SOME OF US CANNOT AFFORD THE HIJAB OF TODAY

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/28368/some-of-us-cannot-afford-the-hijab-of-today/


Abrar Shahin is a Muslim student of Palestinian descent who recently graduated from this school. PHOTO: TWITTER (@AbrarShahin)

There is a school named The Clifton High School which is not in Karachi but in New Jersey, USA, and Abrar Shahin is a Muslim student of Palestinian descent who recently graduated from this school. Sincere congratulations and best wishes in her subsequent career to the young lady who appears to possess a strong sense of identity since her photograph shows her wearing a hijab, and who is about to present us with what I hope, a healthy debate.

In the hormone-charged atmosphere of high schools, where girls dress quite revealingly, it takes conviction to cover your head with a scarf at all times. In her year book, Ms Shahin was seen wearing skinny jeans, ankle-high boots and a cropped white blazer in her yearbook photo, and if you look at her photograph, you will find that she is also meticulously made up with eyeliner, mascara, the works, the cosmetics, as a reporter for NorthJersey.com puts it perfectly,

“Capped with plum-toned lip stick.”

It is interesting but not unusual. My children also went to a high school in the US where there were other girls similarly dressed in tight jeans, fully made up, but also wearing a hijab. My own daughter, whose mother did not agree with hijabs, did not wear one, and her jeans and tops were relaxed and not as fitted. I cannot recall her ever wearing make up to high school.

So tell me, not because I wish to be judgmental, heaven forbid, but because being human I am tired of some people flaunting a halo in addition to a hijab and I need this outburst, what is the purpose of a hijab?

Is it not worn to prevent men paying attention to a woman’s charms?  And is that all there is to be modest about in a woman’s body, the hair on her head? Is there not, if one must be obsessed with the subject, the face, the figure, and a lot else that constitutes female charm? I knew someone, my father in fact, who never considered a woman beautiful unless her feet were clean and well kept. And someone else who felt that there was nothing more attractive than a woman who wore a light perfume and nothing more off putting than one who wore something strong ‘like Charlie’ is what he said to be exact.

I suppose from some quarters the response will be that this is why women should be (according to them) covered from head to toe – incarcerated.

I know a very nice lady. She is covered from head to toe in what she tells me are mostly French chiffons. That, in my book, encapsulates the matter quite neatly. There is nothing more elitist, nothing that contributes more to the ‘great divide’ than such ‘pardah’. Only the rich, the very rich can afford to be quite so ‘religious’ which should make us question if that, after all, is what was intended by the religious requirement of modesty, to question the definition of ‘pardah’.

The rest of us who have to earn a living, who have to live with the curse of power load-shedding and who cannot afford fabric that drapes and breathes as well as chiffon either die under such incarcerating conditions (Karachi heat wave) or live a bit less encumbered if modestly, and rely on our own lungs not the abaya to do the breathing.

As an aside, please allow me to tell you that the fully incarcerated lady cannot exercise in her driveway as she used to in her pre-incarcerated days because of the chowkidar (security guard), so she must now do so in a gym. Also that she carries a spare set of slippers in her car in case they visit a home where she must sit in the same room as the men. In that case she wears the stodgy pair; otherwise she wears the prettier ones.  It is mind-boggling, is it not, how much thought in addition to cash goes into incarceration?

I am struck by the sentiment and the utter dedication to the subject of sexuality. But think for a moment. The world has come to a stage now where people eat breakfast on the hoof. While I do not agree with this other extreme of lifestyle, it gives some idea of how busy a world it now is. How much there is to achieve, and how much one has to adapt to get out of this rut we have fallen into. Our country is perilously short of water, power, education, justice, funds, political stability, women and children’s rights, health facilities, nearly everything. And we are stuck, mired, up to our heads in abayas, hijabs, trailing dupattas (the mind boggles in what all these trail in) and nothing but.

I am a woman. I dress well, and modestly enough. My son would never, ever treat a woman with disrespect much less hoot and whistle at one. I think this is the real pardah. Sometimes the route to self-respect and dignity is via both sexes, with the aid of nothing more than a bit of decency and common sense. A shroud is not required.

BETEL QUID: SOUTHEAST ASIA’S DREADFUL ADDICTION

Up to 75 per cent of oral cancer patients in hospitals disclose that they used betel nuts, paan or gutka.

