Read Online The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf - Free Book Online
Authors: Mohja Kahf
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Muslims were being persecuted, it seemed. She was the first Muslim to write for the IU paper and get a front-page-above the fold-byline. Her op-ed supporting the Islamic dissent in Iran caused a campus stir.
It was agreed that the Shah was a tyrant. Iranian Muslims were rallying for change and being persecuted for rallying. The Islamic Forerunner tried to keep Muslims in America up to date on events there, the exciting stirrings toward, possibly, the first Islamic state in the modern world since the destruction of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924. Most people who read The Forerunner, and certainly all who worked for the Dawah Center, believed that an Islamic state and an Islamic society was, or should be, the hope of every believing Muslim today. In it, everyone would be good and God-fearing and decent and hardworking; there would be no corruption or bribes; the rich would help the poor; and all would have work and food and live cleanly, because an Islamic state would provide the solution for every social ill.
"But if Iranian Muslims made an Islamic state, would that count, being Shia?" This was Khadra's father asking the question as he spread newspapers on the carpet in Abdulla's Fallen Timbers living room.
The answer came from Zeeshan, Brother Zeeshan Haqiqat, a favorite sparring partner. "In Hyderabad, Hindu fanatics didn't stop to ask my brother if he was Shia or Sunni before they beat him to death."
Zeeshan's point stopped Wajdy cold. Like the first Pilgrims, the immigrants of the Dawah Center came to America with persecution and suffering at their backs. Sunni or Shia, they had too much in common not to work together.
The tensions between the sects in the Dawah organization would not explode until a few years later, when funding from wealthy private donors abroad started to come in. Powerful Sunni donors made exclusion of Shia elements a condition of the money, some said. Others said no, it was the Shia members who had a problem taking money from Sunnis. The donors had attached no strings. There would be shouting matches in the blue Victorian house, at the annual Bloomington conferences, and even in the little apartments at Fallen Timbers. Uncle Zeeshan would eventually leave the Dawah staff and Khadra would no longer see his daughters, Nilofar and Insaf, every Eid in their gorgeous ghararas, and Auntie Dilshad's fried samosas would no longer be on the potluck table at the women's weekly Quranic study (hot! run for a glass of water! mouth on fire!)
"Wajdy! Zeeshan! We'll have none of your Sunni-Shia arguments tonight," Uncle Abdulla called out, his face jovial. "Tonight for eating only!" This hospitable Egyptian and his wife, Aunt Fatma, brought out platter after platter to set on the newspapers before the men. The women at at the table in the dinette; the kids ran amok everywhere.
"Eat, eat!" Uncle Abdulla bellowed, grabbing Khadra's paper plate and heaping greasy rice and slabs of fatty meat onto it. She didn't know how to fend off his generosity. Between that, and your parents telling you it was haram to waste food, you were stuck, and had to eat it all.
Uncle Abdulla had spent five years in the concentration camps of Gamal Abdul Nasser for belonging to the Muslim Strivers, an Islamic movement that strove to reform Egyptian society along Islamic lines. Starvation for days at a time was one of the punishments the wardens had inflicted on Abdulla in the prison camp. The poorest man in the little neighborhood of Muslims in the Fallen Timbers, he wanted everyone to be well fed in his home.
After dinner Zuhura cheerfully volunteered to do the dishes. Luqman, Fatma's handsome younger brother newly arrived from Egypt, carried armfuls of crusted casserole pans and blackenedbottom aluminum pots to her into the kitchen. The older kids had to watch the younger kids out on the playground. They were glad to get out of the overfull apartment.
When only Khadra, Eyad, Hakim, and Hanifa were left outside, they took turns
It was agreed that the Shah was a tyrant. Iranian Muslims were rallying for change and being persecuted for rallying. The Islamic Forerunner tried to keep Muslims in America up to date on events there, the exciting stirrings toward, possibly, the first Islamic state in the modern world since the destruction of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924. Most people who read The Forerunner, and certainly all who worked for the Dawah Center, believed that an Islamic state and an Islamic society was, or should be, the hope of every believing Muslim today. In it, everyone would be good and God-fearing and decent and hardworking; there would be no corruption or bribes; the rich would help the poor; and all would have work and food and live cleanly, because an Islamic state would provide the solution for every social ill.
"But if Iranian Muslims made an Islamic state, would that count, being Shia?" This was Khadra's father asking the question as he spread newspapers on the carpet in Abdulla's Fallen Timbers living room.
The answer came from Zeeshan, Brother Zeeshan Haqiqat, a favorite sparring partner. "In Hyderabad, Hindu fanatics didn't stop to ask my brother if he was Shia or Sunni before they beat him to death."
Zeeshan's point stopped Wajdy cold. Like the first Pilgrims, the immigrants of the Dawah Center came to America with persecution and suffering at their backs. Sunni or Shia, they had too much in common not to work together.
The tensions between the sects in the Dawah organization would not explode until a few years later, when funding from wealthy private donors abroad started to come in. Powerful Sunni donors made exclusion of Shia elements a condition of the money, some said. Others said no, it was the Shia members who had a problem taking money from Sunnis. The donors had attached no strings. There would be shouting matches in the blue Victorian house, at the annual Bloomington conferences, and even in the little apartments at Fallen Timbers. Uncle Zeeshan would eventually leave the Dawah staff and Khadra would no longer see his daughters, Nilofar and Insaf, every Eid in their gorgeous ghararas, and Auntie Dilshad's fried samosas would no longer be on the potluck table at the women's weekly Quranic study (hot! run for a glass of water! mouth on fire!)
"Wajdy! Zeeshan! We'll have none of your Sunni-Shia arguments tonight," Uncle Abdulla called out, his face jovial. "Tonight for eating only!" This hospitable Egyptian and his wife, Aunt Fatma, brought out platter after platter to set on the newspapers before the men. The women at at the table in the dinette; the kids ran amok everywhere.
"Eat, eat!" Uncle Abdulla bellowed, grabbing Khadra's paper plate and heaping greasy rice and slabs of fatty meat onto it. She didn't know how to fend off his generosity. Between that, and your parents telling you it was haram to waste food, you were stuck, and had to eat it all.
Uncle Abdulla had spent five years in the concentration camps of Gamal Abdul Nasser for belonging to the Muslim Strivers, an Islamic movement that strove to reform Egyptian society along Islamic lines. Starvation for days at a time was one of the punishments the wardens had inflicted on Abdulla in the prison camp. The poorest man in the little neighborhood of Muslims in the Fallen Timbers, he wanted everyone to be well fed in his home.
After dinner Zuhura cheerfully volunteered to do the dishes. Luqman, Fatma's handsome younger brother newly arrived from Egypt, carried armfuls of crusted casserole pans and blackenedbottom aluminum pots to her into the kitchen. The older kids had to watch the younger kids out on the playground. They were glad to get out of the overfull apartment.
When only Khadra, Eyad, Hakim, and Hanifa were left outside, they took turns
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