how to fix a broken tongue

My sister’s a big fan of osteopathic medicine because of its holistic approach. Well, today I saw the holistic approach applied to a group of twenty-some patients, only the initials behind the doctor’s name were PhD.

My literature professor, I think, considers herself a teacher first and foremost, so she often deconstructs not only fiction but also human characters. She breaks us down — her students – in hopes of rebuilding us in a more upright fashion.

It isn’t uncommon for her, therefore, to leave behind the plains of language and gallop fearlessly (and a little self-righteously) into the realms of ethics and religion.

Today was such a day. It was literature class and she asked for a volunteer reader. When the girl with the grey-toned scarf began reading our short story, however, the professor stopped her short.

“No. Not like that. We want someone who can give each letter its right, who can enunciate loudly and clearly. Pardon me as I take this tangent, but this is important. You know, last week I was at an academic meeting and I presented some ideas. Afterwards, another professor accosted me. ‘Where did you learn to speak so clearly? mA you speak fus-ha (classical Arabic) with uncommon mastery.’ But I didn’t go to any school to learn that. Back when I when I was in school, we didn’t even have phonetics classes like you do now. I learned to tame my tongue, to control it the way I do simply from reciting the Qur’an. If you want to straighten out your pronunciation — it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian or Muslim — recite the Qur’an, because the Qur’an is i’jaz (a literary miracle). It is clear from your pronounciation,” she said, now addressing the girl in the grey-toned scarf, “that you haven’t read enough Qur’an.”

Ouch.

I know that not all medicine is cherry-sweet, but I also know that not every student (i.e. I) will be publicly diagnosed without being a little resentful.

I’m not an easy one. I avoid antibiotics like the plague, I still can’t swallow pills, and I’m complicit in the mysterious disappearance of the brown dropper-capped vitamin bottles.

But I’m clearly not prototypical, because this student seemed to swallow her professor’s criticism with grace.

They say, ilhaki ilik wisma’i ya jara (the talk’s for you, and listen, oh neighbor).

I’ve fallen behind on my daily Qur’an regimen. If the doctor’s right, taking that daily dose may well cure my tongue of its heaviness. Not to mention, it may have a (welcome) side effect on another organ southeast.

no two ways about it

My Sharia professor lectured for about an hour on the impossibility of interchanging seemingly synonymous words in the Qur’an.

What I best remember, however, is his two-minute tangent. I’m not sure if it’s fact, fiction or some combination of both:

A prominent scholar of Sharia was asked where he acquired his knowledge. For reasons unmentioned by my professor, the scholar decided to credit his father as his teacher, even though his father’s Islamic knowledge was elementary at best. “If you think I’m brilliant,” the humble and truthful scholar said, “wait ’til you see my father. I could be a speck on his shoe.” Awed, his friends asked when oh when would they get to meet that fine old man. “Never, I’m afraid,” replied the son. “You see, he lives in Palestine.” And Palestine, in pre-aviation days, might as well have been the moon.

But one day, the humble and truthful scholar got a letter. It was from his dad.  It said he was due to visit. Soon. Hearing this, the friends exulted. The teacher’s teacher is coming to town!

When the father arrived, his son ‘fessed up to his lie. Instead of giving him a hearty whooping, the father simply asked: what now? The son whipped up a plan. “At the banquet in your honor, Dad, if they ask you any question — and there will be many — I need you to say, ‘The scholars have two opinions on that matter.’ Leave the rest to me.”

The banquet day came, and with it a barrage of questions. “What is the Islamic ruling on women’s wudu (ablution) when such and such?” Or “What should one do when he encounters this or that?”

Each time, the dad replied with, “Well, son, in that matter, the scholars have differed–” His son would interrupt, give the answer and append, “Isn’t that right, Dad?” And his father would reply grandly, “That’s right, son. You got that right.”

Now, one of the company hadn’t forgotten his brain at home, so he connected the dots. He decided to pose a question of his own.

“Hal fillahi shakkun? Is there any doubt about [the oneness] of God?”

To his son’s consternation, the gullible father answered with assurance, “Well, on that, the scholars were divided between two opinions.”

The rest is history.

moors reign in spain again

For better or worse, a couple of my UJ professors have turned out to be what Baba calls as-hab nuktah (literally: friends of the joke).

