Footsteps

by Umm Zakiyyah

  Faith had been about to call Theresa to bring the birdcage downstairs when Aminah volunteered to get it. Aminah wanted to take a break from the laughing and talking in any case. She was not in the mood for the visit, but her mother had told her to come. Faith had even invited Tamika, Sarah had said, and how would that look for Aminah to stay home? Reluctantly, Aminah agreed, but she was sullen the entire drive there. Her mind was on Zaid and Zahra, the latter of whom Tamika had gotten a chance to speak to. Zahra had been straightforward, Tamika later relayed to Aminah, telling her that the family was very much against the marriage but they didn’t yet know of Zaid’s trip to the Ali residence. When Tamika had asked what Zahra felt, Tamika said Zahra was quiet but then went on to explain, in all words, that she too thought it wasn’t the best idea. Having an American in the family was “nice”, but she was reluctant to say it would be nice for them.

  Aminah wasn’t bothered by the family of Zaid refusing to support him, but she was bothered by Zahra’s position. She was further disturbed by their reluctance to accept an “American” into the family. This piece of information only added salt to her wounds and inspired more confusion regarding the racial dissonance she was just beginning to come to terms with for herself. She was thinking she would go ahead and marry the brother, if for no other reason than he was striving to please Allah. If he liked white skin, well then, what could she say? Her skin was white. She could not continue to torment herself about colonial mentality.

  When she had gone upstairs to get the birds, the quiet living room and the distant sound of the women’s laughter was intoxicating, and she had sat on the couch to relax for a minute. The sounds of chirping and wing fluttering made her lift her head to where the cage sat on the coffee table in front of the couch. In that moment, she saw the innocence of the birds’ existence, and she longed for their carefree world to be hers. She stood and picked up the cage and she set it on the sofa where she had been sitting. The beauty of the birds made her smile and she knelt to gaze at them for a moment, and the sight of their beautiful colors made her conscious of her colorless skin. She began talking to them playfully, finding comfort in their company, away from the stressful world in which she lived. She found herself understanding how a man could think of them as friends. She began to share with them her reflections on human beauty and was talking about herself when she heard a man’s voice behind her, sending her to her feet, her heart racing in fear and shock.

  When she saw it was Abdur-Rahman, she was mortified beyond belief. There she was kneeling before the birdcage talking to Freda as if it were her mother or Tamika, or worse, an extension of herself. She felt her cheeks go warm, and she could think of nothing else but to do what she had come for, pick up the cage and leave. Problem was, he was still standing there, the same look of comfort in his eyes that she had felt when talking to the birds a moment before. It was the most awkward feeling she had felt in her life. She could only hope he didn’t think she was some weirdo for being such a loner to talk to his birds. She knew he talked to them, but that was different. They were his. And he was, well—he was Abdur-Rahman.

  “Are you okay?” Sarah asked a minute later, and it was then Aminah realized she was staring off in the distance, still recovering from shock.

  “Yes,” Aminah said with a forced smile. “I’m fine.” She then picked up the cup of juice she had left on the table next to her and began to drink. Her mother smiled in return, but Aminah could tell her mother wasn’t convinced. Aminah knew her mother could sense there was something else bothering her about the run-in with Abdur-Rahman that was deeper than mere shock. But Aminah hoped her mother wouldn’t bother her about it, because she wasn’t prepared to explain. Besides, how do you explain something that you don’t understand yourself?

  “Have you met Alika?” Faith asked Aminah, apparently in an effort to encourage her to join the conversation and get over the surprise run-in with her son. Sarah appreciated that. She didn’t want Aminah to sit looking shell-shocked for the rest of the night. It gave the impression that it was a tragedy for a Muslim woman to unexpectedly run into a man, although Sarah sensed her daughter’s expression was inspired by something more. But that was odd, because Aminah had done nothing other than go upstairs to get a birdcage. What could be so life changing about that?

  “Yes,” Aminah said with a nod, “she’s in our Islamic studies class.”

  “Oh, that’s right. On Sundays, the one you and Tamika attend.”

  “And a sister named Khadijah,” she added.

  Faith nodded. “That’s really good. I hope you get an opportunity to give your input on the research she’s doing. I can’t wait to hear the results.”

  “I can’t either,” Sarah said, taking a sip from her own juice. “I’m going to call her inshaAllaah. I’d love to be involved.”

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t mentioned it to you yet,” Faith said.

  “She mentioned doing multicultural studies when we saw each other at the walimah. And we exchanged numbers.” Sarah laughed. “But you know me, I’m really bad when it comes to the phone.”

  “Yes,” Faith agreed with a laugh herself. “I do know that.”

  “What else did you discuss?” Sarah asked.

  “The struggle of becoming a minority after being a majority all my life.”

  “SubhaanAllaah,” she said. “What did you say?”

  Faith held a pleasant expression on her face as she sat next to Sarah on the couch across from Aminah and Tamika. “I told her it still hasn’t really sunk in. I only realize it when I’m around Muslims, which I’m not most of the time.”

