Love Veiled in Vain

My best friend Shams was getting married. She was seventeen. Her parents were from Syria. We were obviously different races from different places but the beauty of our community was that everything was blended. Everything blended together for the purpose of faith. Shams was marrying a boy from Syria and soon after signing the pre-marital 'agreement of promise to each other' they'd be allowed to date and court. The pre-marital agreement even included $20,000 dowry as a marriage insurance. That's what I thought the process was, based on all the books I read. I never went through it myself. There were no bridesmaids or anything. I just attended in the background where the women were kept- in the background. I excitedly said the prayers with her. We laughed and ate sweet desserts. Shams, my sweet friend took my hand and walked me to a corner.

"I'm not the only one getting presents Yasmin," she said to me.

Shams handed me a gift bag. I hugged her. I wasn't expecting anything it was her special day, not mine. I unwrapped her present- it was a black journal.

"It's your black book," she giggled, " You don't have boys names in it, but this book is for you to put in it whatever you want. You're always writing something." She kissed my forehead and returned to the festivities

She had no idea what words would grow in that book. We were teenagers and everything was just beginning. My eyes glowed with hope, watching Shams with her presents, gowns and veils. She smiled excitedly back at me. I was excited for both of us with hope in my heart.

"Sista. Sista. Come here," with a smirk on her face this older black woman motioned me close as if to whisper, " what's this? Back here". Sister Nandi patted my hair beneath my scarf and squished it. My hair was in a fluffy curly puff, like bun beneath my scarf. I felt awkward because she was not a close friend or any relation, just an acquaintance.

I answered ," its my hair".

That wasn't enough, my hair was not ok to her.

"You know you not supposed to show that-mn," she said as she tugged at the curly ends ends of hair by my face," Nm, no sis. And this what's this?"

I pulled away nervously and looked for my mother in the crowd. All of Shams' relatives had hair that hung out of their sheer scarves, professional make up, glittery colorful clothing, straight hair to the side like bangs. Why was it that this older African American woman disapproved of my hair and my scarf, when it was completely covered in the scarf?

Generally I looked to my mom's clothing to guide what I should wear. My mother was more down to earth. She wore a scarf up, down and around. She wore oversized modern clothing as well as an over-garment. Later I told my mother what happened. She felt bad, sympathize with me and promised to confront Nnandi about her words to me. To outspokenly opinionatedly disapprove my appearance, that was not a part of any faith.

Faith was what I believed- the faith. I believed that our higher power was the sole source of our existence. I could say that whole heartedly with a smile on my face. Until I learned that I was not expected to smile. I was no longer a girl. I was a woman, a young woman with all the curves from head to toe that must be shrouded in garments and quietly bow my head to lower my gaze.

Lower your gaze. That phrase became the sweetest little nod of romance for me. Samir was smart, funny-witty and quirky like me, and he was handsome. I actually didn't pay him much attention at first, but our families became friends, he was my friend. Puberty was different since all the curves that were growing on my body stood out beneath the blowing veils of fabric. Boys voices were changing. I grew to admire the mere sound of Samir's voice. So much that I joked and pretended to speak like him. Religion prohibited us from touching, or meeting privately, but we could talk- with our heads down of course.

It was cute. He'd pop up and in his deeper voice say "Lower your gaze sister" I'd laugh and I'd say "Lower your gaze brother". It gave me a little glimmer of hope for a while. Maybe it was just a crush. Maybe it was just a friendship. Whatever it was- it made my day, any day.

Islam was different for my mother-it was her choice. For me, I was born to it, like Shams, yet I didn't get the same treatment as Shams. Shams had her father and all her family. Her life was the life that was written about in those ancient texts. Shams had a wahli. A wahli was the eldest male relative who represents a woman in arrangements with men. She had her dad. I did not. As a stereotypical African American male of the 90s, he left his child and did not come back. Shams and her husband moved back to Syria. She had her dowry, of $20,000 and she had her own family, a devout religious life of a normal Muslim Syrian woman with children and a husband. That was a dream.

Most of my days I was being home schooled by my mother's friend Zahrah. I learned arabic so well I was reading and writing like it was my natural born language. Shams you to tease me about my fluency but it was a good thing to be proud of. I could read all the treasured books front to back in Arabic, with little assistance. This is how I learned the value of the difference between words being translated and transliterated. Translation was direct language, transliteration was perspective and depended on whoever told you the word and their background.

For example As Salaam Wa Alaikum translates to "The Peace and the blessing". Through all my reading I realized that when people said that the greeting Assalam Wa Alaikum means "Peace and blessings unto you" that was a transliteration, its not the same. Like when someone who doesn't know arabic asks what the word Islam or Muslim means, and people say it means "submission" "Servant of god"; that is a transliteration. The translation of the words Islam and Muslim were related the same way that the translation of the words Jihad and Mujahid were related. Jihad translates to a battle, war or conflict whether external or internal, physical or mental or spiritual. So Mujahid is a person in the state of the jihad. Mujahid is the warrior, the struggler, the fighter, the resistor.

