The Reluctant Mullah

by Sagheer Afzal

  “There’s no need to wet yourself. The girl you’re supposed to see, Dinah, apparently she’s as right as rain.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “A little…” said Shabnam cautiously.

  “What about the mum? Have you seen her?” asked Musa.

  “No and neither have they!” Shabnam laughed at the cleverness of her joke.

  Musa gave her a contempt-laden look.

  “No, seriously, she died a long time ago. The poor old father’s been bringing up the family on disability benefits and his pension.”

  She suddenly grabbed hold of Musa and shook him as if he were a flea-ridden dog. “Listen, don’t be going to pieces now. Go to the bathroom and freshen up!”

  Musa shook his head glumly and walked up the stairs. He tried what he thought was the bathroom door but it was locked.

  “Just a minute!” called out a strained voice.

  It must be Dinah! He quickly ran his fingers through his hair, and straightened his collar. That first encounter was imminent, that moment of which Titty Soups was a master. The door handle turned and out flew an apparition with long black hair. A hand waved in front of his face.

  “Wouldn’t go in there if I were you!” said a jovial voice.

  Before he could even blink, she had run along the landing. Musa stared after her, not even aware that his head was cocked at a 45-degree angle, and followed her downstairs.

  The house had become quiet and then he understood: they were preparing the girl to meet him. He opened the door of the living room and collapsed into the armchair where Tahir had been sitting earlier, aware of the hammering of his heart. An uneasy tight feeling was building up inside his temples so he tried to relax his neck and let his head hang back like a dead fish. Grimly he realised what he must do. When he was at the Madrasah, a brother had told him that if you were ever uncertain about marrying someone, all you had to do was recite a Name of Allah and the truth would slowly manifest itself in your heart. But what was that mystical Name? Ah…yes…he remembered now…Al-Batin, “the hidden” and you had to recite it an odd number of times.

  Musa thought nineteen was a good choice as it was reputed to be a mystical number. He began reciting, his eyes closed and his hands clasped and a vision came to him. He was knocking at the bathroom door with two young children behind him. The children were wearing black shades and holding scented handkerchiefs to their noses. Musa suddenly sat up straight as if having woken from a nightmare.

  He turned, bug-eyed, to see Dinah Hijazi coming into the room. She was bent right over with a long black cloth over her head looking for all the world like a submarine. Samira walked alongside, her arm around Dinah’s shoulders and grinning like a maniac. She gave her sister an encouraging squeeze and then she was gone.

  Immediately Dinah threw off the black cloth and jumped on to the sofa. Two hands shot in the air with their forefingers outstretched.

  “Chill!” she grinned.

  “Um…How are you?” Musa’s voice was weak.

  “Wicked!” That same brilliant smile.

  “Err…I met your brother. He’s quite a guy. To have accomplished so much in his condition. That’s one hell of an achievement.”

  Dinah nodded emphatically and Musa, remembering the locomotion of her brother, shuddered.

  “Yep! He is the dog’s bollocks when it comes to books and stuff. He is like the Terminator when it comes to knowledge. What he don’t see he remembers! He used to try and make me a bit clever when I was a kid, but I just ran away when he wasn’t looking…Get it? When he wasn’t looking!” She shook with laughter.

  Musa found it difficult to observe her. She was a blur of perpetual motion. Her head bobbed from side to side making her hair fly around her shoulders and she constantly moved her hands. Her gigantic teeth were mesmeric and with every syllable she spoke her gums were revealed. She was wearing a black and white striped turtleneck jumper with blue jeans, pink Mickey Mouse socks and her slippers were those giant-sized furry monstrosities normally worn by children.

  Eventually she managed to gain control of herself and wiped her eyes. “So Holy Man, tell me a bit about yourself. Were you born holy or did your dad tell you to become holy? My dad’s always having a go at me to learn some of that jazz, but I just ain’t got no time for it. I’ll get into it when I get into it, like maybe when I’m old and stuff. But right now, it’s like you can’t be doing your head in with stuff that does your head in. You get what I’m saying?”