  Sarah nodded. “I know what you mean. That’s how it was for me when I first became Muslim. Ismael and I weren’t really part of a community per se. But I still felt like I’d left everything familiar, if you know what I mean.”

  “I can see that, especially given that you had begun to distance yourself from your family.”

  She laughed. “But they didn’t know that.”

  “How did you manage? I can’t imagine being able to do something like that.”

  She smiled. “I just told them I was going out. They didn’t push me too much. I was in college, grown up, so that gave me a little freedom.”

  “But they must have known something.”

  She nodded. “They did. But Kate was the one who confronted me about it.”

  Sarah remembered when Kate told her about the rumors. Sarah was seen with a Negro boy, and people were “talking”. Kate’s expression had been one of wild amusement, as if she herself didn’t believe it, but the way her eyes studied Sarah told her that her younger sister was searching for clues of its veracity. Sarah had laughed her sister off and told her it was a crazy lie. But Sarah did admit that she had been talking a lot to some Negro students at the school to find out more about them.

  “Why would you do something like that?” Kate had asked, her nose wrinkled.

  “Because they’re people too.”

  Sarah remembered that her sister had grown quiet and regarded her with curious distaste. But Kate had nodded, pretending as if she understood but Sarah knew she did not, would not. Kate was like she had been, her parents’ child. She had no mind of her own, and her eyes saw only what her parents had shown her. Sarah wanted to confide in her sister and tell the truth. She had longed to talk to someone, a best friend she could trust. It had been five months since she and Ishmael started taking walks and eating out at restaurants in his part of town. Although the Black people were not particularly thrilled to see a White woman with a Black man, their disagreement was a silent one, revealed only by their briefness in greetings and curious stares. But by then it was almost 1970, and Ishmael and Sarah were not the only interracial couple in the South.

  “That must have been hard,” Faith said.

  Sarah nodded. “Yes, it was.”

  Faith shook her head. “I really respect you for that. I don’t think I would’ve had the strength.”

  Sarah laughed. �
�It wasn’t strength that I had,” she said. “But determination.”

  “A determined atheist,” Faith said with a grin. “That is something.”

  “Well, I never considered myself an atheist per se. It was more like I was the devil’s advocate when it came to the subject of God.” She added with a smile, “No pun intended.”

  “Was it Brother Ismael who taught you about Islam?” Tamika asked, interjecting.

  Sarah turned to her daughter-in-law. “Yes, I suppose you can say that. But it was really a journey we took together.”

  “Did you know Muslims?”

  “No, but Ismael was really familiar with the Nation of Islam.”

  “The Nation of Islam?” Faith said, her forehead creased.

  “He didn’t believe in it,” Sarah said, “but he would talk about it a lot.”

  “Why?”

  “He saw its existence as a sign from God.”

  “A sign from God?”

  “Yes, in that the country was reaping what it sowed.”

  Faith nodded. “I never thought about it like that.”

  Sarah started to laugh. “I hadn’t either. The way he explained it made it sound less threatening and hateful than it appeared to me.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “I was saying they were a Black version of the KKK but—”

  “Of course.”

  “—he was saying, besides the issue of white and black, there were no real parallels.”

  Faith gathered her eyebrows as she listened.

  “He said it only made sense for the Blacks to seek an understanding of their mistreatment in some way. Although the Nation of Islam’s racial overtones ruled it out as a true religion, it was a logical response to everything that was happening to them.”

  “Hate breeds hate,” Faith said in agreement.

  “Yes,” Sarah said, “but he didn’t even think of the Nation of Islam as based on hate per se.”

  Faith laughed.

  “Of course, we never agreed on that point,” Sarah said, grinning. “But his other points about the group made me think about things I never thought about before.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for one, unlike the KKK’s dealings with Blacks, they didn’t terrorize Whites and prevent them from basic rights.”

  Faith nodded, considering it. “That’s true.”

  “And they cleaned up a lot of the drugs and violence in Black neighborhoods. And, really, they focused primarily on only one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Black self respect.” Sarah smiled and shook her head. “There was really little focus on Whites at all.”

  “But Malcolm X was a pretty radical figure.”

  “Yes, initially, he was.”

  “What about his comments on President Kennedy’s assassination?”

  “I agree. He was pretty radical in the beginning.”

  “So you learned about Islam through the Nation?” Tamika asked.

  Sarah narrowed her eyes as she considered the question. “I wouldn’t say that. But we did learn about God through what He allowed to happen with them.”

  “Our Islamic studies teacher used to be in the Nation of Islam,” Aminah said.

  Sarah turned to her daughter and smiled inwardly, pleased that Aminah was beginning to relax. “Yes, that’s right. I remember Nusaybah mentioning that once.”

  “It seems like a lot of Black Muslims found Islam through that route,” Faith remarked thoughtfully. “I find that interesting.”

  “Why?” Sarah said.

  “That a racist organization actually led people to the truth.” Faith shook her head.

  “After 1975,” Sarah said, smiling, “Ismael would use that fact to point out how he had been right all along.”