When the Mughal emperor Akbar’s regular paan maker fell sick Akbar asked the son to prepare paan (betel leaf) for him. The young man put too much chuna (slaked lime) on Akbar’s paan which ‘burnt’ the royal tongue. Furious, Akbar decreed the son must drink a seer of raw lime in punishment. Scared, since he knew chuna’s potential for causing wounds, the young man consulted the wise man Birbal who made him drink a seer of ghee before consuming the lime to offset its harmful effect. The young man did become ill after eating the large quantity of ghee, but he lived to tell the tale.

Paan, is eaten with slaked lime, and katha (catechu, which like the ghee serves to offset the effect of lime), crushed chalia (also known as areca or betel nut), cardamom, and very often tobacco, making the preparation known as betel quid.  If a sweet paan is preferred coconut, aniseed and sweet syrup are also added.  In India and Pakistan paan is customarily offered at auspicious occasions such as diwali and weddings. It is considered to be a fine way to round off a good meal, and is a successful item of commerce.  A childhood memory of paan consists of a shop somewhere in ‘Pindi that sold ‘gudda guddi’ (a paan for children with lots of sweet red syrup), ‘aye bhi woh, gaye bhi woh’ (a soft kapuri paan that melted immediately when placed in the mouth), and ‘falak ki sair’ a paan laden with tobacco as the name suggests that probably made the one who ate it very dizzy.

Paan (betel leaf) goes back a long way across the region. In his writings two hundred years before Akbar, Ibn e Batuta mentioned that paan and chalia were served with barley water after meals at the Mongol court. In the Far East paan has been used for more than four thousand years, and is still an integral part of the food culture of Nepal, the Philipines, Taiwan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.  It is eaten not by itself but prepared with katha (katechu), chuna (lime), chalia (areca or betel nut) and tobacco.

Combining all these harmful things, chalia, katha, tobacco and chuna along with sweet or savoury fillings is also ‘gutka’, a highly addictive stimulant also popular in the region.  Gutka is ‘stored’ in the cheek and consumed gradually over time.

There are other lesser known ways of eating paan. It makes a refreshing drink by blending the bitter sweet leaves with gulkhand (rose petal preserve) or Rooh Afza as a sweetener, and tukh malanga (chia or basil) seeds. It makes chaat with crisp fried paan, with the chaat ingredients served on the leaves. It can be made into a shake with milk or cream, or ice cream, or into kulfi with full cream milk, sugar, cardamom, pistachios and rose water. It is a pity that these other ways of eating paan are not popular because the prepared paan is implicated in the thousands of cases of oral cancer every year amongst habitual eaters.

Up to 75 per cent of oral cancer patients in hospitals disclose that they used betel nuts, paan or gutka. Prolonged contact of chuna with oral mucosa causes tiny ‘cuts’ on the tongue and cheek when the paan is ‘stored’ in the cheek. The cuts fester and allow harmful chemicals to penetrate the lining of the mouth, causing cancer over time.  Katha is similarly harmful. Taiwan, where the practice of chewing paan with fresh betel nuts is very common has one of the highest rates of oral cancer in the world. As for the tobacco, it is dangerous whether inhaled in cigarettes or chewed with paan, because it increases the risk of oral (mouth) and oesophageal (food pipe) cancer. According to a BBC report, chalia is right up there with nicotine, alcohol and caffeine as an addictive substance, and is ‘one of the most popular mind-altering substances in the world.’

Paan is a seasoned traveller.   As is so commonly seen in­­ Pakistan, the sidewalks of Chicago, the cobbled streets of Europe and the souks of the Middle East have all been splattered by paan and gutka spittle. As a result in Dubai in 2012 a week long campaign was conducted in several languages, targeting the various paan chewing groups among the population. The import of betel leaf is banned in Dubai and there is a fine of Dh500 for chewing and spitting it in a public place.   In England, several local councils have launched education campaigns to combat the habit, and they impose fines on anyone caught spitting paan in a public space. One local authority disclosed that ‘even special teams equipped with high powered water jets are unable to remove the stains from the pavements’, and that it costs them over £20,000 a year to clean the mess.

In September 2013 two young men became the first to be successfully prosecuted by a council in England“http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/pages/news/council-wins-landmark-case-for-spitting.aspx” for spitting in public, when a Thames magistrates court endorsed Waltham Forest council’s view that spitting was a sub-genre of litter.

