Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [79]
When the lecture ended various petitioners crowded around the podium to talk with the shaykh. I got in line as well, but ahead of me was a large group of women. It turned out that in addition to classical jurisprudence and the rules of war, the shaykh was also a bit of an expert on women’s issues.
“You gotta wonder if the shaykh takes advantage of the fact that he’s surrounded by all these women all the time,” I said to Moosa as we waited.
“Are you kidding?” Moosa exclaimed. He had read about this particular shaykh, apparently. “His new wife is eighteen!”
“What do you mean new?”
“He likes to upgrade. This is his fourth. You blame him? Look at the options he’s got.”
I looked over at the group of sisters. Each one was more buxom and full-bottomed than the next.
Something didn’t compute here. Divorce was frowned upon by Islam, yet no one seemed to care that this shaykh did it often.
“Isn’t divorce a sin?” I asked.
“Well, it’s only makruh,” Moosa replied. “That means it’s neutral. God won’t like it if you do it, but he won’t penalize you. The Prophet’s grandson Hasan married and divorced seventy-one women in his life.”
“That’s hard to imagine!”
“The brother was popular. Fathers would offer their daughters. He couldn’t decline. It’s probably like that for this guy too.”
I looked at the shaykh with new admiration. His piety had to be truly immense if he was able to get away with numerous divorces. And here I was having trouble with just one marriage! I prayed for the day to arrive when I could be as pious as he was so that I could do things that would otherwise be questioned.
As I stood in line, a sudden commotion broke out behind us. An excitable congregant was shouting that since America used satellites to send sexual images and pro-Israel propaganda into Muslim countries, this qualified as a declaration of war, and therefore it was incumbent on Muslim scholars like the shaykh to announce jihad against America. A couple of older congregants tried to shout down the bellicose man for being a fool, but the man called them apostates and continued his tirade. Eventually the matter had to be referred to the shaykh.
Which meant I had to leave without getting a reference.
Bilqis and I decided that we would give ourselves until senior year before we talked to our parents. By then I would have had a chance to spend a couple of summers at Middlebury College, where I hoped to become fluent in Arabic; and that, in turn, would raise my Islamic credentials. The three-year delay would give us enough time to garner support among New York’s Islamic intelligentsia. I also thought it would give me enough time to convince Bilqis to wear hijab.
Then something happened that caused us to accelerate our plans. His name was Yahya.
He was an older Pathan man from Bilqis’s community who’d had his sights set on Bilqis for years. He’d been planning to go to her father and get permission to marry her as soon as she reached marital age. However, when he heard rumors that Bilqis had found some guy in New York, he flipped his lid. He started sending me threatening instant messages.
“What’s up, punk?”
“Who is this?” I responded.
“Your worst nightmare.”
“Do you have a name?”
“You know me, bitch. My name is Yahya. You stole my wife-to-be. I’m about to get all pakhtunkhwa on you.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I typed honestly.
“Maybe you should ask someone who knows.”
I called Moosa at his work.
“Pakhtunkhwa is an honor code,” he informed me. “It basically means that you’re going to die. Who told you about it?”
“Some guy that’s been after Bilqis.”
“That sucks,” Moosa said. “Well, can I get your Quran MP3s before you’re killed?”
“This is serious,” I said, frustrated by a new obstacle between