Writing as a sacred act
What happens when a desi Muslim woman decides to write her story?
zāhid-e-tañg-nazar ne mujhe kāfir jaanā
aur kāfir ye samajhtā hai musalmān huuñ maiñ
I’m an Indian Muslim woman. I don’t observe the hijab, I used to but then I quit (a topic that’s an essay on its own). I find music soul-stirring. I also don’t pray five times a day but, I will fast diligently in Ramadan. I’m more drawn to Maghreb and the Fajr prayers (when I’m awake) than other prayers during the day. The Tahajjud prayers in Ramadan keep me going for the whole of next year. I don’t pray Taraweeh, except for maybe, the last 10 nights when praying is all I want to do.
I challenge the overlap of culture and faith in my community. I’ve despised the use of fear as a tool to ‘draw’ kids to prayers. I don’t believe in covering my head during the Azaan (which I find spiritually mesmerizing), but, I do it when I’m surrounded by women who I know just won’t get it. I push when I can.
I. Am. A. Believer.
It’s hard for others to see me that way. I’ve faced plenty of judgment from family and friends to make me feel less of a Muslim.
In my younger days, I was told by at least two of my Muslim ‘friends’ that I was a distraction to their practices so they’d like to keep distance from me. Youth does that to you. You see the world in black and white. I don’t blame them.
In my adulthood, I was blessed with hijabi friends who’ve meant the world to me. I’ve never been made uncomfortable in their presence, their homes are the most inviting places for me to pray.
….
Carrots and sticks. Jannat aur Jahannum.
Fearmongering has been used as a tool for centuries to pressure kids to pray.
“Namaaz parho wrna Allah naraaz hoga.”
“Who in their right mind has ever run towards the source of fear with glee and submission?! Don’t humans instinctively run away as far as we can from what scares us?!” a dear, practicing Muslim female friend of mine, Mehvysh, reasoned last night.
My friend and I went into a tirade about how a forced, structured practice acts more like a hindrance than a facilitator to everyday religious practices. Especially in South Asian cultures.
“Dua k aagey peeche durud na parho toh Allah dua wapas aap ke moo pr phenk deta hai.”
To insaan dua hi na karey?!
However, it’s not as simple as that. There’s another dark side to some believers not ‘wanting’ to pray. The subconscious you develop in your youth stays with you. It’s hard to break from the image you form of yourself, based on the notions others had created of you - for you.
I was convinced I was just not worthy enough to stand as is in front of my Creator. I had to be a ‘good’ girl to pray. Girls who refused to conform aren’t really good Muslim girls.
The more I was told to pray, the farther I ran away from it. Ashamed, I started hiding myself from my Creator in the hope of never being found.
This continued into my adulthood.
You greet someone on their newly purchased house, you’re happy for them and bless them from your heart only to hear, “Pehle namaaz parh lo do waqt…”
More often than not, the judgment will come from women.
I rebelled against self-proclaimed preachers by shunning my connection with my Creator.
…..
In a silent window after our online memoir writing workshop, our co-facilitator
and I mentioned how sacred this writing space felt. While Raju Tai thought it felt similar to entering a temple, she was oblivious to the effect it had on me.It became a routine. Every time I entered our silent writing space, I would take a quick break to perform my wazoo and pray the Isha prayers. I began noticing that for the first time in my life, I did not pray under compulsion.
Why does writing feel sacred and how did writing my story bring me closer to my prayers?
I took up writing personal essays in my 40s. To write your story, you must dig deep into your memories, and question the lies that have kept your family safe through generations. One tends to get messy in their search for truth. And the truth is almost always ugly. Liberating. But, ugly nevertheless.
This is why the trajectory curve of memoir writing for me is directly proportionate to the number of times I’ve gone for therapy.
Dismantling our stories word by word reveals the unpleasant, dark side of family truths. It takes a while to discover though that it is also the purest form of connecting to your roots.
And once you reach that pinnacle of accepting your truth as a whole, you want to scream it to the world.
Publishing my personal essays is an act of honoring my truth, and my authenticity.
And who knows your truth better than the one who created you?
The more I accept myself, the less ashamed I feel of my being, of my existence. The less ashamed I feel, the closer I find myself to my Creator. All it took for me to connect with the Almighty was to connect with my raw self. To go within. And writing did that for me.
