Archives for June, 2004

The brother’s trying very hard to be dramatic, to give a meaningful Khutba but ten minutes after it’s over all I remember is his having said once “sisters and brothers.” My thoughts follow their own spiral and after the prayer the lone[ly] sister folds up her rug.

I’ve come with my dad; now that I have no particular reason to be on campus I hitch a ride with him to catch Jummah.

And if there’s two of us on that last long mat, then it’s a good Jummah. And if it’s a Khutba well thought out and well delivered then itÂ’s been a good Friday.

My father is invariably the last to leave. He prays away, and having moved to the front row, behind him the brothers have rolled up the mats and there stretches a vastness of hardwood floor.
I always fold my mat. Experience with bed sheets, lace tablecloths, the odd sari helps my fingers fly between the folds of the long cloth. A flap and I place my flat prayer on the piano. They’ll take it away later.

The last of Queen’s 2004 is leaving. Outside everyone and their parents are dressed up and the sunlight shows their smiles to their best advantage. A little girl and a littler one run past, the older one stopping to let the toddler catch up. The white shoes shine up to the second story window where I stand. The black shoes too, the dress pants, the startlingly white dress shirts. The strappy dresses, the strappy shoes. The occasional cardigan.
In the rows of prayer were a couple of brothers in suits. One came running in late, the grey in his eyes brought out by his grey suit.

When I turn my head looking for my father I unintentionally catch a brother’s eye. Now I have a face – the right one – to put to the voice at the end of the room. The white of his shirt stays in my mind; a voice in my head tells me to save this picture. But afterwards all I remember is that shirt; his eyes, his hands on the table, the curve of his back as he leans forward, all these details are blurred. Only the white against those black pants.
As with all unexpected shots, in this picture his eyes are startled, but he’s looking up and straight at me.
As to who he’s talking to, in my picture there is only an empty space.

Finally my father’s done and he’s almost forgotten that I was waiting for him.
Finally I’m gone.

in response to “belief makes things real” and the ensuing discussion.

*deep breath*
Just because we’re dealing with a huge topic here – what exactly constitutes The Muslim Lifestyle – I’m going to stick to talking about myself. In any case, that’s always the smartest thing to do because it avoids a lot of blanket statements.
In this past year I know for a fact that I’ve grown in terms of faith. For me to be so convinced about anything regarding my own character is, to be totally honest, a first.

So what’s changed.

I used to live in a neighbourhood that was predominantly Muslim. And your first glance of them might make you assume that they lived The Muslim Lifestyle. The men had beards, the women wore the hijab, the children attended the local madrassah, there were scholars and hafizes – of both genders – among us.
Masha Allah. All this endowed in me an unshakeable belief in the existence of my own faith. I took it for granted – the fact that I was Muslim.
The existence of this faith I took for granted. As to its strength, I knew best how weak it was. And I spent so much of my timing raging against the general Muslim community that I lived in. I raged at the hypocrisy, the pettiness – oh.

Do you know. I’m sitting here and I’m staring at this screen and I can remember so clearly all the things that made me so angry. So very angry. These things still touch me. They’ve scarred me; they make my battle to believe that much harder. So many things wrong, and you know what, I don’t need to list them. Any Muslim alive knows the many ways in which the general Muslim population has failed.

It took me a year and the removal of that guarantee of faith for me to realise one very important thing: that anger was also directed inwards, at me. I was angry at all these Muslim figures because I had failed myself. There was nothing in me to follow.
Me, in the hijab, I did so much that was wrong. That was absolutely wrong. I’m not being pious now, talking about missing sunnahs and whatnot. No, this hypocrisy in me was blatant and the only person fool enough not to realise it was me.
Me.

Now I live in a neighbourhood that has all of two Muslim families and I’ve never met that other family. So I have nothing to prove to any Muslim uncles and aunties out there. I could do whatever I wanted and I’d get away with it.
Except for this little voice somewhere – I don’t where exactly – in me.

I am still a very angry person. I always was. The difference now is that this anger has a reason, an actual justification. The faults that I continue to point out in the Ummah, I also look for and point out in myself. That leaves me then with two tasks: one to correct my people, and the other to correct me.
So now I seek the “Muslim lifestyle,” specifically the sparkly clean one that HijabMan spoke of. I have resumed the memorisation of the holy Quran and I kick myself for all the parts I’ve forgotten. [In case this gives you the wrong idea, I know very little.] I’ve begun studying this religion that I profess to be a follower of. I work with Muslims. Instead of criticising them from afar, I take on their battles.

In a hadith from Tirmidhi – my Quran teacher taught me this today – it is stated that the believers will enter Paradise because of two things: their Iman and their manners [manners being a very very loose word here. Re: Ahlaq and Al A'dab.]
“Iman” translated literally means “faith,” but it is imperative to note that Iman is expressed in two ways: inner belief and actions.
Actions.
So. My actions will be my life. I can’t let myself say ever again, “I got the faith in my heart, don’t worry about it.” I branded myself a hypocrite that way over and over again.

As we pass our days, so we pass our lives. I only got the one life, and there’s this many days and I’ve wasted so many years already.
And my life – *breathes deep* – I try – will be the Muslim life.

There’s so much involved in this topic – the idea of hypocrisy, of manners, of obligations, of belief in what we can’t see.
I tried to reduce this ust to me. But I can’t even still explain coherently to myself why I care about my faith now, here, when I didn’t before.