliyah said, her voice devoid of interest.

  “It wasn’t much,” Jacob admitted apologetically. “But I basically said that none of the rumors are true and slandering believers is a serious sin.”

  “I can see why the media didn’t respond,” Aliyah said sarcastically, an amused grin on her face. “Slandering believers is a serious sin?” She chuckled. “They probably don’t even believe in God, let alone the concept of sin. You probably sounded more self-righteous than helpful.”

  Jacob chuckled in agreement. “That part was only on my Facebook page. In my reply to the media, I said engaging in libel isn’t a good idea. I then asked if they’d be willing to do a full, unedited interview with me to explain what really happened.” He shrugged. “I didn’t expect anyone to respond. But I felt it was the least I could do.”

  Aliyah drew in a deep breath and exhaled as they continued to descend the stairs. “I think it’s fine,” she said, “as long as you don’t mention me.”

  “I don’t have to mention you by name,” he said tentatively, “but I’d have to mention you. Otherwise there’s no point in doing the interview.”

  “Then don’t do the interview,” Aliyah said with a shrug. “I don’t want to relive that nightmare. What if they edit the interview and twist your words? What then?”

  Jacob walked alongside Aliyah in silence until they reached the first floor. He stepped ahead of her and held open the door as she passed in front of him. “I thought about that,” he said broodingly. “And that’s definitely a possibility. But I figured that since so much time has passed, there’s nothing really newsworthy in that angle. They used it before, so it no longer has shock value, and the story isn’t important enough to insist on it.”

  “How can you be sure?” Aliyah said as they walked through the lobby toward the doors leading to the faculty and staff parking lot.

  “I can’t,” Jacob said. “But even my mother says doing the interview is probably a good idea.”

  “Your mother?” Aliyah said, pulling her head back in confusion.

  “I do PR for her company, so I asked her advice.”

  Oh. Larry had mentioned their company to Aliyah. “I don’t know, Jacob,” she
said, exhaustion in her tone. “I don’t feel comfortable with it. But if you think it’s a good idea, do it. I just don’t want any part of it.”

  Jacob opened the lobby exit door then fell in step next to Aliyah after she walked ahead of him. “They asked if it was possible to make it a joint interview.”

  “Then absolutely not,” Aliyah said. “I’d never agree to let Deanna talk about me while I’m not there, especially on TV.”

  “Not with Deanna,” Jacob said. “With you.”

  There was an extended silence as Aliyah looked toward the rows of cars, but her expression suggested that her thoughts were elsewhere.

  “I know it’s not ideal,” Jacob said. “But depending on how it’s set up, it could be a good way to clarify the truth. I already explained to them that it’s best if they interviewed us separately instead of at the same time.”

  “But what would we say?” Aliyah said. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about my personal life to the world. It’s none of their business.”

  “But you deserve exoneration. They had no right to slander you like that.”

  Aliyah shrugged. “To be honest, I’m less bothered by the secular media than by the Muslims. The media’s focus is to stir up anything to get attention. You’d think Muslims would be focused on their souls.”

  Jacob nodded sadly. “I feel the same way. But the more I live, the more I realize that Muslims are people like everyone else.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “I agree. But it’s the truth.”

  “Not completely,” she said as they walked the length of the parking lot. “It took me a while to figure out why Muslims were so willing to tear me down. First I thought it was because they felt that if something was mentioned in the news, they had a right to talk about it without sin.”