Love in a Headscarf (8 page)

“I’m looking for a wife for my son,” the elderly lady would say in her thick accent interspersed with Urdu words.

“Tell me what kind of girl you are looking for,” the host would respond in her gentle but serious voice. I often wondered if she muted out her giggles. On air she always sounded deeply concerned and full of gravitas, an Asian Katie Couric meets Dear Abby.

“I’d like someone who is about eighteen, fair, homely, and domesticated, and from a good family. She should be slim and white and have finished her schooling to A-level. Not tall, please. And fair, homely, and domesticated.”

“Okay,” continued Asian Katie Couric. “Tell me about your son.”

“He’s thirty, five foot three, well built, studying first degree in accounts.” I smirked. I waited for the velvet-tongued presenter to cut in and expose the contrast between what she was offering and what she wanted, but nobody seemed to notice the double standards apart from me.

“And what is his skin color?”

“He is dark and he has put on a bit of weight, but he is, after all, eating his mother’s cooking,” she beamed radiantly through the airwaves.

“And should the girl be working?”

“It’s okay if she works until she gets married, we’re very
modern.
Once my son has passed his accountancy exams, she can stay at home and look after both of us.”

With the mother-in-law’s emphasis on modernity, I was sure they would have warped their beautiful names to something more “English.”

“Thank you. That is Auntie Sugar from Hounslow looking for a wife for her son Harry who is thirty, five foot three, dark, and round, still studying and living with his mother, looking for a fair, homely, and domesticated wife from a good family to stay at home and look after his mother. Number three-three-seven-eight for all you lovely ladies.”

It was an uneven playing field, but at least the rules were clear.

Intertangled

L
ove comes
after
marriage” was the familiar refrain of the Imam of our local mosque. He was an indomitable figure in our community, much loved and respected. This was one of his favorite phrases about marriage. “What is this ‘click’ that people are looking for?” he would say. “When you first meet, he does his hair all slicked back and puts on his best aftershave. And she puts on makeup and smells oh-so-good. And you are both on your best behavior, relaxed and showing only your good sides. And you both think, ‘
Aaah!
I’m in love,’ ‘He is so wonderful,’ ‘She is the one.’ Only when you wake up in the morning and you smell his breath and you see her with her hair standing on end like a
jinn
, only then can you know what love is.”

This was certainly not the romance of
Beauty and the Beast—
or John Travolta. The Imam wasn’t anti-romance, just anti-blind-romance. He challenged the prevailing narratives around me about Finding the One, Falling in Love, Getting Married, and Living Happily Ever After. He didn’t spell it out, but he meant that films end abruptly when Sally and Harry get together, when Seattle is no longer sleepless, when boy gets girl. At the peak of precarious joy, the story ends. What was the reality of the “after,” when they said “happily ever after”? Was it endless summer breezes and dreamy flushed gazes? Or was it a negotiation around dirty dishes, unfinished DIY projects, and unpaid bills?

Love was indeed a passionate human experience, of this the Imam was in no doubt. It could be transformative but it was a force to be tamed and channeled. Its rightful place was inside a marriage, where its transcendent virtues could shine without complications. Only within this structure of commitment, which gave formal security to both husband and wife, and only with the formal consent given by both the man and the woman to begin the relationship could love fully flourish. Marriage was an act of worship and love was the gift given in return.

The Imam was very clear about the importance of two things: agreement by both the individuals themselves and a formal written contract to underpin the relationship. In his words, marriage was the difference between a verbal agreement and a written contract. Whenever you dealt with matters of great importance, the law demanded a written contract in order to guarantee the rights of both parties and outline the nature of the relationship. When dealing with personal relationships, the same rules ought to apply, and so marriage would be a contract between two parties on the relationship they were agreeing to.

Talking about love, marriage, and partnerships was a common and natural part of growing up for me. From a very young age, I was taught about Love. Not only about flowers and chocolates, but also about the hardships of love: its sacrifice, its divine meaning, and its joy and pleasure. The multiple and multiplying rewards of love had to be worked for, and that came with time and patience. Over and over again I heard this advice, this rhythmical lyrical preparation to love.

“Marriage and love are not grand abstract emotions that exist outside of the realities of life,” the Imam explained. “They come shackled to the drudgery of daily routine.” This was a fact most people, especially teenage romantics like me, preferred to ignore. “And yet, everything you do as a Muslim,” the Imam elaborated, “is an act of worship.”

“According to the Prophet Muhammad, being a human being is very simple, ‘Knowing God, and serving humanity.’ Even if you think they are dull and you don’t like doing them, doing your bit in the world, even with things like laundry and mopping, can help you on the path toward enlightenment.”

The Imam’s views were designed to be a walking, talking reality check about love. He encouraged people to be in love, but all the while remembering that it wouldn’t be constant high romance. Housework and hoovering were just as worthy forms of devotion to God as prayer and meditation.

We attended many weddings, perhaps one every three or four weeks. They were always community events and everyone was invited, no matter how distantly related or how tenuously known. If they weren’t invited,
it would look bad.
There would be hundreds and hundreds of people coming to celebrate the union of the bride and groom and the two families. Attending was seen as part of social obligation to the community, and any unjustified absences would be considered as snubs by the wedding parties and noted for the future.

