"You look good in hijab."

25 September 2008

“You look good in hijab.”

“Allahu-akbar.” The imam’s voice crackled over the static-filled speakers posted in the two corner’s of the room. Like a wave rippling through the heavy silence, the ten rows of abayas swept outward and down in unison, creating a rush of cool air which met my upturned curious face framed in an awkward hijab. As they knelt, I wriggled my bare toes deeper in the thick, plush carpet of the mosque and studied Khulood, my Arabic teacher, as she prayed. A couple of younger girls in abayas wearing fluorescent yellow vests identifying them as volunteers patrolled the mosque with cups of water; one of them spotted us lingering in the back of the mosque. “Are you Muslims? No? Have these books.” The Veil is My Life and Myths about Islam.
“Shukran.” We three students accepted the pamphlets and nodded as the girls told us they would be happy to talk with us about Islam. As some of the women were finishing their prayers, they stole glances at the quiet conversation behind them. My hair was falling out of the veil; I could see their lips moving, saying “haram (forbidden)”, yet for some of the women it was endearing. Obviously I didn’t know how to wear hijab or behave in a mosque.
Khulood, refreshed and calm after her prayers and smiling as always, returned to us. “My dears,” she began in her usual way, “now I will explain the prayers to you in English.” As Khulood spoke, a stream of women passed by, some lingering with glances hostile or curious, some introducing themselves and patting our hands, some greeting Khulood; on the whole, I felt more welcomed in the mosque than I have in many a church in America. Several women inquired if we were married or might be interested in their sons. As Khulood explained the prayers, I stared at the speakers in the corners, wondering what was transpiring in the men’s section of the mosque while we women sat in a circle in the basement. I looked again to the doorway I had entered earlier. On the pavement outside were spread several prayer rugs and a few dozen women who for various reasons had chosen to stay outside or were forbidden to enter the mosque; several appeared to be domestic workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Yet despite my disappointment at the segregation within and without the mosque, I appreciated how the women controlled their sphere – how they interacted as boldly as men, negotiated space and time with one another (arranging visits, shopping excursions, discussing the latest developments in a Syrian soap opera), and seemed content with always being “behind the men” insofar as that refers only to physically praying behind the men; in all other domains they considered themselves equals, free in their own sphere to disregard any and all things male.

*****

“I feel like I’m being secluded in the harem,” I said, scraping the last of the rice off my plate. Julia, a fellow SIT student, laughed. Suddenly the door to my bedroom flew open; a boy stood, mouth agape, in the doorway. Another hand appeared from around the corner and quickly shut the door.
“Some water would be nice,” Julia said as she picked around the scraps of meat soaking in a hot yogurt sauce. Together we stared at the empty rice plate and the unappetizing chunk of meat in the sauce.
“So it looks like I ate the meat,” I said, grabbing some bones off Julia’s plate to put on my own.
“Hey, I earned those bones. You owe me a dessert next time I’m too full to eat it,” she retorted. We sat in silence for a minute, reflecting on the prospect of dessert tonight. “Well, that’s that,” Julia concluded, seeking closure for a most unsatisfactory meal. Suddenly the door flew open again, this time revealing a woman and several small children, with my host mother hovering behind them. Julia and I stood up hesitantly, expecting an introduction, but the strange woman lingered outside the doorway, staring at us as if we were intruders in this space.
“Uh, sor-ry,” Khatm said as she pushed past the kids and our makeshift dinner table; one boy clinging to his mother’s abaya was studying me with the mischevious, self-satisfied look of a bully. I frowned back of him, half-serious. Khatm reached her destination: the new curtains in the room. (Only today did I learn the fate of the previous curtains; the former “dumb Indonesian maid” as the kids explained to me, scorched them with a clothes iron.) The women and children also pushed past to examine them, leaving Julia and myself standing, alternately looking at the huddle by the curtains, the hunk of boney meat steeping in yogurt sauce, and each other. The family members left as quickly as they came, shutting the door firmly; the last I saw was the bully’s face. I stuck my tongue out at him as he disappeared behind the door. We were secluded in my room because of visiting male relatives who expressed abhorrence of strange females, especially foreign ones without hijab. I was having a field-day with fieldnotes, scribbling away about the situation half-amused, half-annoyed. Julia flipped a particularly offensive piece of meat over in the bowl. The twelve kids in the adjoining room screamed in unison; some glass shattered.
“Well, that’s that,” she mused as she opened Jimmy Carter’s Peace Not Apartheid.

*****
Hebb pulled the hijab snugly over my head. Umm Saed, her mother, turned my shoulders so she could see me, chattering approvingly. “My mother says you look good in hijab.” I stared at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing an oversized sock on my head…but I like it. “Aw, Elaine,” Hebb lamented. My fellow SIT student was lost somewhere in her oversized head-scarf.
“Don’t poke me with that pen,” Elaine warned. She held her hands up protectively, overly-concerned about the securing pin.
“Don’t you know, that’s why they call it hi-jab…jab…” I joked with her. She was unimpressed and undeterred in her concern. Elaine’s host mother secured the scarf and spun her to face the mirror.
An hour later as we leaned against the third-floor railing in the multi-level shopping mall, Elaine and I observed the hijabs passing us. “Look, that girl has matched her yellow and red tennis shoes to her hijab,” Elaine pointed out. Some were simple, solid two piece ones, rather sock-like, as I wore; most were scarves. In this modern shopping mall, the hijab was a fashion statement: brightly colored and textured fabrics, complexly knotted and twisted, secured with rhinestone pins – an accessory to the chic outfits most young women wore.
“I don’t feel like people stare at me any less, though,” I said to Elaine I adjusted the itchy hijab.
“I’m definitely being stared at,” said Elaine as she checked to see if anyone nearby was currently staring at her.
“Maybe because a Taiwanese girl in hijab in Jordan is pretty strange,” I suggested. Depending on the context, the hijab can mean many things: identity, a fashion statement, modesty, and in some cases oppression. Whereas I felt more oppressed without hijab and secluded in my room when male guests visit the family, I felt liberated walking around the mall in hijab. When we finally retired for bed around 2 am after a crazy night of Ramadan shopping (think of black Friday after Thanksgiving), I reached up to remove my glasses and my hand brushed against the fabric. I had forgotten I was wearing it, which I think, is how it should be.