I was getting really skilled at understanding a lot of the ancient texts. See just as "

As Salaam Wa Alaikum" means The Peace and Blessings remember that Salaam is the word Peace. The same letters Sin, Laam Mim are in the words Islam and Muslim. So just as Jihad was the letters Jiin Ha and Dahl those letters are in Mujahid. Mu was the prefix referring to humans to people, to individuals. Muslim meant Person of Peace the same way that Mujahid meant the person of the battle. Islam was the same word Salaam including the prefix and it just meant "Of Peace"; that is the transliteration.

I was really growing to see myself in this position of a devout religious woman, wife mother. I was genuinely happy, almost in a state of bliss. Everyday when I dressed in my over-garments and head-pieces I fantasized. I imagined I was dressing in fancy gowns of a woman of some high prestige or respectable high honor, a princess, a queen. It was like being from a different land, a separate world. For Shams this was true, her family was from Syria. For me it was a part of the dream.

I was from New York, my father was from New York, my mother was from New York. My parents were African American from families, originally Baptist and Catholic. My parents married by the one-way marriage not like Shams' marriage. Shams had the pre marriage promise ceremony that's how she and her husband were going to be allowed to date. My parents only had the signing of the official adult marriage. I guess that is the result of living as one culture yet actually from an entirely different culture- those formalities that are the norm for the actual culture are not necessary when you actually come from an entirely different way of life.

For African Americans, Islam was a concept of returning to some form of roots. African American Muslims were Muslims mostly had the goal to separate from the Christian norm. There were some Black Nationalist Muslims who were completely about race, then there were Sufi, Shia and many more sections just as Christianity sectioned off. My parents were of the branch of Islam that referred to the writings of the Prophet Muhammad's friends. Its understandable when your culture -in the country that your family has known for several generations- is a history of painfully endured servitude and humiliation- to desire to branch to something different for a different future. It was a luxury to be able to trace some heritage before colonialism to the original tribes of Africa.

In truth I was never accepted as a part of the community by the people, I didn't feel welcomed or belonging with the community, even though I was born to it. There was one who was a constant for me, Samir, he was always a source of warm loving arms, though we'd never actually hugged. We'd never held each other.

Samir had begun trade school across the street from Zahrah's house where I studied my major studies for Middle School matriculation. We'd see each other and wave and sometimes sneak to talk for a little time. I didn't dare sneak off to any place together. I was focused on being the good little Muslim girl, hoping to be a good Muslim wife.

I asked my brother about it. Since my father abandoned me my only eldest male relative was my older brother- this is because unlike Shams whose father, grandfather, uncles, cousins and brothers were all muslim and eligible to look out for her to provide her marriage- for me, my only male lineage was my father- who was absent. So I asked my older brother. After constantly questioning him over the course of a few weeks,

He finally admitted, "No I'm not arranging any relationship or marriage or whatever for you. Thats your fathers job!"

"My father is not here! My father doesn't even know me! Its supposed to be you!," I pleaded with my brother," Youre my oldest muslim male relative- my wahli"

He replied, "No no it's not on me. It's not all on me! Im not your daddy!

Its not my responsibility! Im a kid just like you," He yelled and quickly left out the door and down the stairs, slamming the door behind him.

As much as I understood my brothers point, I wished he'd paid attention to my point. I was still trying to do the right thing as the rules dictated. I had not been sneaking off or making out with anyone. I was crushed. I had my mother enforcing that I finish school first, then I had my brother saying it shouldnt be his job. There was no islamic path for me in love. People would say have the visiting imam do it on my behalf. A visiting imaam who doesnt know me, has no invested feelings for my happiness. Basically I had been learning about a life I wasn't going to have, like staring at a star that I cant reach for years. I was playing the part but no one was playing for me.

This was the first time I felt like there was no point in faith or life. At my study sessions with Zahrah she noticed a change. I wasn't focused at all anymore. Instead of writing in my little black book, I began resting my head on my little black book. I told her what happenned with my brother.

I said, "There's basically no point to covering because there's no wahli for me, there's no husband, no marriage no love."

Zahrah tried her best to answer me, to defend her own reasoning. Zahrah was not married. She was in her thirties, not married, no children. She finished her high school education in public school

.

"Don't you understand the beautiful meaning of the head covering?" Zahrah said with this wondrously convincing smile, she continued "Have you ever noticed that the most expensive jewelry in the jewelry store are behind the glass case? The cheaper jewelry are the ones on display."

"So I'm the jewelry in the case?" I questioned.

"You are the beautiful jewelry in the case, "She proudly grinned.

"But its a glass case, so its see through, otherwise no one would buy it if they couldn't see it and examine it," I replied.

I was disappointed and still upset from the honesty shot my brother just gave me. I was prepared and ready to question everything. It was disrespectful but I needed to make sense.

Zahrah laughed it off, kind of nervously and said , "Well its like Muhammad Ali said "everything

that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You’ve got to work hard to get to them. Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too. ”

"That is beautiful. I'll write that one down too," I wrote it in my black journal gifted to me by my married friend. I traced it colored it like a decoration. As I went for a drink of water where Zahrah was eating her lunch. I questioned again.