The Guardian quotes Ross Goomber, professor of sociology at Plymouth University, who conducted an international spitting survey and spent the summer travelling in Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai. Prof Goomber compared the spitting habits of different nations and found it to be a many-faceted thing. He said that “the three most significant spitting nations are India, South Korea and China”. For those interested in the subject, the spitting in Mumbai was mainly connected to the chewing of betel nut, in South Korea it was closely linked to smoking, and in China to an outright distaste for swallowing.

In Europe and Singapore where the penalty for littering is heavy in any case the mind boggles at the penalty red spittle would invoke.

There appears to be a link between smoking and the paan habit. According to a study, 34% of betel chewers smoke, while 3% of non-smokers chew.  Many countries have their own anti betel nut and leaf campaigns. Yet there are few public awareness campaigns in Pakistan to point out the danger associated with paan.  As with cigarettes it is a common sight to see people in Pakistan with paan tucked into the cheek, their lips, teeth and tongue stained red with betel juice.  It is an ugly sight, but a culturally accepted one. And that is what makes it so hard to dislodge.

DE-COLONISE YOURSELF

De-colonise yourself. That is the strongest message I came away with from the Rising Dust writing workshop held by Desi Writers in Lahore some months ago. Unlike the other messages which I know will return to bite me when I write, this message has not ceased to niggle at me.

De-colonise yourself. Am I colonised? The answer came back as pat as the slap of chapati on a tawa: yes I am. All right then, I'm colonised. We all are, and we always were. The list of invaders and colonisers of India is long and florid starting with the Greek, Arab and Turkish invasions. After them the Mamluks, the Khiljis and the Tughluqs and we haven't even come to the Moghuls yet. When the Mughals did arrive, the Portugese arrived after them and then the British, and of course the Americans most recently on air-wave steeds and broadband warships. All these people left bits of themselves behind. There is no such thing as a purely subcontinental culture. If I cast around for an example of something essentially 'here' I alight on the humble tandoor. But the Persians, Armenians, Turks, Hebrews, Uzbeks and Kurds all possess close variants of the word and the item to which all their words refer is the same tandoor we're familiar with in Pakistan. The question is, is there anything wrong with being 'colonised', per se?

I left Pakistan kicking and screaming in the early '90s and returned the same way twenty years later. I had never expected to come back. After years of waiting at my postbox stifling the urge to bite the postman or woman if there was nothing for me, I had accepted my isolation and realised I was not isolated at all. I had not only a new life but I had been allowed to retain my old one to a great extent. Yes my family was not there, but hey, there was email.

I got religion there. Or perhaps I simply got older. One seems to follow the other. But the fact is I find other countries more Islamic than Pakistan has ever been, at least that was and is my brand of Islam. I have little patience with our bean counting religiosity and find it hard to believe that God listens to your prayer when the one lac and fiftieth prayed over khajoor ka beej leaves your hand, and not before. I have no patience at all with our wedding rasams and rituals and attend each function kicking as hard and screaming as loudly as I did when I returned to this country.

I say my prayers now, and my Iblees damns me with faint praise when I do, and my Gabriels high five each other, and if I don't my angels do not tempt me with deserts under which streams of milk flow because they know I am lactose intolerant.

I wish I was like Kamila Shamsie where my writing was concerned, but as much as her I cannot relate to the woman behind the veil or the one squatting above a desi toilet. I am not alone in not being versed let alone well versed in Urdu literature, and have always realised that deficit in my education, but as a result of the workshop I have resolved to try and read more Urdu.  It is true that some of the best informed most intellectual persons I know are as well versed in Urdu literature as in any other. At the same time I defy anyone to say there is no 'Made in Pakistan' plastered right across my face, because this is what Pakistan made of me. I have never shrunk from who I am nor has my colour faded when someone introduced me as their Pakistani friend. I am Pakistani, and happy to be so (except at certain generally explosive moments), although what Pakistani is is something that has yet to be defined. Perhaps that is what is meant by 'de-colonisation', the ability to be aware of one's strati-graphic composition, to understand it, and in the context of a writer convey the layers in a way that enables the reader to feel the grains of sand, and each individual stone and shard of pottery.