—

It’s ten in the morning and my neck feels twisted out of place. (Thanks to some bedbugs, I’d slept on the couch.) I touch my head to my shoulder, hoping that it’ll crack or creak — anything. I’m in my Miracles of the Qur’an class and, since I’m not on the roll call and haven’t asked the professor permission to audit, I still look like a spy. I’m rigorously taking notes. I’m trying too hard to fit in and failing miserably at it. A spy.

The short and sturdy, black-haired, black-bearded professor is discussing canonical Qur’anic analyses. He mentions one by Sheikh al-Sha’rawi. “When you read this one,” he warns his Sharia majors, “you grow bored. He’s just so verbose. You read and read and read and buried in these heaps of words are a few pearls. I did a critical review of the work when I was earning my bachelor’s degree. It wore me out. If you notice I’m thin, it’s because of this book.” He’s not especially thin, of course.

Minutes later, the professor is reviewing the content of an upcoming exam. All the students — and their pens — perk up. Except me and mine; we take a sabbatical.

Amid the exam-centric discussion, a student suggests that one of the texts is especially inaccessible. “It’s hard to understand,” she complains. She’s indirectly asking to have it jettisoned. The professor, who’s already dispensed royal pardons on several other texts, retorts, “It should be comprehensible. Either you have a problem or the book has a problem. I mean, we’re sure you have a problem, and the book might.” I’m a little awed at his bluntness. Isn’t she offended? Nop3, she’s smiling as if he’d thrown daisies at her. Or as if he’d eliminated a detested text from a forthcoming exam. Oh, wait. That’s just what he did.

—

For the first time, I get to my next class without having to ask directions of strangers. I peer inside at the greasy whitewashed room. Sure enough, there are students seated. Only they’re not my classmates. My classmates line the corridor outside, and murmurs circulate among us that the Spanish class has invaded our turf. The professor had warned us of this. He had given us strict orders to repel them, to fight to the death, to protect what is ours. We had failed him.

When he finally arrives — a tall man who walks as if he couldn’t bend his joints; so stiffly, in fact, that it seems as if he has yet to be thawed — the ocean of students parts to make way. The two or three young men expected to mount a defense against the Spaniards — these he regards with undisguised disgust. They flock behind him anyway, like goslings who have no pluck except under their father’s wing.

Judging by the buzz in the hallway and the faces of our action-hungry neighbors, this appears to be the seminal event of the year, and the young men aren’t going to miss it for anything. Never mind that several of them are deserters.

Inside the classroom, a heated exchange ensues between our Arabic professor and the Spanish professor. Like a cloud of neutrons around a positive- and negative-charged nucleus, the young men hover about the man and woman with PhD’s to their names. The Arab towers over the Spaniard and, after a quarter hour, it is clear to all that the Arabs have prevailed. Our professor declares his sovereignty and the Spanish troops withdraw, broken. Class, for them, is cancelled. Meanwhile, ours is called to order. The professor, having settled on his throne, turns to those who absconded. “You should be ashamed. The girls displayed more courage than you.” (I’m not sure how we non-combative, chatty girls exhibited any courage at all in this episode, but maybe that’s just his point.)

“We were grossly outnumbered!” A young man protests. “We told the girls come in, but they stayed in the hallway. They were uncooperative. How were we expected to–”

“Enough. Next time you don’t give in.”

I wonder at the permanently stamped frown on his face. He looks dead serious. If I were a bit more gullible than I am (which is really difficult to accomplish), I’d never guess that his sullen countenance masks a playful disposition.

A few paragraphs into a literary analysis of Surat Yusuf (the Qur’anic chapter named for Prophet Joseph), we hear a ruckus outside. Since the demagogues pose a threat to the quietude of his domain, the professor sends a youth to silence them. “Box his ears. And don’t tell them I sent you.”

Outside, the noise is stilled. The boy returns with a report: No more enemies will near our borders. ID’s will be checked from here on out, to verify allegiance to the Arabic class. The professor hardly acknowledges the comment. He calls on a student to read aloud.

Then, in the middle of a discussion about the applicability of Prophet Yusuf’s tribulations to Prophet Muhammad’s during the Meccan period, our aged professor suddenly revisits the fracas. “Listen, next time the Spaniards come near this room, you don’t let them have it, you hear?”

