A Hijab called Fred

I wrote this rather ludicrous poem a few years ago now, and stumbling across it now, it still makes me smile a little bit.

I wrote it on my first attempt at wearing the hijab, when I was in my fourth year at university. I had just chosen to start wearing it in a town with very few Muslims, amongst my fellow students who weren’t really sure why I was suddenly wrapping my hair up in long scarves. I remember how alienated I felt, and I think some of that was to blame for the sudden burst of inspiration I got at 3 am one morning when the idea for ‘Fred’ was born. It tickled me at the time…

I think on reflection, I was desperately trying to give myself some kind of pep talk.

Anyhow, here it is:

One day, a runaway headscarf,
floating upon the wind,
attached itself to my head.
Ha Ha. It said. I will now proceed…
to live upon your head.

In vain was my struggle,
The scarf would not budge,
Loved it so much living on my head,
I therefore reduced my efforts, came to a compromise,
I called the headscarf Fred.

Fred and I, we soon grew close,
Such that we were able to share,
Many deep, philosophical musings,
On why a woman would cover her hair.

hmmm. remarked I
I’m listening… (Was Fred’s reply)

I’m not distressed, or perplexed or even vexed,
I’m not crazy, insane, or O-P-P pressed…
I just thought I’d like to do something purely for Him,
It was a careful decision, not just some careless whim

And although I’ve encountered some great positivity,
It’s kinda sad when you hear of the negativity…
Still, I don’t ever want to end up being a sheep,
Don’t want to be shallow, I strive to the depths of deep.

Fred grunted in affirmation
And then said after some deliberation;

‘Others conform,
But you’re not the norm…
Today, you placed yourself beyond people’s perceptions…
The truest actions are the ones with the purest intentions.’

‘Upon this thought let us for a moment linger….
Be Proud you’re an inky-fingered, odd-sock-wearing, hair-covering….

Freedom Thinker.

Hi Mum, it’s your daughter from the future

The last book I managed to find time to read was ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife‘ by Audrey Niffenegger. I’m sure most people are familiar with the concept, but to quickly summarise, it’s about a man with a rare genetic disorder causing him to time travel unbidden into the past or the future. This allows him to interact with various members of his family and friends at different stages in their lives.

I suppose the book must have still been lingering with me (it’s a bittersweet tale of love and longing), when my mother made a comment that got me thinking about time travelling one day. We were taking the bus through town when she pointed out a place where she used to live with my dad before I was born. She then jokingly told me how she used to walk for miles on end to get to town because when she first came to this country from the Motherland, she wasn’t au fait with how to catch the right bus.

I laughed at this along with my Mother. But inside, I felt a little twinge of sadness. I imagined her younger self, (younger than I am now) walking strange streets in a strange town, uncertain of the local customs and lacking sufficient English to ask for help. What must she have felt as she navigated those foreign streets and heard that foreign language for the first time?

I wished for a moment that I could travel back in time to my mum’s bus-free days. I would approach her, this shy young woman, and after ardently studying her face, voice and mannerisms, I would be her friend. I’d get a bus timetable and explain to her how it all worked. I’d buy her an umbrella and a sturdy pair of shoes and make sure she used both. Before I left, we’d do a little bus-catching role play, with me playing the conductor. My mum would learn that it wasn’t frightening at all and soon she would be able to confidently use public transport to go anywhere she chose.

I wonder if my mum would recognise her daughter from the future?

But then again, maybe my mum wouldn’t be who she is today if she hadn’t gone through all those experiences alone. Perhaps I wouldn’t be who I am if my mum had been any different. I wouldn’t want to mess with the course of history by placing an extra passenger on a bus.

Besides, I tell myself there are plenty of opportunities to metaphorically hold the umbrella over my mum’s head now, in the present, while we are both alive and near one another. No need to agonise over the past when my Mother is only an arms width away, Alhamdulillah.