OF LOTAS AND OTHER THINGS

(this is an unpublished post)

My daughter who lives in the US has a 16 oz measuring jug (473 ml for the rest of the world) in each washroom, and after spotting one in the powder room the following conversation occurred between two much loved American relatives:

American relative: 'Why is there a measuring jug in the washroom?'

Wife of American relative, warningly: 'Harry! We've been through this before!'

At my son's house there are bottles of Trader Joe's (cold pressed) green juices in the washroom cabinets (without the juice), except for the half bath downstairs where its organic carrot.

A sister has some innocuous plastic mugs that cunningly conceal their fell purpose behind a diminutive size, while a cousin sports plastic watering cans with a long spout like a lethally curved scimitar that must give rise to unpleasant conjecture amongst the uninitiated.

You'll understand my reaction therefore when in a niece's washroom in Ann Arbour I came upon a 'muslim shower'...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Before Anne Arbour our grandchild arrived, born in Virginia. The room next door at the birthing centre sounded like a stadium following a football touchdown, with about fifteen people screaming 'Push! Push! Push!' at intervals until a lusty cry signalled cheers and celebrations. It was an entirely different experience to the birth of a child in Pakistan where even fathers are on the periphery and other members of the family weep into their respective handkerchiefs (or Rose Petal Tissues these days) in the next room. The Americans have devised an elaborate support system that includes both parents, with prenatal classes, advice and support groups for young fathers and mothers before and after a baby is born. It functions as feverishly to foster breast feeding as it had once worked to discourage it, and nurses, doctors, lactation specialists, an entire industry occupies itself with doing everything in its power to promote the practice, while supplements containing fenugreek and aniseed are very popular for increasing lactation. We come full circle, yes.

Insurance plans under Obamacare also cover the cost of a breast pump per child, as well as support and counselling for the period required. The US still lacks a decent official maternity/paternity leave policy for young parents in which respect it lacks far behind those countries held to be civilised in such matters.

Baby showers are an integral part of the process of having a baby and the practice is catching on among the Pakistani 'elite'. But while here people vie with each other in giving more and more costly gifts, in the US people order gifts according to their ability selected from an online list drawn up by the young parents. The list consists of things the parents require for the child, and may include inexpensive plastic spoons and boxes of nappies. It is also common practice for parents whose children have grown out of their clothes and other things to loan these things to friends expecting a child. The reaction of a begum living in DHA or Gulberg being offered used clothing for her precious new child would be entertaining if it weren't so sad.

Let us therefore go back to that far more entertaining subject, the 'muslim shower'. We had reached that point earlier as a result of orderly progression from measuring jugs to Trader Joe's bottles, camouflaged and scmitar wielding lotas to washrooms in Ann Arbour.

It had been a wonderful trip, but I had been away for more than two months. That fact came home to me in that washroom in Ann Arbor where I stifled the odd but understandable urge to hug the muslim shower, pondering instead on the tremendous impact unexpected things have on people, and how that impact can be used in constructive ways. Can militant extremists be persuaded, for example, to print their fiery speeches on toilet paper and export the rolls? Imagine the impact, a rather less physical one in certain ways, of a roll of tissue that says, 'You uncircumcised infidel! I'll dry you!' I doubt this would ever replace the fire and brimstone issuing from the the mosques, but it may help by being somewhat less scorching. You see, different things could be noted on each unwary square of paper, providing writers with a relief similar to that obtained by the user, a catharsis otherwise provided by bombs, guns and bullets. It is a potentially win win situation, and the mind boggles at the possibilities. The impression that extremists wouldn't think in terms of toilet paper because they all belong to the uneducated mullah class has been recently overset, at least apparently, by men charged with violence in Karachi so I shall leave the idea out there and wait for suggestions. Any takers?  

ODDFELLOWS by Nicholas Shakespeare

http://pique.pk/oddfellows/

Terrorism, the single most distressing worldwide problem today makes this novel by Nicholas Shakespeare even more interesting

Terrorism, the single most distressing worldwide problem today makes this novel by Nicholas Shakespeare even more interesting.  The book, subtitled: ‘Picnic Day, Broken Hill, 1 January 1915. An Unexpected Enemy Attack,’ refers to a real attack on Australian citizens that took place at Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia, during World War I. That attack was an Australian Pearl Harbour, the first ever (but not the last) ‘enemy attack’ on Australian soil.