"Aren't trees more valuable? They filter the air? Trees aren't in cases. Trees do their job, they clear the air. Thos- those types of diamonds, pearls gold are still in their natural environment, in their own element, existing. Until a human digs them up and uses them for jewelry. Then as jewelry they are dead, not growing, broken from their habitat, used to adorn and accessorize. Is that what I am supposed to be as a woman? An accessory? An adornment? Broken from my natural state as a woman to be worn out?"

"Yasmin you have really got to stop! This is disturbing. Something is wrong with you. And if you continue to have these episodes I'm calling your mother, you can just go home," She said sternly.

"I'm sorry. I just don't understand. It's my body. Don't I get to ask questions about what I do with it? Please don't be mad. You're a woman. I'm growing into a woman. I want to see it the way you do again. I don't have a wahli. I'm living in veils and no one sees me to love me. I'm just going to be an old maid," I cried to her and pleaded with her.

"You are still precious Yasmin. You are still beautiful. Do not lose hope," Zahrah said, "You are still a rose."

"Would you do that to a rose? Keep a rose in a glass case? A lilly? A tree?" I asked. I tried not to sound condescending. I could tell she was losing her patience.

She sighed and replied "No but isn't your beauty more special than a rose or a tree? So you cover it like diamonds and pearls"

"Diamonds and pearls...like trophies," I mumbled.

"Oh like a trophy wife? That is not what I'm saying you know it's not," She crossed her legs and arms and gave me a stern look," At the end of the day Yas you have to find a way to make it beautiful for you as a woman."

"You want to make equivalents right? Jewelry in cases? Like trophies, accessories for show, to assert access right?"

"No, no don't twist my words," Zahrah sighed and shrugged her shoulders, "We have to live in this world as a whole and you have to live in your world."

"I'm not an accessory for any brother to wear to prove he is religious. I am not a pearl or diamond with no voice and no heart beat through veins.What if I was a tree? If I'm a plant with roots like veins grown into the heart of the earth?"

"Plants die. If you take a plant out of it's habitat and restrict it to the suffocating air of a glass case, like its a trophy.... it will die- just like humans. Humans need oxygen. Plants need oxygen. Suffocate a person in a glass case- they die. I will not die. No part of me will die."

She was silent for a minute, and then Zahrah said," You done?"

"Doesn't every person have a different purpose, born for a reason and no ones purpose is exactly the same, no ones heart or experiences are the same. So why must I be expected to fall in the same line as others and hold in every unique thing about me?"

"You take it too seriously little sister," Zahrah smiled, and we laughed it off. It helped just having someone to openly talk about my fears. I felt liberated, as if I'd finally stopped feeling choked. I know that everyone doesn't feel this, but I did. I knew this wasn't everyone else's thoughts because a lot of girls have their happily ever after muslim life, like Shams.

I couldn't agree to marry men that I didn't know. That's all there was for the girls like me. If I wasn't willing to agree to what I'd ben dealt, was I already against religion? I may have been learning to speak up. I'd just begun to find my voice. What I hadn't realized was there was still a threat to my very breath that I hadn't expected because that threat was someone I loved.

I missed Samir. I was still a hopeless romantic. I found his cell number in the same black book gifted to me by Shams. We talked for hours, he still had the same sense of humor. We still had a connection as friends. As we reminisced and joked over months of phone calls we finally started talking about meeting each other again. That's when he popped the question.

"So do you cover? You cover right?" Samir asked.

I covered sometimes, not at work because I did not like feeling divided at work. I had a self rule that the only time I wouldnt cover was at work. All the other times, grocery shopping, mall shopping, laundry, etc, I was covered. I could've lied, like all the other girls lied to "get them a husband". Samir and I were closer than that. We were two peas in a pod.

So I told him, "I cover but just not at work."

Samir blew off in a way I'd never expected. He was in a rage. I bursted into tears. I didn't know it at the time but Samir was actually a heavy drinker, like stinking drunk broken bottles drunk- always a beer in his hand type of drunk and he must've been drunk when he yelled at me this way. He ranted shouting over the phone,"Oh! okay so you not muslim no more! You a fuckin trash kaffir! A disbelieving scum of shit right! Its your duty as a Muslim woman to cover your hair! What you want all these men watching you? You just cant wait to be a video hoe! You might as well kill yourself now cause you're going to burn in the hellfire!"

There were thoughts of suicide. I felt failure as I hadn't lived up to my beliefs. I tried to hurt him back but nothing I said was nearly as damaging. I was not innocent, and he was not innocent- and neither was the girl he was hooking up with drunk in Miami clubs. I never saw him again. I let every tear that fell from my eye be like gas leaking onto the pages of my sweet beloved black book, gifted to me by my married friend Shams. Every tear dropped on the pages of that book lit a flame in my heart, a flame of life burning through the veil I thought I lived my life behind.