“Oh you bet,” a valiant young man answers, “Next time they won’t stand a chance. We’ll bring our kalashnikovs.”

memorize and mesmerize

The five daily prayer times are posted not on a shabby bulletin board, but on a digital clock. The domed ceiling is high, with window panes that flaunt the natural charms of a night sky. The broad prayer hall tempts the child in me to somersault or spin around in circles — another temptation to resist, at least while there are witnesses. It invites the adult to sit on the floor and move her index finger along the pattern on the carpet. The jutting pillars double as leaning posts, and the masahif (printed copies of the Qur’an) yearn to be held in the palm of your hands. Not less importantly, each pair of shoes has a cubby, all to itself, and the bathrooms are well-stocked and — believe it or not — clean.

So this is what a non-makeshift masjid (mosque) looks like.

I lined up to pray, only one of three women. Just another prayer, right? Wrong.

A beautiful warsh (a style of Qur’anic) recitation traveled to my ears, as if from all directions. The verses spoke of an ant’s encounter with the army of Prophet Suleiman (Solomon). Worried, the ant warns her comrades: “O ants! Enter your dwellings, lest Suleiman and his hosts crush you, while they perceive not.” What follows thereafter is the report of the hudhud (hoopoe bird) to Suleiman — about Queen Saba’ (Sheba) and her people who worship the sun.

As I listened to this epic story unfold, I realized that to endure the daily prayers is one thing and to savor them, to be transported by them is another experience altogether.

The verses painted an illustrious story. The recitation was magical. But it was the environment that made the prayer memorable. Or was it?

Rewind to the mosque of my childhood — a converted apartment building. Everything about the place looks as if it’s been tweaked or patched up or repainted or filled with cement or constructed as an afterthought. The women’s prayer hall is an L-shape, and a wall or curtain variously divides the men and women (more for technical than theological reasons). The carpet has to be switched periodically because it smells funny for reasons I prefer not to know. The restroom looks mangled even on its better days, with  hot water spouting out of the cold faucet and visa versa and the stall doors clanging shut (that is, when they shut). And, in Prophet Suleiman’s absence, it is the ants that reign. Their armies march in black rivulets along the floor and walls.

Then, the sound system. The sound system hiccups, chokes and — on occasion — dies altogether, especially on the women’s side, where the wiring has been precariously set up.

And yet, under its low roof, under its dangerously fast ceiling fan, under its blinking fluorescent lights, I’ve heard those verses before, much to the same effect. The Qur’an mesmerizes. And a beautiful recitation, I think, would grip me even if I were praying on the train tracks.

home run

In three consecutive days three different azaa’s (memorial services).

The first for a friend’s grandfather. The next for my grandfather. And the third for a friend’s brother-in-law.  May Allah have mercy on them all.

Yesterday a sister gave a khatira (reminder) to a room chock full of women, mostly dressed in black. She described us all as travelers. What we prepare in this life, she said, is all we take with us to our next stop. Our baggage, then, is a metaphor for our (presumably good) deeds. The heavier our bags, she explained, the better off we are (not to mention, the more we are charged at the airport.) Despite the general exhaustion of giving and receiving condolences, her reminder was well-given and well-taken.

On our way back from the azaa, my brother reflected on verses he had listened to — recited by none other than Abdul Basit Abdul Samad, arguably the man with the most beautiful Qur’anic recitation ever. In the verses, Allah cites two positive and negative examples of women.

To no one’s surprise, Mama instantly knew what surah (chapter) he was talking about and recited the verses right then and there, from memory.

One of the female role models described in the verses is Aasiya (Arabic for Asia), wife of Pharaoh. As Pharaoh persecutes her, Aasiya asks Allah to build for her baytan fil jannah (a house in Paradise).

I had always found this supplication fascinating because, in a Contemporary Women Writers class, my professor described houses as central motifs in women’s writing. Think Brown Girl, Brownstones, The Awakening and House on Mango Street.

My brother’s thoughts moved in a different direction.

“See Mama.” He teased, “Lady Aasiya asks for a house in Paradise. Not a house in Hisperia.” Believe it or not, we had been considering a move to a city that rhymes with hysteria.

“Why not a house in Hisperia and a house in jannah?” was Mama’s comeback.

My brother replied, “Forget Hisperia, Mama. Let’s get a house in Aasiya!”

Oh, brother. Every now and then your puns strike out, but dare I say that this one was a home run?

have a question? axe the idol

When a Muslim all-women party gets started, it’s impossible to tell which fair lady came in with a hijab, all allusions to illustrious majors and careers are jettisoned (until mothers expose them, of course), and conversations usually turn fluffy, especially among strangers.

