She presented herself in an organized manner, first introducing herself as the daughter of an Arab American family who lives in Brooklyn, was named for Queen Noor, reads poetry, attends NYU. Then she answered his query about the Qur’an as an evolved variation. Muhammed, she wrote, came into contact with the ancient mystics of the Middle East, including the Essenes, a Gnostic sect that was also a source for Jewish and Christian mysticism. This makes sense to John, considering that the stories of the Qur’an feature the characters of the Torah, which stories also serve as source code for the New Testament, which, and which, and which, on and on, just as, so too, because.
My dad, Noor wrote, likes to say that the denial of relationship and influence and cause and effect is driven by political interests. For which John doesn’t much care, having no ambitions in that direction. His policy, he decides, will be Whitmanian all-embrace. He would be all-knowing, omnivorous, omniscient, omnificent; what Barbara would call an omnium-gatherum. He opens his reading journal and inscribes Whitman’s words:
I understand the large hearts of heroes,
The courage of present times and all times;
So he Googles the word Islam, the fastest-growing religion of the twenty-first century. One in five people in the world, he reads, considers himself Muslim. Fewer than 15 percent of Muslims are Arabs. The majority of the populations in fifty-one countries are Islamic. There are between 1.4 and 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and this number is increasing at a rate of 2.9 percent. Which inspires him. So he reads his Rumi:
Start a huge, foolish project like Noah.
It doesn’t matter what people think of you.
So he determines to expand his project, though he is way behind. He determines to become a student of Arab literature. He links to powells.com and orders Beginning and Intermediate Arabic and also a Penguin Classics edition of the Qur’an.
AT TENNIS, John sat in the shade of the white gazebo and half listened to the off rhythm of the bazooka ball, called the score when it stopped, love—thirty, love—forty. Barbara and Bill were losing fast, fulfilling his expectations. Since social life, not tennis, was what they were after, they weren’t good at tennis. Socially they were managing fine.
While the ball bopped to and fro to nonglory, he threw his head back to see the tops of the towering trees surrounding the tennis court like tall toy soldiers playing siege. They were loblolly pine, the tallest, straightest pines of the South, their canopies all at the top, one hundred fifty feet away. Loblollies. He liked them for their lanky height, their straightness, being of similar build. At age fifteen when he’d shot tall and grown his coarse hair out to big hair, someone had called him a loblolly, and though the name hadn’t stuck, too many syllables, he’d developed a kinship with this tree. Its essence might be his essence. It had the advantage of height, as he did. Though rooted at the base, it reached high. And rooted at the base as he, too, was for now, immobilized by his double casts, he could still think himself up to their highest points and float aloft in their upper breezes, near the heavens.
From: Noor Bint-Khan [email protected]
To: Attar [email protected]
Date: August 21, 2000
RE: Middle Ages
Salaam Attar,
I’m sorry to hear about your double injuries, but if it means you have more time to read, then maybe it’s for the best, as my mom likes to say of anything bad even when there’s nothing good about it, like when my Cairo grandfather had a stroke and we all went to Egypt.
I’ve been mostly at home in Brooklyn this summer except when I’m at the library or at work, where I wait tables at a café on Mott called Gitane. Do you know it? It’s really really popular. On weekends, the line wraps around the block. The food’s Middle Eastern, so hummus and couscous and yogurt dishes, and stews with raisins and cumin and lemon, the kind of food I eat at home, too, so it’s a good thing I like it.
My dad thinks working in a café will corrupt me, but I really wanted to do this, and my mom finally said do it without telling him. When he asks, she tells him I’m at NYU, taking a summer class in order to graduate sooner, which is a little true I guess since I’m at the library trying to get a head start on my reading for comp lit. which is like a double major in history and literature, with a focus on Arab and Mid-East culture. My adviser suggested I hit the books right away.
Anyway, it’s interesting to me that you’re not Muslim though your name is Attar and you’re a student of Arab literature in translation. I grew up with Arabic, but I no longer use it so much, and though I can totally read and understand it, it becomes harder to speak it. My mom says I’m just rusty because my brother and I speak Een-zhlee-zee-yah at home, which helps my mom learn it, which is, I guess, a good thing, but makes my dad unhappy because it also helps my brother and me forget. My dad took English classes when he moved here since he had to prove his knowledge in order to drive a cab, his first job in America, but he’s really old-fashioned and anti-assimilationist though he’s also an immigrant lawyer who helps Arabs get their green card and become U.S. citizens, which really is a contradiction of sorts, as I try to tell him.
