Footsteps

by Umm Zakiyyah

  He contorted his face in defense. “What are you talking about?”

  “You would know what I was talking about if you were half the man you pretend to be.” She paused to shake her head, her nose wrinkled, as if words could not express what she felt. Her hand created a fist around her ring, and he wondered if she would throw it at him. “Did you think the Muslims would rally in your favor when they found out your plan?”

  “The Muslims?”

  “Yes,” she said sarcastically, “the members of the religion you claim part of.”

  He wanted to be angry, but he felt himself gasping for air, feeling suffocated right then. None of this was real, he told himself. None of this was real. “You told everyone?”

  She laughed but that she was not happy was clear. “Well, if I did, is that such a sin? After all, marriage is public. Or have you forgotten that?”

  “Sister—” It was the imam’s voice, but even Ismael couldn’t register it right then.

  “To answer your question,” she said, “no. I told only Faith and Nusaybah. But then again, Alika had already taken care of Nusaybah before me.”

  “Sister Ali, please. This is not going to help.”

  Sarah turned to the imam, lowering her gaze just slightly. “Please, let me have my say.”

  “No, sister. I’m sorry I can’t. And I can’t give the brother his say either. If you want to discuss anything, we can discuss reconciliation, but—”

  “There’s no need for that,” she said, calming her voice, glancing at her closed palm. “Anyway, I’m finished talking. I’m finished with everything that has to do with him.”

  “The ring,” the imam said, as if exhaling the words, and he rubbed his beard. “Is this your dowry?”

  “It’s all he gave me when we got married. So I suppose it is.”

  “Is there anything he gave after you became Muslim as part of a new contract?”

  She shook her head.

  He sighed, and Ismael knew what was next although he had never been down this road before. Yes, the threat had been there often, hidden beneath the heated arguments they’d had over the years. But never its fruition. And it terrified him. Was it this simple? Was tearing a life apart really this simple?

  “I’ll call Alika now,” Ismael said, shocking himself by his words, “and tell her it’s over.”

  “I believe you,” Sarah said, but there was no trace of sarcasm although Ismael sensed it was there. “And that’s why I can’t stay with you. You’re too willing to trample on a woman’s heart to win another’s.”

  The words hurt Ismael more than he could express, and he felt his eyes burning as Sarah opened her palm and held the ring out to him.

  “Take it,” she said. But she wasn’t looking at him.

  “I won’t.”

  She glanced in the imam’s direction, as if willing him to intervene on cue.

  “Brother,” he said, “I have to take the ring for you if you don’t.”

  “Then take it. And take that to Allah on the Day of Judgment. I’m not. I refuse to end a marriage over something petty like this.”

  “Petty?” Sarah’s voice held a trace of shocked ridicule. “Do you really think my soul is petty?”

  “Your soul?” He almost laughed.

  “Yes, my soul,” she said, narrowing her eyes as if realizing something for the first time. “Do you think this is about you?” She shook her head at a loss for words. “You do, don’t you? You think this is about you and how much you don’t love me enough.”

  She continued, “Do you realize how much I hate the idea of walking out on this marriage? That I hate the idea of life without you? But I can’t do it anymore, Ismael, I can’t. You make what Allah allowed seem so, so,” she searched for a word, “unpalatable.” She gathered her eyebrows. “Do you know how hard it is for me to turn to Allah in prayer, when there’s a whisper of you in my ear, making me feel like your actions represent His law? No, I refuse to accept that my Lord’s allowance of polygamy is what you’re doing. I can’t. Ismael, I cant. For the sake of my soul, I can’t.”

  She shook her head, as if wiling the very idea from her head. “Can you understand that?”

  Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, and they held each other’s gaze. Seeing his wife’s eyes well made tears well in his own.

  “I love you,” she said, and Ismael swallowed, his vision blurring as his heart threatened to burst, a dam wall weakening against surging floodwaters. “This isn’t about you.” She paused. “I know you’re sincere.” Her voice was gentle. “I believe that with all my heart. But I can’t stay with you like this. What you’ve done.” She took a deep breath as tears slipped down her cheeks, her gaze falling to her slightly open palm, and Ismael blinked, holding back the unfamiliar tears. It was not like him to cry, not like this. “What you’ve done, Ismael, is something I didn’t think possible.” Her voice was beginning to shake but remained amazingly steady as the tears slipped down her face and created dark spots of moisture on her light blue khimaar. “You’ve made me,” her voice cracked. “You’ve made me doubt my religion.” Her words became high pitched. “And I can’t give that up, Ismael. I can’t. It’s the only thing I have left. The only thing I have left.”

  “Brother,” Imam Abdul-Quddus said, his voice so distant and foreign that Ismael had to turn in the direction of the sound to remind himself that the imam was in the room. By then, Sarah was battling sniffles, and, by Allah’s mercy, Ismael had kept himself from breaking down. He shut his eyes then used his thumb and forefinger to discreetly wipe the moisture from his eyes, running his hand down his face to spread the moisture there. “I’m going to ask you to do something.”