Not this time.

At yesterday’s bridal shower, I met a couple of young ladies with whom I’d previously exchanged little more than the perfunctory salams and kisses. This time, sitting in a sprawling patio, we spoke about hijab. Or the lack thereof.

First, we joked about the times and places we were most tempted to send our hijabs fluttering to the floor and our hair fluttering in the wind.

M and H — both young professionals — agreed that the mall was the very place. I was thinking of something more cliche — namely, on horseback in a field as wide as the horizon, under a luxurious sun. But really, dream of taking off your hijab in whatever imaginary place you’d like, right?

Leaning back in her chair and touching her hair, M then remarked, half to herself, “But I’d never take off my hijab. No, I’d never take it off.” She spoke about her relatively recent decision to wear hijab. That it arose — not from a deep immersion in a hijabi community but in the books. She had felt an emptiness in her life and had developed a disgust for the lifestyle she had seen some lead. The more she read, she told us, the more she felt the need to cover her hair — an act of obedience to God. She felt it so keenly that she’d throw on a hood on her way to work. Then, one day she decided she’d take the big step — “put it on and never take it off.”  Two years ago, she made the promise to God to pray regularly and don the hijab, and she assured us that “I haven’t broken that promise since.”

H chimed in, “When you think about it, the reason for which most people would put on the hijab is good — for God. When you consider all the reasons why you’d take it off — they’re all social. To please people. And who are these people? You know, you think about it, and it’s like why should I change myself for them?”

No matter what philosophical questions brewed inside my head in college, I’ve never seriously considered taking it off. Because though most don’t know this, I’m stubborn, even bullheaded at the core. And even at the times when I’ve been most disenchanted with Muslims and the world, I’ve never felt inclined to satiate someone else’s visual hunger, or make someone else feel triumphant at the apparent dissolution of my own faith. There is nothing to celebrate in the shattering of ideals or in the collapse of hope — and for me, Islam provided (and continues to provide) exactly those two things: ideals to yearn after, and hope to turn life’s lemons into lemonade.

As my thoughts wandered, H made a remark that made me reflect. She said, “When we’re 14, 15 the difference between right and wrong seems clear enough. It’s when we’re in our 20′s — that’s when there are so many questions, and we’re not sure about anything anymore.”

Our college educations often question the very foundations of our beliefs, the authenticity of the very sources we’ve trusted all our lives. And that’s not all bad. It prepares us to make careful, deliberate choices, instead of simply inheriting our parents’ ideas like sheep.

Prophet Ibraheem (Abraham) has always been my Qur’anic guide on this. After all, isn’t he the one who, as a youth, complains of his confusion to the heavens? Isn’t he the one who contracts the sun and moon as his gods, then finds them inadequate? Ultimately, Prophet Ibraheem puts an axe to the very idols that his father built — and with those idols challenges a hegemonic system that worships the created instead of the Creator. Sound familiar?

drink or divorce

I was reading from the diwan (collected poetry) of al-Muntanabbi today, and I learned that this notoriously arrogant Iraqi poet used to like his liquor. Now, this is surprising and unsurprising.

Surprising because he represents one of the most renowned classical Arab poets EVER, and also surprising becuase (as his name suggests) he once claimed prophethood for himself. At least in the Islamic tradition, alcohol and prophets never go hand in hand like love and marriage.

Now, it’s not surprising because drinking is and has been an ever-present (albeit more covert) activity in Muslim-majority cultures, dating all the way back to the times of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

One of his poems that cites his drinking habits is paradoxically titled, ‘I drank without sinning.’ The persona explains that his friend swore that he’d divorce his wife if his buddy, al-Mutanabbi, didn’t share a glass. (This whole swearing that you’ll divorce your wife is lamentably common on many an Arab street. Sometimes people are in earnest and sometimes it’s all in jest. In any case, Islam does not condone this behavior. Actually, there is a chapter in the Qur’an — Ch. 58, al-Mujadilah — that specifically rebukes men for taking their words lightly).

In any case, al-Mutanabbi faced this quandry — to drink or to make his friend’s wife a divorcee for no particular reason. So, what’s a man to do, right? He drinks. And his penance? That he saved the marriage of a friend.

I think al-Mutanabbi deserves a standing ovation. And his friend needs a slap upside his head.