Love in a Headscarf (24 page)

Every so often their words made me pause and wonder if I had been too cynical about their motivations. Were we seeing them as caricatures? I wanted to find out what really lay behind the cheerful banter. I decided to put a stop to their flattery and ask them directly about their lives, and speak to them as one human being who was on a quest to another. They were surprised that I was interested in their lives. As they spoke, the men evoked strong emotions about the way they lived, how they struggled to earn a living, about their families and their aspirations. They described with great passion how much they loved their country and how they longed to make it a better place.

The shop assistant carried on speaking to me. “I am a Muslim too, and I am looking for a wife who is a good practicing Muslim. If you are from London and you wear the hijab there, you must be very strong. It must be difficult for you.”

I turned to look at him. The tone of our interaction had changed and we were now two people on the same journey, learning from each other. I was no longer his prey. Instead, he was inviting me to connect with him at my very core—my faith. That was the power of the sense of
ummah
that Islam instilled in all Muslims.
Ummah
was one of the fundamental concepts that Muslims believed in. It meant being part of a single nation of people who shared a sense of community and togetherness, wherever you were in the world. Even though every individual and society within the
ummah
would have different opinions and cultures, it brought everyone together through unity and belonging. What we shared was a journey toward the Divine, and a desire to make the world a better place. Rooted in the very beginnings of Islam, 1,400 years earlier, it was the first global identity that existed, before the ideas of “globalization” or “global village.” Like a large family, every member of the
ummah
was of value, and you felt their happiness and their pain. That is why Muslims always seemed to express themselves so strongly about the experiences and troubles of other Muslims in different parts of the world. Each one was immediate and real, like a family member, no matter their physical location.

I smiled at him as I spoke: “Do you know that there are almost two million Muslims in Britain? We are very blessed. I can wear my hijab to university and to work. We can pray and fast. We have our own mosques.”

“Really?” He was surprised and moved. “Sometimes we wish for that kind of freedom here. We have to be careful of what we say. It is easy to get into trouble, especially if you are too religious.”

I had heard similar stories in other Muslim countries too. In Syria people rarely spoke to strangers about politics. In Tunisia the government tried to ban Ramadan. The Tunisians we met also told us how unusual it was for them to see educated women wearing the headscarf, because it was not permitted to be worn at university. The men even whispered that if they went to Friday prayers at the mosque, they would risk being taken to jail. In Saudi Arabia I met a woman who wept about how difficult things were for her and how she longed for the freedom I had to practice my religion freely. I felt a sense of responsibility in using my freedom to change the situation that these people faced. I lived in a place where I could talk about oppression, engage politically, and make challenges through the media.

One hundred years earlier, most Muslims had lived within relatively defined areas of the world. With the end of all the empires that had dominated the globe, along with changes in travel, migration patterns, and a global economy, Muslims were now part of societies all over the world. My own family was one example. The breadth of that existence and the huge contribution Muslims made to all the various countries they lived in was not known by those who remained in Muslim majority regions. No wonder Muslims who still lived in the traditional heartlands were surprised to find out how widely spread out we all were.

“
Inshallah
, I will go for
hajj
this year,” he told me. He was beaming broadly.

I also wanted to go to Mecca and experience the phenomenon that changed the lives of so many people.

“I will pray for you to go there and to return safely,” I told him. Prayers were the best gift that I could offer him. We were always advised that if we wanted something, we should pray for others to be granted what they wished and in return our own wishes would be granted. “And I will pray that you find a beautiful and wonderful wife.”

“Thank you, sister, I will pray for you to go to
hajj
also. And I will pray that you find a very good husband,” he responded. I was very moved by his unsolicited prayers for me to go on the
hajj.
His use of the word
sister
indicated a change in tone and respect. It made me feel safe and welcome.

Here in Cairo I was forced to ask myself whether all the time, effort, and dedication in securing the impossibly perfect man was misdirected. Perhaps the reality of love was much more mundane in its origin than the idealized, airbrushed expectations I had. All that romantic chasing around after a perfect-but-unattainable love: who had time for all of that? As the Imam said, “Love comes after marriage. You only know the meaning of love after you’ve made the commitment.”

If love blossoms after the relationship has been formally agreed, then instead of putting all our focus on the “finding” part, more of our emphasis should be on the “relationship” part. Less searching and asking; more energy on keeping the relationship alive afterward, integrating our families together, and making the marriage unit a foundation for the community. In which case, proposing should be as easy, quick, and straightforward as I had experienced in Egypt. There ought to be no shame in being rebuffed to reach the goal of getting married. Making a formal commitment was the entry point into the real story of love.

I should have learned from all my encounters that love lies in the most extraordinary people and places. Even if I didn’t find love for myself here, it lived here too, in a different shape, fitting its people and community. Was love hiding in those narrow
souk
alleyways? In whatever the heritage and culture, love existed at the very core of the human condition.

Once we arrived across the border in Jordan, we made our way toward Petra, the mystical setting of the Indiana Jones film
Raiders of the Lost Ark.

If only Indiana Jones was with us, I sighed. I had an enduring crush on him, with his masculine chiseled looks and his fearless chivalry. Who could resist the vast intellect of a professor of history and archaeology who lived a double life as a roguish adventurer from the 1930s?

Petra had been at the crossroads of trade for thousands of years, being inhabited since prehistoric times. I imagined this junction of commerce bustling with travelers transporting silks and spices between China, India, Arabia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

To reach the “Rose City” of Petra we had to make our way slowly down the
siq
, a one-and-a-half-kilometer-long gorge that was dark and narrow, sometimes only three to four meters wide. The terracotta-colored cliffs swept frighteningly up to the skyline, leaving only a sliver of light coming down to us as we sweated our way along the enclosed path. Even though we had begun the walk at six thirty that morning, the heat had already reached intolerable levels. The path we were following grew even more constricted and the deep orange cliffs on either side stretched even higher. Eventually the corridor widened and we were spat out at the entrance.

