Love in a Headscarf (28 page)

Through all the searching we did in our modern lives, through films, music, books, arts, life, and dreams, we were all looking for the same thing, whether it had a human, Hollywood, or Divine face. It was a sense of completion that came from being in balance with our surroundings. It came from giving love and being loved.

Every human being has a yearning for a partner, a companion, a lover. I knew that my heart was fashioned from the intricacies of love, and I had plenty of love to give. All I had to do was find him. What I hadn’t known until now was that this cry inside for love, for him, was also a search for Love and for Him.

Love is the Divine principle, and to Love is to Know. That is why the human heart can contain the secrets of the universe.

Quantum Theory

S
earching for a husband had distracted me from exploring my own inner world. As a human being my focus should have been on making my spirit blossom. Finding a companion and getting married was part of that journey toward flourishing as a person: that was the Islamic thinking behind marriage. But I had focused too much on the outer search for Mr. Right, convinced that this was the best way to fulfill my responsibilities. As a result I had put my inner life and spiritual development on hold. The conversations with Mohamed had ended all of that, and I had made a quantum jump in the journey of discovery.

Slowly, I began to truly live my life once I realized that my companion and my faith were intertwined. I still had value as a human being without him, and I could keep learning and growing as an individual. He would appear when I was ready, and we would begin a journey together, hand in hand. Unshackled from the ideas held erroneously in my mind, I gradually started to open my heart to the potential of life around me.

Talking to Mohamed helped me to open these doors that had stood in front of me for many years. He unlocked a different kind of freedom for me, inner freedom. I did not want to marry him because of the gratitude of a student for a teacher or because of a crush on someone sharing knowledge. Instead, I felt that this was a man I could go on a spiritual journey with. He would be able to take care of me materially and spiritually. The more I spoke to him, the more certain I became that this was a man with whom I could spend the rest of my life.

Little by little, he was recovering from his heartbreak, yet I felt too nervous to broach the subject of my idea with him. My parents had known about him all along, and in any other circumstance I would have asked them to take the formal route of approaching his family through a matchmaker. Given his delicate situation, we all felt that he might feel cornered if his family was involved.

I confided in Jack at work, and asked his advice. “You can help me, you’re a man, just like Mohamed,” I pointed out to him. “What should I do?”

I explained to him that Mohamed had asked his friends to start on the process of introducing him to women with a view to getting married. After his meetings with them, Mohamed would lament to me how the women were wrong for him, picking out their flaws one by one. But he never asked me if I would like to consider him. I waited, hoping.

I consoled myself with the fact that he was still emotionally vulnerable and that he would have rejected me for the same reason he rejected all the other women: because he wasn’t ready. He felt that the more women he was introduced to, the more quickly he would recover from his loss. This made me angry. These women were meeting him with hope and open hearts, and he was using them to provide solace for his pain. I should have taken note.

Jack listened carefully and then paused dramatically before he delivered his opinion: “If you really like him and you think that he is the right husband for you, then you should tell him.”

“But it’s obvious that he doesn’t like me, otherwise he would have said!” I wailed.

“Would he? Maybe he feels just like you and is scared to say anything.”

I pouted. Jack continued. “Think about it like this. If you want a job or a house, you’ll go after it, won’t you? Think about how much effort people put into their careers. On the other hand, when it comes to their personal lives—and, after all, a partner is the most important part of your life—they are passive and just hope it ‘happens.’ You have to
make
it happen.”

I was surprised that his wisdom was so similar to that of the Aunties. I could hear their voices. “Good men are hard to find, my dear, you need to grab him.” It was clear that their advice would also be to prioritize finding a partner above all else. Tradition and common sense were of the same opinion in this case.

I felt chastened. Even though I had followed the process for so many years, I hadn’t yet understood the key universal principle behind it: to think clearly and rationally about how to pursue the right partner. I had let the ideas of all the traditions that I was part of dictate my behavior. Notions from Hollywood to Bollywood that “the man has to do it” and that “it should just happen” had taken root inside me much deeper than I had imagined.

Despite my criticisms of those who upheld all these different traditions over what Islam was trying to teach, I found myself doing the same. I loved the story of Khadijah, the first and most beloved wife of the Prophet Muhammad sending someone to approach him directly to see if he would be interested in marrying her. Safura, too, had taken things into her own hands, asking her father to invite Moses into their home and into their business. I held up these empowered, independent, and determined women as inspiration for Muslims, and yet I was falling short.

Jack explained that if I shared my feelings with Mohamed, it would not be an ultimatum, and I should not fear it as such. I realized that I could have the same conversation with Mohamed that I had in introductions with other men. It would be the beginning of a discussion about whether we could see ourselves as a married couple. I had been through so many of them already, I should not be scared. If I really believed that Mohamed was the one, I had to grab this chance to talk to him about the possibility of spending our lives together.

I had been through so much, met so many different suitors, worked with the process, rejected culture, and then found my own place in it again. I had learned about what love was and what love could be. If I did not take this opportunity, I would let myself down. I decided that I would not abandon the journey that had brought me to this point. I had learned too much about myself to do that.