Which school are you going to in the fall and what will you study? Noor
From: Jilly [email protected]
To: GoofyFootJohn [email protected]
Date: August 22, 2000
RE: overhead waves
Hi JJ,
I’m not calling not because I don’t like you anymore or because I don’t wanna talk to you or because I blame you. I’m just feeling bad. My mom says give it a week and it’ll go away. She says I’ll wake up one day and care less. Anyway I’m so so sorry to hear you’re off your wheels AND board—I can imagine, well, I know how terrible that is so I totally completely sympathize.
I’ve been skateboarding. My dad helped me build a ramp—a homemade job—but it works, and I want to tell you how glad I am I learned to skate, and you deserve all the credit, and I agree it totally makes a difference in my surfing too. But you already know all that.
Later. Jillyxoxo
Ps I’ll visit soon as I can.
From: Noor Bint-Khan [email protected]
To: Attar [email protected]
Date: August 23, 2000
RE: John a.k.a. Attar
So am I the only one using my real name in the chatroom? That’s so embarrassing.
From: Katie [email protected]
To: GoofyFootJohn [email protected]
Date: August 23, 2000
RE: visit
Dear JJ,
I saw your Mom in Duck and she said just stop by whenever. Is whenever all right?
xxxxxxxooooooKatie
From: Noor Bint-Khan [email protected]
To: Attar [email protected]
Date: August 23, 2000
RE: Middle Ages
Ooops, I just realized I never really responded to your question about Islam seeming more open during the Middle Ages because the poetry is full of references to wine and love.
You’re right that it’s stricter now, but it’s complicated to explain why. My mom says that in some ways she grew up with more freedom than I have here in America, in Brooklyn. I don’t see how that’s possible but she says I can’t know that I’m not free because I never experienced anything else. At my age, she says, she and her friends were striving to become worthy souls. Her family is strictly Muslim, but still she claims there’s more individuality there. Here, she says, everyone’s the same, clones of each other. Americans, she says, all strive to earn lots of money, become millionaires, and so on. I don’t know. I can’t say that I entirely buy this.
ps: The Sharia school in Brooklyn offers classes in classical Arabic. I know some of the students and it’s only a few blocks from my house.
From: Naim [email protected]
To: Attar [email protected]
Date: August 24, 2000
RE: middle ages
I want to respond to your statement in
the chatroom that all religions and all prophets are really one because they share the same sources and influences. This idea is so typically American and so inclusively idiotic as to make everything meaningless. Although the three religions met and exchanged ideas in the 12c, they weren’t exactly friends. Nor were they accepting of each other. It’s more like they stole from each other. Jews stole the forms and structures of Muslim poetry. Christians stole Muslim tales and Muslim technology and Muslim architecture and presented it as their own. And Islam isn’t pure either. It got its aesthetics and sophistication from Persia, which it occupied for 1400 years. But occupation and assimilation are never harmonious. Stealing isn’t friendly or innocent. Even though Spanish Muslims and Jews were equally persecuted, and despite their supposed kinship and languages that come from the same Semitic family of languages, they will never be the same.
And anyway where are you trying to go with these sentimental ideas? It seems to me it can only be towards nonbelief. Believing in everything equals belief in nothing. Even if you aren’t looking at all of this from a purely religious point of view, even if you’re taking an academic approach, you’re going at it the wrong way. In academia especially, one doesn’t become a student of everything, because that’s impossible. One must choose to become a knower of one thing, and with specialized knowledge one then has the ability to understand other things. If as you say you’re a student of mysticism and Arab literature who wants to learn to read the works in their original language, then you must take the time to immerse yourself in Arab language and culture, which means moving to an Arab country, eating and dressing like an Arab, and learning the language the only way language can be learned: through daily use. But please take my advice only if you’re serious about your interests and not merely a poseur.
From: Fawal bin Sina
To: Attar [email protected]
Date: August 25, 2000
RE: Arabic classes
Salaam Attar,
We are grateful for your interest in the Brooklyn branch of the Sharia School of Classical Arabic. Classes for the semester have begun in July and will continue through to the end of January. If as you say you are already studying the language, you may be able to join the group belatedly. In the beginner’s course, the alphabet and some grammar are some of the first areas covered. If you’ve already mastered these, you will most likely be ahead. Perhaps it’s best to come in and take a placement exam. For the cultural and historical lessons missed, your instructor can assign you supplemental readings.
You may register via our website or alternatively when you visit the school in person.
May Allah be with you,
Fawal bin Sina
From: Abdul [email protected]
To: Attar [email protected]
Date: August 25, 2000
RE: middle ages
I am responding to Naim’s comments. His take on what you wrote is really really really narrow-minded; he sounds like someone’s fundamentalist grandmother, may Allah protect him. It’s super ridiculous to study with a narrow mind.
