On holiday: Searching for identity from East to West

In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Kind

The rock'n'roll blasts out of the cheap(er) Chinese cars which have invaded Egyptian roads that shine metallic day and night; Roads that twist around crumbling buildings built too close because no one wants to lose a dime's profit.

Or sometimes it's the needy voice of a hearthrob who can't spend another day without his darling -- forever named 'habibi' -- that blares out of raspy radios or brand-new CD players that are carried off by the driver to avoid theft . "Everyone is in love or in want of love," remarked one visitor to Egypt, reported a friend. True, I'm told that my grandfather long ago warned that the emergence of one of the 'greatest' Egyptian singers of all time about fifty years ago would mark the beginning of major decline in the country's morals. Can we pin it all on one man who probably sang more songs about love and loss and desire than all the Sinatras of the world combined? Maybe. But that was decades ago; who's the scapegoat now?

With ubiquitous Internet and Satellite programming, it can't be just one man, or a few people who should or could be blamed for the brainwashing of a nation, as we wonder what on earth "they" are selling to young people. Even before the plethora of choices - too often Western - Egyptian TV offered a steady stream of 'junk' - as Sheikh Hamza Yusuf so bluntly stated in one of his typically lucid talks. Hey, it was Knots Landing every night at 8 o'clock for me and my female relatives during summer vacation in Cairo for years. I remember the character's voices echoing from open windows and balconies on eerily quiet streets when the show was on. If that isn't junk, I don't know what is. And now, so many more choices of the same.

But with all the choices - including some decent Islamic programming - there is no excuse for the miserable state of mimicry Muslims have chosen for themselves. Even our hijabs are not what they are supposed to be -- which made me cloak myself within my black Saudi abaya even when I didn't have to as a statement of defiance. What's the point in "concealing my beauty" if my choice of headscarf is dependent on the colour of my chic hotpants and matching top? Excuse me? Modesty, anyone?

"When we returned from Hajj, we all wanted to wear those abayas," confided my cousin, a strikingly beautiful woman whose wardrobe could compare with the most dazzling socialite, albeit with long sleeves and long skirts or pants. "But. . ." she trailed off. Yes. I know. But.

Everyone in Egypt is as fashion conscious now as they were when the Brits were in charge, and today they're independent. Sort of. Now it's Western corporations who are running the world - peddling consumerism that is alien to cultures rapidly losing their individuality - and they don't have to occupy us by force. Instead they use thought control to take what they want- and we give it to them, foolishly buying into the false sense of value and achievement sold to anyone with a few dollars to spare.

So when did Muslims cease yearning for Jannah (paradise), fixing their sights instead on the 'Promised Land' of all that is Western?

If the West is arrogant, it is because we made them so; where is our own identity?

* * *

Billboards on the road from Cairo to Alexandria seduce the country's new rich - a tiny, wily fraction of a population that is otherwise fighting at the windows for subsidized bread. A blonde woman, her muscle man & two picture perfect children smile at the camera, framed by a verdant expanse and a two-story villa.

Just one more 'dream' neighbourhood being built on the outskirts of the dusty, deteriorating capital.

Rickety trucks careen by these signs, likely missing the first couple such ads as they barrel their way forward, making other drivers sweat at the close calls. But after awhile, it must seem odd that among fields begging to be cultivated by calloused hands that are too tired and whose young inheritors are too disillusioned by life far from the one shown on TV, that such an ad would be commonplace.

Who can afford this? Who?

Me and you.

* * *

We pull up to my parent's home in Canada and there is no blonde woman. The kids are not perfectly kept and my husband is not a muscle man. But the image is almost the same as the one I scorn back in Egypt. A perfect lawn. A two-story house. A car or two in the driveway and a myriad of toys inside. I am grateful. I am humbled. I am embarrassed. Do I look down on the Muslim adoption of Western ways because it already comes naturally to me? I have nothing to prove. I am one of them. I am one of you. And I am a Muslim. In fact, it is partly because I lived in the West and enjoyed its freedoms, its respect for difference and individuality and free thought that I came to the conclusion that Islam was right for me. So . . .

A modern-day global village kind of quandary.

Why don't Muslims admire and copy what is so good in the West and which all should appreciate - democracy, freedom, rule of law, ethics, honesty, equality (principals completely Islamic in nature, and in some cases, introduced or re-introduced by the faith) AND offer their own valuable traditions - respect for the family, dignity of women and community, awe of God, the Most Gracious? And in another peculiar twist, many of those who lobby for a return to the true aspirations of Islam are jailed for their trouble, with the complicity of Western actors.

Can it get anymore complex?

Perhaps it was easier when when we could blame a lone singer who loved a little too much.