  Faith smiled and nodded. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

  “And I agree with his observation,” Sarah said. “I couldn’t see that then, but I can now. The people who joined the Nation didn’t do it out of hate. They were sincerely searching for the truth.”

  Faith pursed her lips, unsure if she agreed. But she listened.

  “If you think about it,” Sarah said, “our churches were a Nation of Islam of sorts to us. And they still are for those who are still Christian.”

  Faith creased her forehead, amusement in her eyes. “A Nation of Islam?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “We worshipped God as an image of ourselves and looked at colored people as opposite of that. So in essence, they were subhuman, in opposition to the divine race.”

  Faith lifted her eyebrows, uncertain. “I wouldn’t say subhuman. Perhaps, not equal.”

  “In some churches, this was actually taught. Even American law ruled a Black person as only a fraction of a person.”

  She nodded. “That’s true.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t want to agree with Ismael at the time, but in my heart I knew he was right. God is just, he would always say. And this was just something terrible making the way for something beautiful.” She smiled. “And Ismael and I are living proof.”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Zahra looked up from where she was sitting with her sister and two cousins in the dining room of her parents’ home and saw Zaid with a concerned expression on his face. He was speaking in English, which meant he wanted Zahra to know he really needed to talk. Speaking English at a family gathering was an anomaly, and her cousin had used that to make his point.

  Even as Zahra nodded and excused herself, she knew what he wanted. After she hung up the phone a week ago, she suspected that her conversation with Tamika would eventually get back to Zaid, and she had already braced herself for what he would say.

  Zahra followed him through the kitchen and out the back door until they stood on the wooded porch overlooking the backyard.

  “Why would you say something like that to Tamika?” His forehead was creased, and the hurt in his eyes made Zahra regret what she had done. She hadn’t intended to hurt him. She was only conveying how she felt about the whole matter. What was so wrong with telling the truth? And the truth was, despite how nice and idealistic it sounded for Americans and Pakistanis to be in one family, it wasn’t the best idea for theirs.

  “Because it is true,” she said in Urdu. “You know that.”

  “We are Muslim before we are Pakistani.” He had reverted to Urdu too.

  “Maybe you are Muslim before you are Pakistani, but you know that is not how our family thinks.”

  “But we should. We should think about it like this.”

  “Listen to what you are saying. We should do this, and we should do that. Who does everything that he should?”

  “That is not an excuse.”

  “It is a reason, even if it is not an excuse. And you have to respect our family’s reasoning, even if it is not how you think it should be.”

  “I do not understand how you could talk to Tamika about what you think. Do you know that makes it harder for me to marry Aminah?”

  “Yes, I do know that. But I did not intend to make it hard for you.” Zahra knew that wasn’t completely true, but she wanted it to be. During the phone conversation, she was hoping that Tamika would tell Aminah. But not for the reasons Zaid suspected. She really liked Aminah, and there were moments she imagined Aminah as a cousin and really liked the idea. But she knew that in reality, if Aminah and Zaid married, it would not be anything like the fairy tale she imagined in her head.

  Zahra admired Aminah and Tamika, as she did other American Muslims, and she often wished her family could be like theirs, putting Islam first in everything. But she knew that there were advantages to her and Zaid’s background, even if it did not have such a strong Islamic base. Their culture placed strong emphasis on family and respect for elders that was foreign to many Americans. Although American families like Tamika’s were very strict in stressing respect for parents and elders, the respect and obedience did not go beyond the household
or the age of eighteen. College, marriage, and any other “adult” experience were selfish pursuits in which parents were deemed to have no right to involvement. In fact, many Americans spent their adolescence and teen years counting down to the day they could be on their own, the day they would have freedom from the constraints of parents. Extended family members like aunts, uncles, and grandparents rarely had any say in their lives if the American did not happen to live with them.

  Did Zaid want his children raised like that? Although Zahra was still young herself, barely twenty years old and still in college, she recognized the importance of constancy in family matters and values. She couldn’t imagine marrying an American, even if she wanted to. Seeing what happened to Anjum had deflated any image of happily ever after she held in her mind when marrying purely for the sake of Allah, or at least what would feel like “for the sake of Allah” at the time. Intercultural marriages just were not a good idea. She doubted they were even meant to happen at all except in very rare occasions when families were open to it and saw some benefit it would bring. How could that be un-Islamic? Islam put strong emphasis on family, and what better way to strengthen family bonds than to marry someone like you?

  Attending Streamsdale for three years afforded her the opportunity to meet many different people, Tamika being one. She could not help admiring new Muslims like Tamika, but she could not ignore the problems that plagued communities that were comprised primarily of American converts. Although Aminah had not converted to Islam, her parents had, and it was obvious that her parents were not very close to their own parents and family. Sarah and Ismael were a remarkable couple, but their long marriage together was not the norm amongst Americans. Divorce, to many Americans, seemed like a trivial matter, something resorted to as a solution to marital problems. Had Zaid considered that? What would Aminah do when things went wrong? Go to her parents and say she wanted out? Without Zaid’s family supporting the marriage, how could it not end in divorce?