In an attempt to open up the vast sandy desert in the middle of the continent, the British in Australia brought in camels along with their camel drivers from India, Afghanistan and Turkey. These men led strange lives in their new country (their lives are beautifully documented in ‘Tin Mosques and Ghantowns: A History of Afghan Camel drivers in Australia,’ by Christine Stevens, also referred to by Nicholas Shakespeare). Muslim or Hindu, they lived in their own segregated settlements, discriminated against for reasons of race and religion.

In November 1914 the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey and Hungary. The sympathies of the camel drivers in Australia lay with the Ottoman Empire which was in the war against Australia.

It is against this backdrop that the Broken Hill incident took place and this book is written. Shakespeare has taken the essential components of the incident and surrounding them with an entirely credible but fictitious story: there really was a ‘Molla’ Abdullah, and there really was a Gul, local imam and halal butcher, and ice cream vendor respectively.  These were the men who fired upon a group of picnickers, killing four of them at Broken Hill on New Year’s day.

Some aspects of the story are a warning, particularly for us in Pakistan, such as the fact that Abdullah and Gul suffered grave social injustice within the community. They were forced, because of various humiliations to identify with a past, and turn to an ignorant version of religion that they had in effect left behind but could not forget. In a gesture symbolic of his reversion, Abdullah put on a turban on the day of the attack, an item of dress he had abandoned ‘since the day some larrikins threw stones at me.’ Both men tailored Turkish uniforms for themselves, and stitched themselves a flag with a crescent and moon to resemble the Ottoman flag to wear on the day.

In his confession Gul wrote, ‘I must kill your people and give my life for my faith by order of the Sultan because your people are fighting his country.’ This referred to an appeal made by the Sultan of the Ottomans a few weeks earlier for all Muslims young or old to fight against the Entente Powers, ‘the mortal enemies of Islam’.

Interestingly, in the aftermath of the incident there were few repercussions against the Muslim community, when compared to those following the hostage incident in Sydney in December 2014 in which three hostages and the hostage taker were killed.  The Sydney incident though was also known for the hashtag #illridewithyou accompanied by sympathy for the greater Muslim community. Instead, in 1915, because the public was so focused on the Germans, it was believed that the men were acting under German orders, therefore the German club, was torched that night.  Also, far away in the Saxon town of Freiberg, a newspaper read: ‘We are pleased to report the success of our arms at Broken Hill in Australia.  A party of troops fired on Australian troops being transported to the front by rail.  The enemy lost 40 killed and 70 injured.  The total loss of Turks were two dead.’ That was Abdullah and Gul.

This is how it always is, the reasons, the repercussions, public perception and reaction, the way the matter is dealt with by the media, followed by its consequences. It is a well rounded picture.

Shakespeare has delved sensitively into minds on either side.  In the end the naked bodies of a victim and one of the shooters, Gul, lies side by side in the hospital, their knees and hands almost touching…both humans, both exactly what life made of them.

Born in England, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and South America.  He has worked for the BBC, the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, written several books fiction and biography, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  He has received several awards, and in 2012 was confused with William Shakespeare by the then French presidential candidate François Hollande when he said: “Let me quote Shakespeare, ‘they failed because they did not start with a dream’”

This book is published by Vintage, 2015.

COUSIN MARRIAGES

Are consanguineous marriages responsible for diseases?

In a complex tale of interrelationships, Malika’s marriage to her first cousin Latif was settled before she was born.  When the parents formalised the agreement the groom to be was too young to enunciate his first word. There is nothing unusual about this. Malika’s brother was betrothed to Latif’s sister when they were both toddlers and her mother Saniya was betrothed to her cousin Arif when she, Saniya was seven and Arif one year old.  Although Arif was so much younger it had to be him because there was no other suitable boy within the family.

When Arif died a year later Saniya was labelled as cursed. Luckily for her, the parents of a cousin on the other side were willing to have Saniya for a daughter in law and these two were married when both were eighteen. Another marriage within the safe confines of The Family, never mind that several persons in that family were diagnosed with diabetes and repeated intermarriages appeared to be reinforcing the responsible gene.