Darkness to Light

Recently I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine, and on my enquiring after her wellbeing, she replied that she was physically well but that from a spiritual point of view, she was ‘in the gutter’.

This resonated with me, not least because I’ve been feeling the same for a little while now. We all go through these times in our lives when our imaan dips horribly low, but sometimes I get frustrated with myself that I don’t learn from the previous times and immerse myself in more ibadah to claw my way out of that dark hole.

For that is exactly what it feels like when you go through a rocky phase in terms of relationship with your Creator. All those times when you somehow keep missing the prayer, and when you do pray, your heart and mind are not present. Those times when you abandon your nightly routine dhikr, when the dust grows ever thicker on your Qur’an and your heart grows so hard that doing anything remotely religious becomes difficult. At such times, you’re sadly more vulnerable to the whisperings of satan and before you’ve even conceived a plan to crawl back to your Creator, any meagre action you might take becomes paralysed by feelings of shame and guilt.

Being distant from God feels like being stuck in a dark hole with a limited supply of matches. When you strike one, it’s light may last for a few flickering seconds, but inevitably it will burn out and you must strike the next one in order to see. In the past, when I have been most distant from God, I’ve tried to fill my life with ‘meaningful’ things like literature, music, Art, exercise, social engagements and conversations. Each of these served to distract me from my aching soul, but like the matchsticks, they only gave out a temporary, feeble light which soon flickered away and left me alone in the darkness. After a little while, you realise (all over again), that there is no distraction on Earth which will satisfy your soul for long enough and that in truth, you need Him as a newborn baby needs its mother. Any of the meaningful pursuits I mention above lose their meaningful-ness entirely when the purpose of life has been momentarily lost.

In that mystical time preceding early dawn, when you can almost ‘hear’ the angels wings as they descend to Earth, my own spiritual failings have become woefully apparent to me. As I sit there at this auspicious time, the weight of all that I am, with my responsibilities, promises, hopes and dreams, feels too heavy to bear alone and unaided. I am starkly aware that on my own, I don’t have the ability to give shape to my dreams, to refine my character, to battle my nafs, or to have sabr with the many irritating people I have come across at work lately. As far as self-reliance goes, quite frankly, I might as well try to find a hijab pin in a haystack. In these moments of reflection, I am overcome by how much I need Him.

When your spiritual eyes slowly become un-blinkered, you start noticing God in everything around you again. Today as I stepped out of a cafe, I saw an autumn leaf fall sedately from a tree to the pavement below. I was reminded that not even a leaf falls without His knowledge, and I thought to myself- if that little leaf is acting in obedience to it’s Lord, then surely my Lord has a plan for my life too. It was comforting to remember that He already knows of the sorrows and worries which I have guarded in my heart lately, the ones that I think no one understands and have caused the distance between us in the first place. I am saddened because instead of talking to Him and seeking relief from my troubles, I have kept my pain to myself like a jealous lover. I have forgotten that it’s impossible to get through a single day without Him.

The only thing that can help us in these states is to pray with all our might, that He might send some heavenly light into our lives. I’ve resolved to restart that divine internal conversation, hoping fervently for His mercy and forgiveness. I’m going to renew my intention to be grateful for all the things that I have, and to beg for the things that I do not.

Although thinking about or experiencing distance from God is painful, it reassures me that it seems to be a common human experience, and that we can help each other through such times. In the end, after all our ibadah and supplication, we’re left waiting patiently for the earth of our hardened hearts to crack, hoping that tears pour forth from our dry eyes to nourish that barren soil. We wait patiently for spring to bloom once again, until our hearts are no longer barren, but verdant, fertile with the remembrance of our Lord.

Celery

A, 8 years old: ‘Have you got any celery?’

Me: ‘Nope, sorry, I didn’t know you liked celery?’

A: ‘I don’t like eating it. I just like chopping it’

Me: ‘?’

A: ‘It chops nicely’