We three young women stood at the gates to the historical site at 7:00 a.m., and looked around at what appeared to be a bustling village. There were small cafés and plenty of locals milling around the already buzzing throng of tourists. Long shades extended across low tables and chairs set out in traditional Arabic style to delight the visitors. At this time they were empty as travelers focused on exploring the historical ruins of Petra. Later, as the afternoon grew long and dusk approached, they would fill up with ravenous customers. Noreen was tired and asked that we rest with some tea. Sara was firm: we had to get going before we were paralyzed by the heat. “Look at the incredible architecture,” she said, pointing at the detailed carvings that we could already glimpse. She marched ahead, and we walked past the cafés with longing. The locals who worked there nodded to us, noting our presence.

As the cliffs separated to form a wide arena, our jaws dropped. In front of us was an enormous building almost forty meters high, half constructed, half hewn from the solid rock. Beyond that we could see entire homes and edifices carved out of a mountain, retained in exquisite detail after thousands of years. The cliffs had been cut into elegantly and in keeping with their spirit and size, so that it looked like the rooms had been there ever since the cliffs themselves were formed. What stunned me most was that a human being had stood in front of these impenetrable mountains that were thousands of times taller than any person, and had the imagination and creativity to envisage a home, a temple, a crypt, a whole human community living in this space.

The Qur’an mentions a place which is believed to be Petra, the place of abode of the people of Thamud. It records that “they carved out houses from the mountains, feeling safe.…” Who wouldn’t feel safe ensconced in this valley under the overwhelming protection of these epic mountains? The people were known for their immense skill in carving rock but the Qur’an describes them as uninterested in looking for deeper meaning or the Divine. They built their success through sly monetary means, often cheating others. They were proud of what they had achieved, both financially and architecturally, believing that their success would be infinite and indestructible.

The Qur’an recounts their story to impart the wisdom that greatness will come to an end if you are arrogant and engage in acts that are wrong. In the case of the people of Thamud it was cheating people of their money. The Qur’an advises people to travel and see the remains of civilizations like Petra, and while it may have described what happened, nothing could match the visual impact of seeing the place firsthand. Wandering around the site and observing the size of the architecture as I stood next to it made the point obvious: even great empires come to an end through corruption. No wonder the Qur’an encouraged people to visit historical monuments. The vision was unforgettable.

Petra was one of many stories of the rise and fall of empires, people who built large buildings and thought themselves immortal, impenetrable. Pharaoh was another, a man who killed thousands of innocent babies. In his self-proclaimed divinity he wanted to build a spiral staircase into the heavens so he could reach up and kill God. But when it came to the story of Pharaoh, I was more interested in his wife Aasiya than him. Now there was a real woman.

Since our visit to Egypt, I had been thinking of her a great deal. She was Pharaoh’s most beautiful and most intelligent wife, and as a result she was also his favorite wife. Egypt was a great civilization of its time, and as its queen she was one of the most powerful women in existence. She would have enjoyed all the luxuries, pleasures, and status imaginable; the world would have been at her feet. Aasiya could not have wanted for anything: she was Queen of Egypt.

I admired Aasiya because she saw more than just the wealth and power around her. Despite the favor she held with Pharaoh, she knew that he was a tyrant and a murderer. She knew that he did not uphold justice or equality, and killed innocent people. Pharaoh said that he was God but she did not accept that. He was furious: how dare she disobey him! Instead, she followed her own heart toward the truth and did not blindly accept what her husband told her. She chose to believe in a Creator and Cherisher, One God. Her belief was that this Divine Being was the Truth, and all the principles that flowed from that truth—justice, equality, respect—were to be upheld to the best of her ability. So she confronted Pharaoh, and would not accept him and his despicable ways.

She prayed, asking for spiritual closeness to God who has no physical location:
I would like to be near you in heaven.

Even though he loved her so much, Pharaoh’s pride forced him to call for her execution because she was defying him with her belief that there was One God and that Pharaoh himself was not a deity. She should just enjoy being the Queen and not worry about the way he ruled the country. Pharaoh begged her to change her mind but she refused. What kind of wife would she be if she did not point out her husband’s heinous errors? What kind of woman would she be if she did not offer her life in the path of truth and justice?

As I looked at the huge buildings around me, my respect for Aasiya grew. She was Queen of all Egypt, Queen of the Pyramids. She could have had anything. But she chose to challenge the most powerful man of her time and gave away her love, her life, and her status to make a stand for humanity.

We walked from one cavernous awe-inspiring room to the next, marveling at the temples, crypts, baths, and living quarters, dutifully ticking each one off our guidebook list. We entered into what looked at first glance like caves, but we realized that the two hundred foot ceilings had been carved by hand. The stone was variegated in shades of pink and red. Even two thousand years later, we could make out the reliefs on the walls, which would have been the intricate decoration across the surface, or the mounds on the ground, which were monolithic sarcophagi. We gasped at the individual artistry of each site until the sun began to fall, the heat softened, and the shadows grew.

The lights in the little cafés started to illuminate and sparkled romantically in the dusk. We were so wrapped up in laughing, admiring, and reveling in the experience that we failed to notice how quickly night was setting in, and by the time we reached the gates it was dark. The local men had gathered in the cafés to relax after their hard day. Once all the visitors had left, their true personalities unfolded and the atmosphere changed. It was a glimpse of local life rather than the Disneyesque charade that they put on to meet tourist expectations. We loitered, chatting to them as we sipped our drinks.