Malika’s son too was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of three.  He died at the age of five due to complications associated with the disease. The entire family mourned for a month. At the end of that period Malika’s younger sister was married to another of their cousins related to her by way of both parents. When asked (in some exasperation) why they did not marry outside the family Malika replied: ‘Because this is how we always do it.’ And that response suffices. Malika’s family is one of countless others who only ever marry their cousins if they can help it.

So the question is: Are cousin or consanguineous marriages responsible for diseases that are genetically transmitted?

Consanguineous marriage, in which two related persons such as first or second cousins marry each other, is very common among several cultures, including the cultures of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and some middle-eastern and African countries. People belonging to these cultures together constitute perhaps a fifth of the world’s population.  In a consanguineous marriage, chances of both parents carrying the same recessive gene and therefore of their children inheriting the disease carried by that gene are greatly increased. The closer the relationship between the parents the greater the chance of both parents carrying the same recessive gene. Sickle cell disease for example, a condition that causes damage to muscles and organs occurs if an individual inherits two copies of the sickle cell allele, one from each parent. Persons with just one copy of the allele do not get this disease.

In England, research was conducted among a number of Pakistan families when it was found that a high number of children with hearing disabilities came from families where the parents were related to each other in complex ways.  “They have about twice the risk of having a child with problems which may be due to a recessive gene if they marry within the family,”  said Professor Bob Mueller of the hospital involved in this research.

Genetics however cannot be solely blamed. With diabetes for example, genes and ethnicity are risk factors, but they alone do not determine who gets the disease or its severity. Environment plays a role, as does lifestyle. Staying active, maintaining a healthy weight and eating a balanced diet can help postpone or prevent type 2 diabetes.

So why do people intermarry despite these findings? Why for example in the example cited above is intermarriage almost the only kind of marriage in Malika’s family?

It is probably a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Marriage within the family allows persons to stay within their comfort zone amongst people they know, often, for women, within close proximity to the family left behind. It means a pre-existing affection amongst in-laws, and closer relationships overall. There is also the not unimportant question of keeping property/finances within the family when marrying within it. In many families however, intermarriage is a question of lack of information and understanding of the risks involving genetic disease. Malika’s son may have survived, who knows, if his parents had taken him to a hospital … always presuming there was a hospital within reach, rather than to a pir who prescribed holy water and a talisman around the child’s neck.

Amongst immigrants from such cultures, consanguineous marriage is often viewed as a means of survival. In an alien environment surrounded by conflicting views and values, marriage within the family is seen as the best way of preserving and perpetuating an identity in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by the adoptive environment.

In the west consanguineous marriage is now considered almost synonymous with incest and marrying a blood relative is banned in some countries, but this was not always so. History and literature are replete with examples of marriages among cousins. If one must cite the example of a towering intellect, Einstein himself was married to a first cousin. None of which makes it right. One can almost see some quarters bristling at that last sentence, since several religious figures, even Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) were married within the family. But there was no genetic science in those days, and there is now, and religion advises us to think. Also, let’s not forget that the risk of disease increases with several other factors too. Older women have risky pregnancies.  Consuming alcohol during pregnancy is dangerous.

A US National Institute of Health resource says that there is significant literature on infant mortality, congenital anomalies, disabilities and many clinical conditions, often drawing attention to ethnic variations and an increased disease prevalence among Pakistani children in the UK. The situation at home has to be much worse.  Something must be done to mitigate the damage.

A tradition of consanguineous marriage points towards an insecure, insular state of mind.  Literacy, better education and public awareness campaigns can help broaden horizons. Carrier detection and genetic counselling programs have been successful in reducing the prevalence of inherited disorders in Iran. Community programmes for premarital screening are also useful. According to the Journal of Community Genetics, results from a screening program for sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia indicated that about 90% of couples in Saudi Arabia at risk of having affected children decided to marry regardless because they feared social stigmatisation and/or because wedding plans could not be cancelled at that stage. Therefore premarital screening should take place well in advance of marriage, perhaps in schools. Perhaps also the next generation, a healthier one, will learn to say, ‘This is how we always did it, but not any more.’

WHERE IS THE BEAUTY OF ISLAM?