Due to the sheer number of guests, weddings typically took place either in the mosque or in a large community hall. The weddings that I went to were usually segregated, with men gathering around the groom and his family on one side, and women unveiled in all their finery on the other. I loved the clothes that we wore. They were always in beautiful bright colors like crimson, pink, turquoise, emerald, and purple, and embroidered with sparkling sequins, crystals, and beads. They looked even more exquisite as they were made of luxurious feminine fabrics like silk, chiffon, and georgette. I would wear a
shalwar kameez
or, when I was still a young girl, a small blouse with a skirt. The older girls and women would wear glamorous
lenghas
, which were heavily beaded silk bodices and long princess-like skirts. I wanted to wear these beautiful fairy-tale clothes too. I longed even more to wear a sari, which the women wore so elegantly and which flattered their curves, but young girls did not wear saris. I would have to wait till I was grown up.

The bride would enter the hall accompanied by her matron of honor, her veil hanging low over her face so she could barely be seen. Her hands and feet were exquisitely decorated with henna. Some brides wore red outfits; in our tradition we wore white. She might choose to wear a traditional sari, or if she was more “modern” she would wear a
lengha
. When I was a child I would race to line the bride’s path along with the other young girls so that I could look at her bridal outfit, and see how enchanting she looked. I would then race back to my mother’s side and gasp, “She’s so beautiful! Can I have an outfit like that?” and my mother would respond, “Yes, of course! Yours will be even more beautiful.”

The wedding ceremony began with a
khutba
, a short lecture given by the Imam or Shaikh, which was usually spent explaining the virtues of marriage. They reminded us that according to the Prophet, getting married meant you would “complete half your faith,” adding his words, “Whoever rejects marriage is not from me.”

The marriage would then be conducted. Both the bride and groom would usually ask someone to represent them to participate in the
nikah
, the Islamic marriage ceremony. The bride’s side took the first step in the ceremony by asking if the groom would accept her in marriage. This was to ensure that the bride was there of her own free will. The groom’s side would respond by accepting. The Arabic words were usually used for this exchange. The bride said “
Ankahtu
,” I make myself your spouse, and the groom replied, “
Qabiltu
,” I accept. As part of the marriage, the groom would give a gift to the bride, called the
mahr.
This was usually a small amount of money, as a token of the groom’s affection, for when the two of them started their new life. The bride would tell the groom what she wanted the gift to be—and it could be anything, from teaching a skill, to a vacation, to a car, absolutely anything at all. Finally, the Imam would recite a prayer to bless the newly married couple. The whole marriage only took a few moments.

According to the Qur’an, God would put mercy and love between the couple. The Qur’an talks about this love with a special reverence, describing it with a sense of purity and spirituality that was dearer and sweeter than ordinary romantic love. This love,
muwaddah
, was reserved for those in a committed relationship and was a special gift for those who made that commitment. This is why I wanted to get married: in return for commitment, faith, and dedication, there was a guarantee that love would definitely come after marriage, and that love would be sweet, kind, and compassionate. Love and marriage were like, well, a horse and carriage. Or was that a carriage and a horse?

Before the wedding itself, there would be several celebrations held by the women of the two families. My recollections as a young girl are of sitting at such gatherings listening intently to conversations about how to make a marriage successful. The discussions about love and marriage involved the whole community, including youngsters like me. The desire to make marriage and family a success was drummed into us from an early age, and we were given the guidance and tools to do so. Even at
madrasah
we were taught how to select a future spouse. What kind of qualities should we look for? How should we nurture a loving relationship? How should we make it last long-term? We might have been very young, but the lessons were designed to grow into our hearts and into the essence of our beings.

There was one thing that bothered me. All the advice and preparation seemed entirely aimed at the young women. It seemed unfair and unintelligent that the young men were not prepared in the same way. Didn’t they also need to be ready for a relationship?

The Qur’an told me that men and women are a pair, designed to complete each other, equal and balanced. But the Aunties, who represented the conventions of culture, were quite clear in their views that the success of any marriage was in the hands of the woman. I was uneasy with this burden, as it clashed with my sense of fairness and my understanding of Islam.

On the other hand, my local Imam was constantly expressing his sadness and frustration at the over-inflated expectations of “young people.” He thought people should learn to be more content and understand the bigger picture, and that it wasn’t possible to feel constantly in the throes of romantic passion. He felt that people gave up too easily. “Couples on the verge of divorce come to me and they say, ‘
Mulla
, I don’t care for him anymore.’” He would sigh the sigh of a man who has seen the world. “You can’t give up because you don’t care. You are married to him. You don’t come in and out of caring,” he would say. He was usually very laid back but you could see that this sort of youthful flippancy made him cross.

As a teenager I was given a book called
Marriage and Morals in Islam
to provide additional background reading as preparation for getting married. Producing printed material about marriage was an industry in itself, and like many other similar Islamic books, it covered the essentials of finding a partner, how to go about getting married, how to (cough, cough) have intimate relations, and then how to be happily married. Its goal was to set young people’s expectations of what having a relationship means and how to build a strong and lasting one. All of this was based on verses from the Qur’an and Islamic traditions. While my friends read teen magazines about how to kiss wearing braces, I read about making sure I was dressed prettily and sprayed with perfume to spend time with my husband in the evenings, and how he should always be sure to compliment me on how beautiful and kind I was. We came to womanhood from different perspectives. They learned how to say no if they didn’t feel comfortable, I learned how to be happy to say yes in the right circumstances.

I read and reread several of these books, alongside the graphic tabloid teen magazines until the two merged into one.

“WHY MARRIAGE IS THE NEW BLACK”

Having a husband/wife
^*
is a natural state of affairs. Human beings are not designed for loneliness or celibacy.

Marriage is a long-term commitment, and love and strength grows over time.

“Men and women are garments for each other,” says the Qur’an. Marriage is good for the goose
and
the gander.

S-E-X is a good thing, nothing to be shy or embarrassed about. It is a blessing and keeps a marriage strong. But it’s got to be kept inside marriage.

And once the books had laid these foundations, they moved swiftly onto: