Life of a Widow in Islam Who Does Not Want to Marry Again
I was 19 the commencement time marriage was mentioned. My mother told me about a young homo whose family had expressed an interest in me, and and so she promptly left the firm. The realisation that I was of marriageable age was conspicuously equally difficult for her as information technology was surprising to me. I was a geeky young woman who had never fifty-fifty shaken easily with a human, allow alone had a boyfriend. I'd attended an all-girls Catholic schoolhouse before opting to study science at university. My life was Malcolm Ten and Maya Angelou, Ten-Men and Spider-Human being; summers were spent at my nani's house in Karachi, and winters trudging through Yorkshire snow. Bespectacled before it was absurd, I was short-sighted in more ways than i, young enough to believe that good things happened to expert people.
My first hubby was 11 years older than me. We met but once before the wedding, only spent the twelvemonth leading up to the large day talking on the telephone. I was in my final year at academy. He was a doctor – the ideal profession for a son-in-law – and the eldest of two sons, who had moved to the The states from Pakistan after finishing medical school. Nosotros married on 6 September 1996, and flew to Mississippi, where we were to alive in a pretty white doll'southward house of an American home.
The living room had a single brown leather sofa and a big TV with huge gratuitous-standing speakers on either side. These speakers were my first husband'southward passion. He would take out a record measure to check the distance between them, the TV and the sofa. Other than that, he was quiet, reserved. His mother, who lived with us, was non. Much of what happened during that time has faded, but a few things stay with me. The mode she would brand him sit down on her lap, his embarrassment at her kisses, her coming into the chamber while nosotros slept, her odd questions about whether he used soap in the shower. I spent all day at dwelling house with her. I had no money of my own, and no way of going anywhere. He would come home from work and the three of us would sit next watching that enormous TV. When it got belatedly, his mother would say, "Now go straight to bed and don't talk." She put a scarlet sock in with the white wash and blamed me for ruining his lab coats. She put a hair scrunchie in the pressure level cooker and told me it was God teaching me a lesson for asking her to move her hairbrush from the kitchen work surface. Was I losing my mind? Slowly I began to experience agape for no reason; I lost weight – it seemed I had married a man and his mother.
I was in Mississippi on a 3-month visitor visa. Immigration rules meant that if I applied for a greenish card I would be unable to return to England for at least 2 years. The thought of that was unbearable and my mother advised me to come dwelling showtime. From that point, the demise of the spousal relationship was fast. I never got back on the plane to the US. My first marriage had lasted a mere iii months.
At the time, divorce was uncommon in my culture. I was lucky to have parents who trusted my judgment and didn't care what other people had to say. And people did have a lot to say. Divorce may exist perfectly allowable co-ordinate to Islam (the Prophet's first wife was a divorcee), but that didn't stop the gossip. In a society that prizes virginity, my "value" had fallen.
The easiest manner for a woman to regain her status subsequently a divorce is to say her husband was impotent. It would have been piece of cake to say I was however a virgin, but that would accept been a lie. The truth was simple. I had been married and I was now divorced. And though I knew there was nix wrong with my decision, my relatives' condolences left me feeling muddy, every bit if I had been the victim of a sexual practice crime. I recollect scrubbing myself in the shower until I almost bled, trying to clean away my shame.
****
My family felt that the best manner to repair the situation was to marry me off again, every bit soon equally possible. Once I was happy, they told me, I'd forget all about the past.
I was 23 the second fourth dimension I got married. My second husband was only a little older than me and was full of liveliness and excitement. He had the kind of energy that comes with youth, success and airs. I think looking at his trainers the starting time time we met, and rejoicing. My concluding husband had worn Hush Puppies.
"What's stopping you proverb yes?" he asked the second time we met. He promised me that if his family interfered he would stand up upward for me; he promised me it would exist different. I think dorsum to that time and wonder why I didn't say no. I tin only say that I idea my elders knew better. I was raised equally a people-pleaser; I was besides raised to see the best in people, even if that meant disregarding my own instincts.