Attar, in my opinion, you should feel free to approach your scholarship from any and all angles, and what better way than with an open mind toward all religion and all prophets and all cultures. Follow the words of our great sheikh Ibn Arabi: I am capable of every form.
We are all born of Adam, or, if you’re into science, we’re all evolved from apes, whatever, it’s the same one source, therefore why shouldn’t all innate human wisdom hark back to one source, be it Sufism, Buddhism, Zen, Abrahamic Kabbalah, the Masons, the Coalmen, the American Odd Fellows, New Age, the Zoroastrians, or whatever name spirituality happens to be going under. I agree with you that it’s all trying for the same thing, even when taking different paths to get there.
Scholars wiser than Naim have pointed out that believing in infinity or zero, which by the way was discovered by Arab mathematicians, is a form of skepticism that leads to self-knowledge. Certainty, on the other hand, leads only to mean narrow-mindedness and evil, like the Spanish Inquisition.
THEY CAME THE NEXT DAY, post tide, with salt and sand and stoke and coconut aloha. They tumbled into his room, talking all at once: The surf has been beastly, Sylvie said. Totally bruising, Jilly said. Awesome, Katie finished. She was as blond and tan as ever, legs long and lean and strong. And her eyes, they were see-through blue, he was looking into her soul. They hugged, making room for his awkward double casts.
When did Jilly return, John asked, happy to see their threesome existence restored.
This morning—Katie shrugged—when I drove up to her house and stayed on my horn until she came out.
My mom worried about the neighbors and made me go out, Jilly said.
What made you do it? John asked, looking at Katie. He felt capable of falling in love with her all over again, as if he weren’t already.
I woke up and I just wanted her in the water with us. We’ve been surfing buddies since fifth grade and it seemed too silly to stop now. Besides we were coming to see you after, and I knew she’d want to visit.
We’re saving money for Hawaii, Sylvie said. You should come with us.
Definitely, Katie said. Your casts will be off by then.
But, John said, I’ve been thinking of moving to Brooklyn. To study Arabic.
Arabic, Katie echoed.
Difficult choice, Jilly said, sarcastically. She cupped her palms, making them a scale. Which will it be: Arabic, Hawaii, Arabic, Hawaii, Arabic—
Barbara came in bearing a tray of cups and saucers and a pot of hot chocolate. She returned with muffins.
Not much surfing in Brooklyn, Sylvie said, with a full mouth.
Yeah, John drawled. Brooklyn is definitely not Hawaii.
What’s this about? Barbara asked.
Hawaii, she echoed when the girls told her. Do your parents know? The waves are dangerous.
That’s why it’s called extreme surfing, Mrs. Parish, Jilly said.
For how long? Barbara asked.
Katie shrugged. For as long as we’re having fun. We’ll have to get jobs down there, but I figure one Jamba Juice’s as good as another. Or we’ll wait tables at night, live on tourist tips.
But what about college? Shouldn’t you be thinking about your education?
Well, Sylvie said, John’s thinking about Brooklyn and Arabic.
Barbara turned to John. Brooklyn? Arabic?
It’s a pretty new idea.
Aren’t there Arabic classes in D.C.?
Not classical Arabic, John said. And this school comes highly recommended. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but the course is designed in three-semester sequences so if I don’t start this fall, I’ll have to wait till next year, but by then I’ll be at Brown.
Hmmm, Barbara said, thinking quickly. I like it, I mean, I think structure would be good for you. Let’s see what Dad thinks.
She gathered up the tray and cups, and left, John knew, to start the discussion.
Your mom’s thrilled to have you anywhere but Hawaii, Katie observed when Barbara left.
John agreed. Barbara was easy to see through. Though she loved Katie & Co., she worried about their intellectuality or lack of it. Even graduating from the local community college wasn’t a sure thing for Katie.
Brooklyn, John explained, means school, which is where she thinks I ought to be. It’s not Brown or Yale, but it’s school.
The girls didn’t give up. You can go to Brooklyn in the fall, and still come down for Christmas, Sylvie pointed out.
I’ll think about it.
Sylvie and Jilly left for work and Katie stayed. They had to have it out, John knew, and first thing, he apologized.
I had no reason to blame you. I overreacted to the way things turned out. I was feeling badly for Jilly, who didn’t deserve what she got. I tend to root for the underdog—it’s just the way I am, I guess. I’m sorry.
Katie nodded. Yeah, I kind of know that about you. And I asked myself what I c
ould’ve done differently, and honestly, I don’t think I could’ve done anything. I didn’t even know right away that the decision had gone against her, since I was still in the water. And even when it was posted, I didn’t know how it would influence the final score. Jilly could still have overtaken me, us. I mean, you know how good she is.
American Taliban: A Novel Page 5