Over coffee, Mohamed and I chatted aimlessly about work, mosques, literature, art, vacations, food. And then, in a quiet moment as we sipped our drinks, I told him.

“I like you.”

He squinted curiously at me.

“I just thought I should tell you, you know …” I stuttered, not sure what to say next.

Be brave
, I told myself,
you’ve come this far.

“And I was wondering …” I lost the nerve to ask him directly if he liked me too. My voice deserted me at that moment, absent without leave. I managed to croak, “I was wondering what you thought about that.”

There, I had said it.
I picked up my cup and hid my face in the dark, opaque liquid. It felt very quiet in the room.

His silence continued. At first, I thought it was because I had made such an unexpected statement. Perhaps he was reflecting on what I had said, perhaps my words had stirred emotions that he had hidden deep inside. He still said nothing. Now that he had reflected, he might be crafting his words to express the depth of his feelings. I started to feel uncomfortable. Surely his feelings couldn’t be that majestic and ponderous that he needed this much time to work out how to convey them to me?

I fidgeted, wanting to break the silence. But that would mean I would have to reiterate what I had just said—which would exacerbate the silence further—or I would have to change the subject. I had expended so much energy and bravery to make him this offering of my feelings that I would just wait to see what he said. I would not change the subject now.

I should have known that the silence was foreboding. But I wanted to hear it, to know for sure. A rejection would hurt but at least I would go away in the knowledge I had tried. I would have to find a way to recover from having been so close to the husband I had been searching for and then being turned away.

Being brave enough to ask him about his feelings openly was about to pay off, because his response revealed more to me about his emotional state than years of marriage could have uncovered.

His answer was even better, even more informative, than I could have expected. It showed me his obliviousness to my bravery and vulnerability, and that made it starkly obvious that he wasn’t as suitable for me as the life companion I had hoped him to be.

The answer was worse than I had anticipated. Not only did he crush my feelings, but he did it without respect or grace.

“Shelina,” he said, looking at his coffee, “I am a scientist. I have just discovered that Einstein’s theory of relativity might not be true. This has turned my world upside down and I can think of nothing else at all. Nothing. I’m consumed.” And with that he continued sipping his coffee.

EIGHT
Multiversal

View from the Shelf

PITY

The Aunties started to feel sorry for me. “
Such
a nice girl,” they would exclaim. “
So
well-mannered.”

“I
can’t
understand
why
she isn’t married,” said one to the other, emphasizing the words.

I expected them to lay the blame at my door for not marrying earlier or for not choosing one of the inappropriate men that had been
recommended.
I italicized the words in my own head for irony. Instead, the Aunties surprised me.

“So
pretty
, so intelligent, so lovely, and
religious
, I just can’t
imagine
who could be
right
for her,” sighed the other in return.

I was unnerved by their compassion. Had they forgotten their complicity in the tortuousness of my search? Or had they too been on a journey of their own?

They turned their heads to face me whenever I appeared and then stroked my hair lovingly.

“When you find the right person, then you’ll know it has been worth waiting for,” they consoled me. “You’re still young and so pretty, plenty of time! A man would be
crazy
not to want to marry you.”

I felt tearful. I felt that I had achieved so much: education, independence, career, travel. Through all of it I had retained a close relationship with my family, my community, and my faith. Like many other single Muslim women, I had negotiated the complexities of growing up in a new environment, of wanting to excel in education and career, and of keeping my respect for the importance of ethnicity, faith, and identity. I was at once “independent” and “community-minded,” “modern,” and “traditional.” In short, I had earned the Aunties’ respect.

Whether their words were hurtful or compassionate, the Aunties still pointed to that one thing I wanted most—companionship. For them, a husband had secured them social status and perpetuated tradition. The structure of marriage had worked for them and they had found their place through it.

There was something about marriage that they had only begun at this late stage to explain clearly and which I wished that they had spelled out from the start: the satisfaction of having Someone To Be With. My parents echoed their sentiments: “We just want you to have someone of your own so you can have some company, someone to go out, someone to do things with.”

They were right. I had already done all the things I wanted to do on my own. I hadn’t let expectations, gossip, or stereotyping hold me back. I had discovered that I
could
do all the things that I wanted to do on my own. I just didn’t
want
to do them on my own anymore. The experiences would be richer and more meaningful if I had someone to share them with. Once I wanted Prince Charming. I still did, but now Cozy Companion would have sufficed, someone to spend time with, to move on in life with, someone, anyone,
anyone at all?

AUNTIE JEE
: “We must find someone for Shelina.”

AUNTIE AITCH
: “What about that nice doctor? What is he called? Something beginning with ‘Muh.’ Is it Mehdi? Masood? Malik?”

AUNTIE JEE
: “Maazin?”

AUNTIE AITCH
: “No, no, let me think.…”

AUNTIE JEE
: “Muna?”

AUNTIE AITCH
: “No, not Musa, not Munir.”

AUNTIE JEE
: “Malcolm?”

AUNTIE AITCH
: “Malcolm? Who is Malcolm?”

AUNTIE JEE
: “Sabin’s son. You know they were very modern when the kids were born, called them all sorts of things. Now she is more religious than the Maulana himself?! Do you mean Mahbub?”