July 8 Journal entry: time away

In the name of God, most Merciful. most Kind.

* * *

Alexandria, I've returned.

Your embrace is quick and careless, busy with others who have swarmed you. What little time you have for an old friend.

Pushing here and there to entertain guests from across the country, and the sea, and some from beyond that.

But I am satisfied with the caressing breeze you pass my way when you have a moment and which is rejuvenating after the darkened, stale air of air-conditioned sanctuaries.

Your balconies open onto life; where soothing voices of men who sound like old-style Quranic recitors mingle with the clanging of dishes, the yells of boys and incessant calls of street vendors on donkey carts down below. You are "Life" with the volume turned way up.

"Mama, if you are too comfortable, you will never get up," my five-year-old whispers in my ear, quite sensibly, as I lay motionless on the thin mattress.

Whispered to someone who rarely likes to stop moving, who usually scorns sleep and rest, preferring the satisfying fulfillment of intellectual or physical exertion. But with you, naps are irresistible, especially on a hot day, in a cool and shaded room with the sound of a twittering bird floating down through the window.

Too bad living here is otherwise so tough.

Finding contentment in the most unlikely places

Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahim,
In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Kind.

*********************************************************

Thursday night, Joumjoum mall, in a place you might need to visit if you ever chance to be there.

Seated at the gate of the small, watery kingdom, the bright-eyed woman wastes no time. After giving me and my daughter a big smile, welcoming us into the white-tiled space, she leaps up from the plastic seat she's occupied for just a few minutes and starts mopping up the water dripping off the counters with a vigour that is admirable.

"You from Syria/Palestine/ Jordan?" she asks in confident Arabic, dropping the names of neighbouring countries in quick succession as she peers at my white skin, now apparent after the niqab is brought down. Her own brown skin, nose ring, shiny black hair speak of Pakistan to me. To that guess, she corrects me.

"No, India!" she smiles happily, still mopping up.

She scowls for an instant at the young girl standing guard at the only stall, pointing to the line-up that is forming under white fluroscent lights. "She just went in," replies the thin girl, a black abaya draped over a neon green shirt and a pair of jeans.

Sunshine again floods the woman's face as she bustles about. Opening a large cabinet with flourish, she hands out what I have come to covet whenever entering such spaces -- tissue paper.

When the door emerges, she swoops in front of the woman who is about to enter, clucking: "wait, wait". She sprays the seat with the trusty nozzle attached to a tube emerging form the wall that should be standard in every such location in the world. The floor is mopped again, and the waiting entrant is finally allowed an audience in the Royal Court.

It is half an hour before my daughter and me emerge from this space. Confined though it is, the Indian woman's happiness is contagious.

"How many children?" she had asked, pointing to Fatima who was playing with me in the mirror. "Two, " I reply. "Yes, I, two boys." she beams.

"I, very happy. Good company," she says, motioning to something atop the pocket of her pale blue shirt, left untucked over black, generous pants.

"How old are your children," I ask, but she thinks I want to know how long she's worked here.

"Six years. Yes, very happy, thanks to God, thanks to God," she laughs, looking upwards several times, as she tucks her black curls beneath the black headscarf loosely tied around her head.

She shakes her head firmly, smile still on her bright face, when I try to offer her money as a way to thank her for cheering up a standard visit, where people in her place usually remain seated as they watch the ladies and children go by, only sometimes offering a tip on the best stall to try, or grudgingly offering some tissue paper and yet who still seem miffed if you don't offer them a tip in return for their "help".

I press the bills into her hand, glad to offer a small reward to this contented soul in a land where people are usually quick to complain - even us.

"Oh, masha'Allah," she beams again at me. "Thanks to God."

The Prophet's City, Part II

The oasis slowly appears and you are in Medina without even realizing it. White square dwellings increase on the way, blending with the earth; a welcome sight to the kids who are tired of being in the car.


"Medina!"




Underwhelmed and yet full of wonder at a city that appears too small for its colossal significance as the springboard which allowed the faith to launch over vast territories for the past 1400 years. Nothing to allude to that here as the date trees which fill rocky roadsides thicken and the city itself humbly rises up from the dust.


This is the place where an illiterate man, arriving on a camel with little more than the clothing on his back and a loyal companion by his side, would come to transform its inhabitants into the vanguard of a faith that is now followed by over one billion people around the world and which helped humanity reach lofty heights in the sciences, mathematics, literature, poetry and the arts.

And the atmosphere
is one of
total,
utter
humility and peace.

It is like visiting a host who is shy that you should see the richness surrounding him and yet who is naturally gracious, sharing the blessings in sincere gratefulness to his Benefactor.



