Archives / Memoir

11

Quantum Barakah

“All right, everyone. Let’s recite Surah Al-Asr before we finish class,” I announced to thirteen pairs of brown eyes staring up at me. In unison, the chorus of excited third-graders began to read the Surah. One little girl in a puffy white coat and gauzy blue hijab leapt up in excitement, waving her hands grandiosely as she recited the Surah. The boy sitting next to her saw this as a challenge; grinning, he increased his voice three octaves to try and overshadow her. By the time the Surah was...

07 February 2012 | Time | , , , , , , | 11 Comments
22

Where is Home?

Home. Where is home? I thought of this and only then was I faced with the inevitable. “We’re going to move by the end of the year.” My father’s sudden words temporarily silenced me. I paused for a moment, unsure of what to say or how to feel. “Do I have a choice?” I asked, afraid of what I knew he was going to say. “No,” he said quietly. He sensed my pain. He’s seen this look on my face before. But he too, had no choice. I tried...

27 January 2012 | Time, Travels | , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments
19

Servant Thievery

She was dragged mercilessly to the balcony, clutching her black plastic trash bag close to her side as if her life depended on it. The dusty, mosquito-infested balcony was perhaps two feet wide, five feet long. She stared aimlessly into the crowded and polluted city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, a woman in her early twenties. The balcony door was slammed shut and locked. Tears rolled down her face as she tightened her scarf insecurely, her hands shaking. The little ones banged the balcony door, taunting and jeering. *** Earlier that...

12 January 2012 | Relationships | , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments
6

Send Me to the Planetarium

As a young girl, I developed an overzealous fascination with outer space. The balance of the blazing stars astounded me – especially as they contrasted against the composed and appeasing moon. When I was ten years old, my mother gifted me with a miniature telescope which I treasured whole-heartedly. I loved everything about it: its fluorescent yellow coloring and accented lines of charcoal grey, its accompanying encyclopedia containing pages and pages decorated with the images of constellations that I one day hoped to locate, but most of all that...

01 January 2012 | Activism | , , , , | 6 Comments
11

The Birth of Death

I had just dropped my sisters off at madrassah – the mosque school – and was heading home. The sun was finally calling it a day, decorating the sky with a glorious mix of orange and pink. It was raining lightly, my windscreen wipers wiping tiny specks of water away as I drove on. I watched as young children walked towards the madrassah, dressed in small abayas and thobes, carrying their bags and clutching Qur’ans tightly to their chests. For them it was another evening to understand God’s message....

31 December 2011 | Death | , , , | 11 Comments
19

So You Think I’m Immodest?

The whole day had simply been concocting the ingredients for a famous dish, fiasco. I’d woken up for Fajr dreading getting dressed, because today’s dress code was to wear jeans and a t-shirt. How I could wear that modestly mystified me. I sighed and finally pulled on a long formal dress shirt that went just past my knees first, and then put the giant casual gray T-shirt on top. When they had asked me for a size, I’d gotten the biggest shirt they had. The other girls, debating whether...

28 December 2011 | Hijab, Modesty | , , , , , | 19 Comments
7

Living Life to the Fullest

Last week, my sister and I went out for a walk and began to discuss our experiences at school. I loved speaking to her since I could talk to her about just about anything, and knew she wouldn’t tell anybody else about our conversations. This time, I told her about a previous teacher of mine whom I recently found out was diagnosed with cancer. I explained just how amazing of a woman this teacher was, Masha’Allah, and told my sister about all of the things that she had already...

11 December 2011 | Passion | , , , , | 7 Comments
27

Dealing With Girls: The Gaze

I stepped out of the bus and took a deep breath. At last. The first day of school. The sun was shining and the atmosphere was abuzz with lively chatter as teenagers laughed and talked with their friends. As I walked down the pathway, scrunching the leaves beneath me, I took a good look around. Regrettably, all I saw around me was a blur of flesh, sustained by an absolute disregard for decent clothing. I quickly checked myself and lowered my head as I made my way inside. And it hadn’t changed. Four...

07 December 2011 | Gender Relations | , , , , , , , | 27 Comments
10

Learning to Forgive

They used to live in my grandmother’s neighbourhood. A big, poor family of eight children. After the eighth child was born, the husband and wife were constantly quarrelling –the husband hadn’t wanted another child, it just meant another stomach to feed and another body to clothe. The wife didn’t mind. God has given us another child, she said, we should be grateful.. But that only angered the husband more. One evening, after weeks of yelling and slamming doors, the couple began to argue again. The wife was making chapattis...

03 December 2011 | Repentance | , , , | 10 Comments
12

Bee In My Hijab

It was that time of the year when the school decides to reward attendance with two weeks of exams. An optimist would say, “at least they gave us study leave” but not me, since any attempt at being positive typically gets squashed like a fruit fly. We line up outside the hall with our see-through pencil cases and our label-less water bottles. My classmates frantically try to recite equations and facts without their physics revision notes at hand. I gaze out of the window and begin daydreaming. I recall...

21 November 2011 | Hijab | , , , , , , , | 12 Comments
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