I’m reminded of my favorite lines from the MughleAzam song:
Purdah nahin jab koi khuda se, bando se purdah karna kya….
We have carried the burden of shame, trauma, and lies for generations now. How is that an honor for our families?
I have decided to honor my family by getting us rid of our shame.
Why must I feel ashamed to feel desire as a woman and embrace my sexuality?
Why must I feel ashamed of admitting that I need therapy when therapy is helping me become a better individual, which is a no-brainer that it will then make me a better person for my family?
Why must I feel ashamed to say motherhood is hard? Don’t we all struggle at some point or other?
Why must I feel ashamed to say that our men need therapy too? For years our boys are conditioned to be ‘tough’, and to play the role of a provider, making it tremendously hard for them to accept that they can mess up as well and that it’s okay to ask for help.
Constantly being a corporate, capitalist slave, being an ATM for the family must be exhausting. Lord knows South Asian men could do with a bit of re-wiring of their conditioning. How do we expect our men to not crumble under the weight of bearing the religious and moral authority for generations?
Why must I feel ashamed to say we need relationship counseling? Besides the number of ‘arranged’ marriages in our culture, many of us - boys and girls - pressured by religion and cultural practices, end up with a single partner all our lives. Let’s not even get into the twisted dynamics of a husband-wife role in a desi setting in today’s world.
Plenty of women from the sub-continent who read my essays slide into my DM expressing how they find my stories relatable. Many I know in person have met for a coffee and chat, discussing what I write. That is the validation writing my truth has brought me.
You connect with authentic people, with truthful people only when you are capable of being truthful yourself.
I know breaking the cycle is not going to be easy. Inviting talks of therapy and counseling with your spouse, your parents, and your kids is akin to someone ripping off your intestine from your gut. The discomfort is real. My body is showing signs of the battle even more so now.
But, normalizing not being ‘perfect’ will only open us to each other. We will become the community we need. It takes a village, remember?
….
Maybe devotion isn’t so much about following strict, rigid measures to submission. Maybe submission is about acceptance - acceptance being internal and not, external. Maybe, bowing down to your Almighty with all the humility in the world of being a simple, flawed human being is all we ever needed.
I’d like to leave this with you, a beautiful nazm penned and shared by Mehvysh from our last night’s meet-up:
Purdey gira do, niqab charha do, isko chupa do
chup kara do, mitti mein daba do, isko jala do
bhula do. isko bhula do
sar p haath rakh ke, chehrey pe shafqat saja k, meri aankhon se aankhein mila k keh do: ye toh yun hi hota hai beta. log kya kaheingein?
sab kuch bhool k, bas in do fikron ko lab pe saja do
dard ko bhula do, dard ko chupa do
jo dil ki baat hai, is baat ko daba do
There’s divinity in writing our stories. Documenting our truth. We owe it. To our ancestors. To ourselves. To our kids. Besides, is there any act more pleasant to the Almighty than sheer honesty?
Sanobar jaan... Through all these months of knowing you, through our online interactions and your writings and sharing and texting, you've continued to be a source of inspiration, essentially because of the truth in your words. Everyday, I challenge myself to step closer to my own authenticity and I think of you, to draw from your courage. I've always felt angry at the way most Muslims have been introduced to their faith, robbing them of the most beautiful Connection they could have experienced instead. For generations we have been traumatized by a society that refuses to 'ponder' and 'question' and instead rests on the crutch of ignorance.
When my children were younger, I began teaching them about the beauty of Islam minus the fear. Soon the neighbourhood Muslims kids joined in and within a year I was running a weekly class that focused on fun learning, spiritual love, community building and true connection. The classes were so popular that they ran for 8 years till 2020. At its peak, we had over 45 children enrolled. Within these 8 years we held parenting workshops, community family picnics, the most amazing performances by the children, charity drives, and so much more. The more we approached each other with love and non-judgement, the closer we all became. So many of us discovered our own spirituality through these connections. When there is no shame in being yourself, you are given the permission and freedom to walk on your own path towards truth.
Your powerful essay reminded me of those times and how important it is for us to choose our authentic selves over the easier/lazier option of conformity. Thank you, Sanobar, for always speaking and writing from your heart.
Sanobar...i remember you saying the writing room was sacred and being completely gobsmacked!
I was flowing through this essay and stopping at the ports you wanted me to and witnessing such amazing writing unfold!
Chashm-e-badoor !