  “I suppose so. It is written in the Quran, there is no compulsion in religion.”

  “’zactly. Big up to that. But you’re obviously really into all this, no?”

  “Well, I have memorised the Quran…”

  “Wicked!”

  “And I can understand a lot of the Arabic.”

  “Wicked!”

  “And I know a lot about Islamic law and jurisprudence.”

  “Respect,” said Dinah, with her hand raised in that curious gesture.

  “So who looks after Tahir?” he asked.

  “He does most of his own shit himself. Rest of the stuff, we get a lady from the council to help out.”

  Dinah folded her arms across her chest, staring at Musa. “You got a woman?”

  “No,” he answered, baffled.

  “You ever had a woman?”

  “No!”

  “Are you batty?”

  “No!”

  Dinah raised her hands as if to placate him.

  “So what are you looking for in a woman?”

  Musa settled back, relieved at this new line of questioning. “Just someone who I can communicate well with. Someone with a good sense of humour. And also I would want her to be feminine but not submissive. Intelligent but not overbearing. Confident but not aggressive. I want her to have house skills but not be house bound.”

  “Bloody hell mate! Why not get her to do push-ups as well?” said Dinah, and then with a trace of a smile she winked at him.

  “You wanna ask me anything?”

  Musa shook his head.

  “OK then. Later.” She jumped to her feet and stretched out her hand.

  Musa wondered at her impish smile as he raised his hand to shake hers. She suddenly pulled her hand back and wiggled her fingers in front of her nose.

  “Gottcha!” and then she was gone.

  “She asked if you were batty?” exclaimed Armila.

  “They were all fucking blind!” exclaimed Babarr.

  “My eyes! My eyes!” said Suleiman, with his head in his hands.

  “I knew it! From the moment I laid eyes on that girl, I knew that this thing was gonna be a crock of shit.” Shabnam shook her head despondently.

  “You see the problem is that you people are not thinking logically,” said Babarr. “Armila here finds a website called muslimbrides. co. uk. I mean come on! What kind of a name is that for a fucking matrimonial service! Can you really see respectable people with normal children saying to themselves, ‘Look here love. The kids are getting older, we need to sort them out. Let’s log on to muslimbrides. co. uk and that way all our problems will be solved. We can get a daughter-in-law and just chill out watching all those dumb fucking Asian dramas.’ I mean does that make sense! Why do you think these assholes gave their details to a website like that in the first place?”

  “Because they were probably already stigmatised in the local community,” said Armila glumly.

  “You got it in one sweetie. Only assholes with weird ass children use the internet to find husbands and wives. It ain’t the normal way. If a girl is fit, that girl ain’t ever gonna send her picture to some dumb-ass website. People on the street and the next street and street next to that fucking street are all gonna know there’s a hot mamma in town. And they’re all gonna be hitting on her like a train.”

  “Where do we go from here?” asked Musa wearily.

  “Don’t be disheartened Musa, this is a learning curve,” said Armila.

  “He don’t ha
ve the fucking time to be going on any learning curves. He’s only got one month and then after that his granddaddy is gonna stamp ‘Mine’ all over his forehead,” said Babarr.

  “Babarr is right. We all got carried away. No more websites. But what do we do now?” asked Suleiman.

  “You know on those Asian channels, there’s an advert that says ‘Tired of being the bridesmaid and never the fucking bride? Call Aunty.’ Well one time, just for a laugh I rang her up, and they make you go through all these options, but at the end I spoke to this woman who was really professional. I think that’s an option,” said Shabnam.

  “What sort of questions did they ask?” said Armila.

  “Do you want a professional with a degree? How far are you willing to travel? What height is ideal for you? Those sorts of questions.”

  “What about you Babarr, you ever hear about Aunty?”

  “No, not personally. I know Titty Soups sometimes uses things like that for…erm…opportunities. I could ask him I suppose. But I have heard of people finding partners through proper registered agencies.”

  “OK, then, are we all agreed? Aunty is our next stop,” said Suleiman.