  Ismael could not speak. He only glanced at the imam then used his two fingers again to rub his eyes again, as if to cover his reason for wiping his eyes before.

  “Divorce her.”

  The words were so unexpected that Ismael’s eyes flew open, and he held his hand only inches from his face, as if looking at the brother would change his words.

  “If she gives up her mahr, you’re looking at one month to try to reason with her.”

  Ismael was too distracted by the ridiculous suggestion for him to register the reasoning behind it.

  “If you divorce her,” the imam continued, taking a deep breath to gather his thoughts, and apparently convince himself this was really happening, “you have three months.” The imam shrugged. “I know it’s not what you want. I don’t like either option. But it’s the lesser of the two evils, if you will.”

  Ismael creased his forehead, not wiling to take any of this seriously. “I can’t do that for you, brother. I can’t.”

  “Brother.” The imam sounded tired. “This is not for me. It’s for you. And your wife. Give yourself time,” he pleaded. “You need time to think this over. I hate to suggest this, brother. But I don’t see any other way. Think, Brother Ali, one month or three months?”

  The question hung in the air like a dare, and Ismael was reminded of a joke from his youth where a man destined to Hell Fire was given the choice of which door of punishment he would have. Ismael couldn’t remember the punch line right then, but he remembered the utter despondency he felt when hearing such grim options as a youth, even as he wore a grin in anticipation of the punch line. That’s how he felt right then, as if someone was asking him to choose his eternal torment.

  “I know it’s not easy to hear. No one who has to make these decisions ever believed they would have to. But I beg you, brother. Give yourself time.”

  He held the imam’s gaze for a moment before glancing at his wife. Her eyes still glistened with tears, but her cheeks held only the trace of their moisture, and her jaw was set as she stared at her now closed hand, in which she held the ring. Even as she wasn’t looking at him, he could see the brown of her eyes, and it struck him how beautiful she was right then, her freckles a sign of a youth that was resistant to aging. Her fingers were long and thin, this he could tell from the han
d that rested on a knee, and they were so bare without the ring. He remembered her innocent look of defiance when they first met. “Do you believe in God?” he had asked. And, currently, something in his tightened chest relaxed, and his heart answered, Yes, I do. From that, he gathered the strength, knowing it was his only chance to hold on to her, even if for only two extra months. Which door, Ismael? Which door? The door of opportunity. The door of redemption. The door of hope in His Lord.

  He opened his mouth, unable to form the words. He had never been able to imagine the words, let alone say them. They were so foreign, so cold, so cruel, and they had nothing to do with him and Sarah. Nothing at all.

  He looked at her loosening fist and saw the faint shine of the gold band, and he felt his heart beating a drum of death in his chest. “I div…”

  “Do you divorce her?” the imam asked, coming to Ismael’s rescue, the pain the imam felt detectable in the question, and in his eyes as they met Ismael’s. Two men, two friends, joined and separated by the most treasured possession on earth. A righteous woman.

  The imam tucked his lips, as if to will himself from being too moved by the answer. It was then that Ismael again felt the tears in his own eyes, the tears that were most likely inspiring the emotions in his friend. The imam’s eyes begged him, telling him in that glance what Ismael hadn’t thought of himself. He had been too bothered, too distracted. And now his friend was begging him to say it before Sarah caught on.

  Realizing it, and feeling the immeasurable pain of the answer, Ismael moved his head ever so slightly in a nod. And with that movement, he felt the tremor of his jaw, and the tears spilled from his eyes as if a filled water glass tipped. “Yes, Imam. I do.”

  The imam’s brows gathered, as if willing his own tears away, and he shut his eyes, a sigh of relief escaping so audibly it was as if someone had punched him in the lungs. Ismael knew in that moment his friend was thanking Allah.

  Because, now, Ismael could take her back. He could take his wife back, even if only a day before the three months commenced. And then, if she wanted out, they would be back to square one, and she would have to seek a khula’ again if she was determined to be without him. But by then, Ismael had faith that Allah would answer his prayers and give his wife back to him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Whoever is mainly concerned about the Hereafter, Allah will make him feel independent of others and will make him focused and content, and his worldly affairs will fall into place.

  But whoever is mainly concerned with this world,

  Allah will make him feel in constant need of others.

  He will make him distracted and unfocused,

  and he will get nothing of this world—

  Except what is already decreed for him.”

  —Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him (At-Tirmidhi)

  “For me, the certainty that Allah has accepted just one of my prayers is more beloved to me than this world and all it contains.”

  —Abu Ad-Darda (Ibn Kathir)

  Sulayman shut his eyes and pursed his lips as he embraced his wife after Fajr prayer Saturday morning, the thirteenth of September. He couldn’t tell Tamika the real reason he was traveling with his mother on a plane to Indiana, and why he would return that night, less than twenty four hours after he had left. And that disturbed him more than the trip itself. His mother was hurting, and more than anything he was hurting himself. He needed his wife. He wanted her to hold him and tell him it would all work out in the end. Even as he knew, in all likelihood, it would not.