Simply over again, I plant myself living in an extended family unit. Nosotros lived with his mum, dad and petty sister, and had frequent visits from his second sister, her husband and their two small children. There was also a third sis who lived with her extended family and who was held up past them equally someone I should aspire to be like.
The day later on the wedding, we visited his parents earlier boarding a flight for our honeymoon. On arrival I could sense something was amiss. My father-in-police force raised an eyebrow and asked me what I was wearing. I was dressed in a ghagara, a kind of heavily gathered brim that skims the footing. "A skirt," I said. His grimace displayed his displeasure. My hubby told me later that his father had an aversion to skirts and saw my wearing one every bit a personal affront. He had an aversion to many things, it would plow out.
I had decided to double-barrel my surname, but when my father-in-law saw my mail, his rage knew no bounds. The strife that followed was unending, and one of my sisters-in-law was called in to requite me a "talk". She told me that only actors double-barrelled their names. Cowed, I gave in.
I at present understand that the psychological manipulation that followed was gaslighting: my in-laws began slowly eroding my conviction. A few months in, I was cooking all the meals and cleaning the firm. It is difficult to explicate to someone who has never experienced emotional corruption how words can destroy a person. A few more months in, my eldest sis-in-constabulary saturday me down for a formal talk. She said I was neglecting my duties and needed to get-go doing her parents' washing and ironing. I had little say in the matter.
My husband'south role in all this was strange. I have no doubt that he loved me, that he wanted to spend time with me. We watched Ally McBeal every Thursday in our bedroom – the ane time in the calendar week we'd caput upstairs earlier 9pm (all other evenings were spent with his parents) – and we spent weekend afternoons wandering frantically around London only to end upward in Pizza Hut. Nosotros went on beautiful holidays and he bought me lavish gifts, as well as small thoughtful trinkets. I would become so far equally to say he adored me. But there was another side to him, the side his parents would rile into a rage, and I would carry the burden of it.
Once he left me sobbing on the bathroom floor because I wasn't wearing the dress his mother had picked out for me. We were on the manner to a hymeneals and his parents didn't approve of the blueish silk salwar kameez and pearl choker I had on. They had a word with him just before leaving, following which he raged and spewed venom at me. I recall dropping downward the wall of the bathroom, unable to breathe, my foundation washing off into my hands. His sis came to get me and I had to clean myself up and go to the hymeneals, where he was all of a sudden apologetic and loving. Exhausted and empty, I accepted his apology.
His parents would wind him up like a clockwork toy with great regularity. It was usually just earlier nosotros took a trip away, and I would spend the offset couple of days "detoxing" him. I remember sitting by a puddle in Morocco, watching helplessly as he sobbed. "They tell me I'one thousand under my married woman's pollex," he said. "Just maybe I want to be!"
Their list of little problems grew. I had non been raised properly, at that place was a expressionless wing on the steps I had failed to pick upward, I had got my pilus cut short without asking their permission, I'd met a friend in a java shop.
In the winter of 2000, I visited my parents for Eid. My hubby rang and something in his tone told me all was not well. He said he wanted me to apologise to his youngest sister, the sister to whom I had given a Christian Dior compact earlier I left, the sister I had hugged, whom I treated as my own. Just she needed an apology. She was upset almost the way I had spoken to her in front of my cousin. I refused, telling him it was none of his concern. He shouted. I refused again. Perhaps it was because I was home, prophylactic with my parents, or maybe I had taken all I could bear. Whatever information technology was, I was done.
And so I applied for khula, the Islamic form of divorce that is granted when a adult female wishes to exit her husband. Seated in a pocket-sized room in the mosque, my parents beside me, and my husband and his father in front end, I asked for a divorce. "But I don't want to give it," my husband said to the qadi. There is a misconception that Islam does non allow a adult female the correct to divorce her husband. This lie is spread and made powerful by the halting of the education of girls and women by men, by cultural stigma, and by the mullahs who desire to maintain power. But a woman who can read the Qur'an soon learns that her subjugation and oppression is a man-made construct.