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/27166/where-is-the-beauty-of-islam/

April 15, 2015



Muslim worshippers pray in the Gallipoli Mosque in a suburb of Sydney. PHOTO: REUTERS

The children’s author, Beverly Cleary, worked as a librarian for the US Army during the Second World War. In her autobiography, ‘My Own Two Feet,’ she wrote of an incident which made an impression on her during that time period:

“An army chaplain requested a book on flower arranging, a subject I had not expected to interest the army. I bought the most beautiful book I could find, and when I handed it to him, he remarked, ‘We teach little children to worship in beauty and then send them to Sunday school in church basements’.”

Aside from agreeing with the chaplain, the incident resonated with me.

In the 90s, we lived in the capital of Western Australia, Perth, which had a small Muslim population, enough to warrant a few mosques. Like all immigrants, we tried to keep the children in the cultural loop and went the extra mile to enable this. We kept in touch with the community from our part of the world, in addition to our Australian friends.

In that respect, we were unlike the better part of the Pakistani community, out of which one of them once told me proudly and a bit accusingly,

“Allah ke fazal se humaray ghar aaj tak na koi kafir aya hai na hum kisi kafir kay ghar gayay hain,”

(Thank God that till date, no unbeliever has ever come to our house and neither have we ever visited the house of an unbeliever.)

Words that are a subject for a blog in itself.

On Eid, we used to go to the mosque as a family, something that women rarely do in Pakistan, but then, immigrants are always more Catholic than the Pope. You can find the Muslim equivalent of that one yourself.

The Perth mosque was built in the early years of the 20^th century by Fateh Muhammad Deen, who migrated to Australia from Punjab. Not having been to Perth in over a decade, I am not aware of what the Perth mosque is like now, but at that time, it was housed in a small building in the town’s centre, bang across the street from a building with an interesting neon rooftop sign which read,

“Girls! Girls! Girls”

When we first visited the Perth mosque, its walls were being raised to shut out the sign, creating a little microcosm of a courtyard, and an L-shaped building consisting of a prayer room, with the Imam’s quarters in the basement.

On Eid – clothed in our best attire, shepherding a pair of unwilling children – we would arrive at the mosque where we would split up; dad to the main prayer hall, mum and the kids to the imam’s quarters in the basement. There, safely segregated from the men, the women prayed, kept an eye on the children, and tried to catch the khutba (sermon), trying to reconcile its content with their surroundings.

It was a small room at that time, full but not overflowing. A charpoy (bed) leant against the wall with the imam’s clothes draped over it as well as on a couple of chairs that stood in the corner. Not having seen the main prayer hall I cannot say how it was compared to our prayer room, but I was told the hall was ‘okay,’ which this room was definitely not.

In a culture obsessed with gender and sexual innuendo, I think it is rather inappropriate to be expected to concentrate on prayer with the imam’s shalwar’s colourful nara hanging discreetly in the background, what do you think? Surely a lock of woman’s hair is no more provocative than that flamboyant item of clothing?

It was a hot day, and in the absence of air conditioning, the slight breeze from a little window in the wall beside me was extremely welcomed. Yet, on more than one occasion, a lady from the congregation, shrouded in an abaya and hijab, walked over from across the room to shut it. Compelled into defiance by the heat, I reached out each time to re-open it. Glaring at each other as we left, I vowed to find another mosque the following Eid, and we did – the Turkish mosque.

Not as centrally located as the Perth Mosque, the Turkish mosque was more pleasant, with two large prayer rooms, the one in the front for the men and a smaller one at the back for women, divided from the men’s room by folding doors. This room would have been pleasant enough if it were not for the pungent odour from the toilets just outside its door. Naturally, since it was the women who kept the children with them, the toilets must never be far away.

The chaplain’s words come back to me as equally applicable to the Muslim world as we witnessed in Perth at the time, and almost everywhere else since. There is a dichotomy between teachings and practice in our lives. The Quran contains some breathtakingly beautiful verses and yet we concentrate so utterly on its forbidding aspect and teach only about zina (adultery) and kufr (faithlessness), and its related punishments.

Why can we not teach our children by hands-on methods illustrated by these verses, about the miracle of the honey bee and the honey it makes, the clouds and the rain, and the way the night follows day in a spherical and not flat world (Surah Az- Zumar, verse 5)?

Islam is a beautiful religion, and its scripture contains some of the most sublime passages. But although we are told repeatedly what a beautiful religion Islam is, where is this beauty reflected in our surroundings or in the words of Islamic teachers today?