  “Fine with me. Can’t do much worse,” said Musa.

  “Let’s get busy then. Shabnam, you ring Aunty and sort it out,” said Suleiman.

  “One more thing, Musa; I’m dividing your day job into two parts,” said Babarr.

  “What do you mean?” asked Musa.

  “You do some work with me in the mornings, in the afternoons you take it easy. Then in the evenings I want you to act as my man in charge of the Islamic Centre,” said Babarr swollen with importance.

  “What Islamic Centre?” asked Suleiman sharply.

  “I’m opening an Islamic Centre on the high street. I bought the building a while back and tonight is the opening night.”

  “You’ve opened a mosque?” asked Musa puzzled.

  “No, not a mosque, an Islamic Centre. It’s like a youth community centre but for Muslims. It’s gonna be mixed. So girls is gonna be there with boys. And everyone is gonna be learning and talking about Islam. Musa is gonna be my man for the boys and I’m gonna get someone for the girls.”

  “People are not gonna like it if you let boys and girls mix. You know how it is,” warned Shabnam.

  “It’ll be OK. I’ll get some of the old geezers to come along and I’ll be there to make sure nothing happens. It’s all cool,” smiled Babarr.

  “Since when did you get so interested in Islam?” asked Suleiman suspiciously.

  Babarr’s face became set in a cast of sincerity.

  “I want to build something for the next life as well. Confucius once said–”

  Everyone immediately stood up and began piling out of the room. “You’re a bunch of assholes,” Babarr called after them.

  The Islamic Centre was buzzing. On the stage a young man, his brow heavily furrowed repeated, “Testing, Testing,” at the same time gesturing furiously to some guys in the wings. Such was the importance of the occasion that Babarr had shed his weighty gold necklaces and was simply dressed in a black kaftan and white prayer cap. His demeanour was that of a man who knows it falls upon him to bring enlightenment to the multitude of degenerates around him.

  A red-carpeted expanse that served as a seating area was adroitly divided into two halves: men on the left and women on the right. In each corner were bookstands that had perched upon them arrays of glossy hardbacks and paperbacks, cassette tapes, and DVDs. Behind the bookstands were animated, bearded young Holy men who were hawking their merchandise in a loud declamatory chorus.

  Excited conversation charged the atmosphere with anticipation and every so often impish kids, infected by the mood of the adults, would jump on the stage and prance about, only to flee in terror when subjected to a violent description of their forbears by Babarr. On a row of chairs by the entrance sat several very old men with snowy beards and haggard faces. They looked inimically at the whole vulgar spectacle, flaring their nostrils at the inquisitive children who were intrigued by their spectral appearance.

  Musa, as requested by Babarr, stood unobtrusively by the old men. The crowd made him feel uneasy and his eyes continually darted around the hall, deflected by all the excited faces. Their expressions filled him with a sad nostalgia and he cursed Babarr for the foolishness of his sentiments. His intuition told him that men like Babarr suddenly view the bleak terrain of their existence and crave for that something, that inexplicable something, that will make their very innards hum with purpose. They were all terrified of that encroaching abyss, known as “just too busy”, which would somehow, some day, rob them of their opportunity to be noticed, to be praised, to be respected. And what better podium could there be for those who crave esteem than Islam, thought Musa. Mosques, Islamic centres, madrasahs abounded with such men. Pompous, self-righteous assholes who used their opinions the way little children used pumps to inflate the tyres of their bicycles. Petty bees buzzing in a hive of hubris.

  Babarr strode to the edge of the stage and cleared his throat. He then raised the microphone to his beaming face – oddly he was still wearing heavy gold rings on each finger.

  “Assalaam-u-alaikum. My dear brothers and sisters, I would like to welcome you to this opening night of the Islamic Centre. Now, I’m gonna tell you a little story. One time some friends of mine were staying the night in a mosque during the month of Ramadan. Suddenly they hear voices through the thin glass window and then a loud knocking. Two coppers are outside and they say, ‘You’re under arrest. This is private property. You can’t be squatting here.’ And my friends say, ‘Officers, it’s Ramadan’ and one of the policemen goes, ‘You come on out or I’ll Ramdan with you.’”