"I don't demand your permission," I said coldly. It was the first fourth dimension I had felt such resolve.
"She'south right," the qadi said. "She doesn't need your permission."
"I don't want to take anything more than to do with these people," I said, looking into my begetter-in-police's eyes. A stunned expression spread beyond his face. He had assumed me to be weak, that a woman who was divorced once would be oppressed and beaten into submission, that I would exercise annihilation to avert the shame again. They had taken my kindness for weakness. Just I knew what it meant to be happy, and I knew I deserved better.
****
Later on my 2nd divorce my begetter told my female parent: "Y'all will never stop my daughters doing what they desire once more." Later on this, we stopped pandering to the community. Outwardly, I merged my eastern and western wardrobes, mixing kurtas with jeans and shawls. Inwardly, I stopped giving a damn nigh gossip. The worst had happened.
With my personal life dead, my professional person life flourished. I was 27 when I landed a traineeship at my local paper. The paper gave me a job and sent me to journalism school. A few years subsequently I was working for the BBC. My father was impossibly proud, recording every news item I was in and boring visitors one-half to death. When I moved into my own place, the mosque tongues wagged that I'd fallen out with my folks. They didn't know it was my male parent who had institute the cottage in Bradford, and arranged for me to see a mortgage broker. My begetter understood the importance of liberty.
It was a Sat when my sister texted me to tell me Mum had given all the same another guy my number. "Don't shoot the messenger," her text read. Several dead messengers were already strewn beyond the paths to my firm and work, simply this fourth dimension I put down my gun. I took a deep breath and waited.
He texted on the Sunday night. He sounded normal when we talked, just he also wasn't the guy Mum had given my number to. Information technology turned out he had been given my number six months earlier by one of my aunts, but shortly afterwards his begetter had passed away. Going for a walk one common cold Oct day, he'd found the little piece of paper in a glaze he hadn't worn since.
We gave each other the relationship résumé. "Serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard," I said. He laughed loudly and unapologetically. Something clicked in my caput and I relaxed. Two weeks afterward he came to meet me in Leeds. We ate tiffin, walked, talked. He bought me three books: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Hamid Mohsin; What The Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell; and a volume of love poems. I felt heard.
Over the post-obit months, we continued talking every nighttime, boarding trains betwixt London and Bradford. And after much hard work on his part, I eventually agreed to marry him. Something told me if I said no, I would regret it. I had learned that, reverse to cultural expectations, good relationships are good from the start and not something y'all achieve through effort.
My husband isn't religious, merely he proved how much he wanted to ally me by visiting the mosque every day for two weeks to become our nikah papers signed. The feel put him off futurity visits. "Saima Mir, BBC?" the imam said, on hearing who his intended was. "Are you sure you want to marry her?" And there it was. Despite my husband'south lack of belief, the fact he had no connection to the mosque, and his having previously married (and so divorced) someone of another sect, patriarchal civilisation considered him too skilful to marry me. My husband was furious. The imam turned a good human being off Islam.
****
More than than viii years on, I can tell yous I fabricated a wise choice. I am all the same married to a skillful and kind man. I am the mother of two young boys, and I feel the privilege and pressure of raising them as adept Muslim men.
At some point they will read my story. I hope by then they will have a deep agreement of my organized religion. They will know that Islam gives a woman the right to choose her partner, and to leave him.
I volition for ever be the woman who left two husbands, and although writing this has been like continuing naked in a room full of mirrors, it has been cathartic: I am proud of my fight. I dared break free of patriarchy. I refused to conform. I refused to give up my religion, and Islam backed me all the way.
I am an emancipated Muslim woman. There is no contradiction in this.
This is an edited excerpt from It's Not Virtually The Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality and Race, edited by Mariam Khan, and out now through Picador (£14.99) in the Britain, and Pan MacMillan in Australia. To social club a copy for £10.99, get to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846
If yous would like a comment on this piece to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine'due south letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).
pohlmanvalmostricay59.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/16/divorce-islam-me-woman-who-left-two-husbands