  The determination and hurt in his mother’s voice had both stunned and terrified him. He was not accustomed to seeing his mother like this, and he was even less accustomed to her confiding in him as a person, a son—a young man with a mind of his own. He could barely register what she was saying three weeks ago, let alone comprehend its destructive significance in his life. It sounded like some perverse puzzle, a morbid riddle he was left to make sense of on his own. The words still became jumbled as he stood there savoring the warmth of his wife’s embrace, even as he had already put the words together after his mother divulged her pain, and way out of it.

  Divorce. His mother. Going to Kate’s for “sometime.” Alika. October third. Married already. His father. Khula’. Divorce. Irreconcilable. Three months. Can’t stay. Won’t stay. My soul.

  My life, Sulayman thought. Is this what is in store for it twenty years from now?

  Sulayman held Tamika tighter, not wanting to let go, the ominous words moving, shifting, taking their place, their meaning, and portending his family’s ruin. The mysterious words settled over him, coming together, close together, too close together. Closing in. Choking him. Merciless hands at his throat—cutting off his source of life.

  What had his father been thinking? His mother? And Alika, well. She was nothing to him, and a part of Sulayman couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She had no idea, no concept of what she was getting into, had already gotten into.

  He wanted to be angry, had tried to will himself to be, if for no one’s sake but his mother’s. But he couldn’t. That’s what bothered him, confused him. He couldn’t will anger, or even fury.

  How then could he muster feelings of blame? He had talked to his father a week ago, when his father had said they needed to talk, man-to-man. They had taken a drive after Fajr, and the painful, weighty story his father had imparted left Sulayman immobile, as if a load too much for his parents to bear had been placed on his shoulders. And he was left to bear it alone.

  He knew, of course, that his father was a man, had always known. But somehow it became real only that day when the darkness of dawn was retreating to reveal a gray blue in the sky as he sat next to his father in the car.

  Sulayman listened to his father’s candid recollection of his first meeting with Alika, an innocuous attempt at doing something for the sake of Allah by inputting the Muslim point of view, the Islamic perspective. It scared Sulayman when his father said he had no idea, even after the meeting itself, that their subsequent conversations would culminate in the beginning of a fondness of heart.

  His father recounted the prayers, the doubts, the denial, and finally the submission to something neither his heart nor his soul would let go. Then he told Sulayman of the meeting with the imam, the imam’s discouragement, and the imam’s contention to never engage in polygyny, and why.

  The contention terrified Sulayman even more than the reason for it. It seemed so…unnatural. Yet, Sulayman could not help but respect and admire it, hold it up as if an antique to be examined, preserved, and analyzed. To be placed on the shelf of his home. In case, and only in case, he would need it.

  Is it this easy? Sulayman had thought as he listened to the calm, yet pained words of his father. Was it this simple to change from husband to man overnight? Was it this easy to make a decision, one born from prayer and logic, and Qur’an and Sunnah, to have it result in the utter destruction of a union blessed by Allah?

  Even as Sulayman sat in the airplane next to his mother, who quietly sipped tea from a small paper cup, he couldn’t escape that sense of recognition, of understanding that was between him and his father. He understood, even as he was too overwhelmed to discern if that also meant he agreed.

  His mother wore a slight smile on her face, holding the cup of tea in one hand as she turned the pages of a magazine she had bought in the airport. Then there was her soft laughter, the shaking of the head, as if the world had been shrunk to the glossy pages before her on the stow tray.

  Sulayman couldn’t help it, he concluded. There was nothing he could do about it. Although there was a tinge of guilt he felt at the realization, as if he were betraying his mother somehow. He couldn’t help it, and he couldn’t be blamed. There was no other reason for the feeling than the reason he, and not Aminah, was traveling with his mother in the first place. He was a man.

  And in that lay a burden greater than Sulayman could even prepare to bear.

  His mother laughed again, this
time, as if urging him to read too. But he looked away, toward the window, though he couldn’t see it clearly over his mother’s head. He couldn’t watch her amused expression without a mixture of resentment.

  And the resentment was at the both of them, its potency more toward one than the other at a given moment. Right then, it was his mother.

  How could they do this to him, to Aminah? To themselves?

  “Sulayman,” she said finally, a trace of amusement still in her voice as she read aloud the excerpt from the article.

  Sulayman could not hear what his mother was saying because he was too distracted by the stampede of his thoughts. It was as if Satan were there, laughing at them, from his throne.

  Iblees, the devil himself, sat on a throne that was placed on water, even as his mortal victims disbelieved in him, just as they disbelieved in his Creator.

  Sulayman heard his mother laugh between words, a droning in the background of an amusement only Satan himself could enjoy. Each day Iblees sent out emissaries to incite harm and destruction in people’s affairs, each emissary vying for closeness to the Evil One, a status enjoyed only by the one who caused the greatest fitnah.

  Sulayman thought of how one of the emissaries would come to Iblees, Satan himself, and share his success in inciting harm and sin, saying I did such and such. Satan would then reply, You have not done much. Then another would come and say, I caused division between him and his wife. Then, his status would increase before the Evil One, who would draw him near to him, saying, How good you are.

  “…this test to see how good you are,” Sarah finished with a smile, looking at her son.