  Babarr threw back his head and laughed. After a brief silence, a faint ripple of laughter coursed through the crowd.

  “Now afterwards I says to myself, Babarr why does shit like that happen in today’s society? You know why?” he held out his microphone to the audience, inviting an answer, but before anyone could respond he continued, “Ignorance, plain and simple. People just don’t know enough about our religion, the religion of Islam. You know why? ’Cos we don’t know enough to tell them.

  “Now me, I ain’t ever been much of a book man. The only book I ever had was an A-Z of Lancaster when I was doing taxis. And even then I never looked at it because if I wanted to know about how to get to a place I would ask someone. So it seems logical to me that if you need to know about Islam you need to be asking someone who knows. And all of you know something different about Islam. And what one knows the other can share.

  “Now there’s gonna be two debating rooms here: one for the girls and one for the boys. Afterwards you can all chill out in the same place to drink coffee and eat biscuits and stuff. But remember boys, lower your gaze and keep your eyes and ears open to what’s going on around you. Now for the important part –”

  Babarr put his hands on his hips and gazing at the crowd, his eyes and his grin becoming wider by the second, he continued, “I would like you to big it up for the guy who’s gonna be your supervisor, your point man. Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, give it up for Musaaaaaaa…”

  The applause was thunderous as Musa joined Babarr on the stage. Putting his arm around him Babarr proudly announced,” This here is the brother who is gonna be the guide for the boys.”

  “Now, a guide for the girls. I want you to bring your hands together for a very special person. She has just finished studying at the Islamic School for Girls. She, like my man here, has memorised the Quran and upstairs she is like a library of knowledge.” He tapped his head gently. “Let’s hear it for our sister, Khadija.”

  With the microphone still in his hand, Babarr clapped gently and everyone else followed suit in a polite, respectful patter of hands. A figure in black emerged from the crowd and made her way up to the stage. She was unusually tall, almost the same height as Musa, and not only was she wearing the customary hijab but her face was vei
led by a nikab.

  “These two, Musa and Khadija, are here to help you. They will organise what you discuss and what you debate. You show them the respect they deserve because they have both been through a lot to be here. With their help everyone is gonna learn a little bit more.”

  Babarr began to clap again and the room was filled with the sound of appreciation.

  Musa knew that the gaze of veiled girls was not bound by the same sense of propriety as their dress. As he faced Khadija on the stage he could see that her grey eyes were flecked with deep blue streaks and her look was calm and knowing. As she appraised him he thought he saw a flicker of amusement and her scrutiny made him recall a time when he was perhaps five or six years old, and was taken to the seaside. As he had stared at the grey blue water, he became mesmerised by its serenity. Then suddenly there was a change and he was transfixed by a surge of a thousand furious waves. He remembered being snatched away but as he had looked back, he wanted the angry sea to return to its former glory.

  Khadija left the stage and Musa saw that she moved easily and gracefully. That was a rarity with veiled girls. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Babarr smiling at him.

  “Start mingling Musa. You’re their shepherd now.”

  12

  The men gathered at the Islamic Centre. Four rows of them, a small minority bearded, sat on plastic folding chairs.

  As Musa gazed at his flock, he began to pigeon-hole them. This would make it easier to collate their responses if he was ever asked. The bearded boys, their expressions scornful, were undoubtedly fellow Holy Men. Those who lolled in their chairs with happy-go-lucky smiles could most aptly be characterised as rude boys and were becoming increasingly prominent at such venues. It was fashionable these days to be conversant in Islam, and they had come to the conclusion that their street credibility would multiply ten-fold if they at least knew what all the fuss was about with Muslims and Muslim countries. The remainder, who were quite clearly primed for intellectual debates, fitted the label “coconuts”, a slightly derisory term for the Asians who excelled at school and loved such gatherings because it gave them a chance to unleash their highly polished English.