* * *

"Tal'aa al badru Allayna. . . ." sang the jubilant inhabitants of Yathrib as they greeted him that day [Friday, 12 Rabi' Al Awwal; 24 September, 622 CE ] on the outskirts of the city as they emerged for the first time.

"Oh the white moon has risen over us...."

To Medina, part 1

The long highway to Medina is as barren as the desert one imagines when one thinks of 'Arabia'. But instead of sand dunes stretching out, mile upon steamy mile, it is a rocky, spotty land, littered with abandoned shacks and service stations, sometimes surrounded by the sudden swirl of dusty grains.




From Jeddah to Medina, about 400 kilometres of this monotonous sight stretch forth, and yet, somehow, the way seems light, and the car traverses it quickly, passing few others on the way. It is a stark contrast from the brightly-lit road to Mecca, about 100 km away from the seaport we've been calling home.

"O my people! Lo! this life of the world is but a passing enjoyment, and lo! the Hereafter, that is the enduring abode." [Quran, Chapter 40, verse 39]

Despite all there is to see on the road to Mecca - the coffee stops that mark almost every 20 minutes that have gone by and which beckon wary/weary drivers; the myriad of colourful fairs that remain inactive only because school has yet to let out; the mosques filling and emptying of men clad in white with checkered head pieces, wives invisible within the black shadows of shiny cars - it seems as though the actual city takes long to appear, longer than the moment when Medina's lush oasis absorbs us into the soil, so that once you have planted your feet into it, it is as though you have laid down roots you despair of severing.

"Remember the story about Prophet Muhammad?" I ask my eldest daughter who is snugly nestled among books and pillows in the back seat. She smiles and nods. "Allayhi al salam. Remember when I told you about how he and Abu Bakr had to escape from Mecca and traveled to Medina - on the way having to hide in a cave?"

"And the soldiers were going to get him?" she asks, her voice rising a notch.

Safeyyah starts talking to herself from her spot on the wide, faux-leather couch. "Muha-nna-mmed ," she lisps as she tries to pronounce the name of the final messenger. "Allahii wa sallem," she smiles at us, happy to partake in the conversation.

"Yes, and they were in the cave and the soldiers were just about to go in, when Abu Bakr said . . ."

‘O Messenger of God! If any of them looked beneath his feet he would certainly see us!’ Whereupon the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) said, ‘O Abu Bakr, what do you think of two [where] God is their third?’

"It was here, in this land that all of that happened," I tell her as we peer out into the vast rock and shrubbery, framed by mountains stereotypically majestic, and yet so much more: forbidding, comforting, stern, watchful.

"Really?" she asks, holding on to her door. She squints in a morning sun that is strengthened with every passing moment, while we watch the road: free of distraction, full of remembrance. It here where the Islamic calendar - the one she has recently learned by heart - began.



. . .'Be not sad (or afraid), surely Allah is with us.' (Quran, Chapter 9, verse 40)

Starting over

Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahim,
In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Kind.

Perhaps it was too passionate, too sudden, too reactionary, but with a click of a button, I erased the record of feelings I wish I hadn't had.

I don't think that everything I'd written here was wrong; many of my observations about life in Saudi were simply that: observations of a person who had been transplanted into a new world that looked very different from her own.


But as I got to know this place, a little bit more with every anticipated outing, I realized that I had missed a chance to greet this society with open arms - to really learn about its nuances, to hear the guttural voices with an open mind, to appreciate a world that isn't all that different, but with so much to offer, though it doesn't realize it.

At the same time, a different sort of awakening took over - one which can no doubt be argued & debated, but one which nevertheless is washing over me, gradually, as simply and gently as the water laps at Jeddah's shores - the focus of my life must be my children. Perhaps it seems natural to assume so, but when I started to prepare for this trip, I lost sight of why were were coming here in the first place --- to raise our children in a Muslim country, with greater chances of learning their religion and its language.


Instead, my husband & I got caught up with thoughts of career - his, concrete and disillusioned once he arrived, mine, little more than daydreams of a job I had long ago abandoned but which I thought to start up from a place so few people knew about, and which I believed many would want to know about.

And so began our downward/upward spiral.

My apologies for the few dedicated friends who read this blog. I feel disappointment, too, at the loss of thought that had been saved on these pages in cyberspace. But for me, it was a lesson, a chance to correct my intention - for the blog, for this trip, for my life.

I hope to make up for lost ground. However, the person who now shares her observations with you, is a little bit wiser, a little bit humbled, and a little bit weary of labeling the people and places around her quickly, arrogantly and without delving deeper.

"Travel enriches the every day experiences, and I am enriched every day."

So here's to beginning a new page in a new book. Again, I invite you to join me and promise that I shan't disappear again, God willing.