As salaam alaikum,
My mother wore hijab from the time she was about 16 years old until she was 22 years old, and then never again. The funny thing is, when she wore hijab, she wasn't actually Muslim...
My mother and her entire family, meaning, all 9 of her siblings and her parents, were part of a black nationalist organization known as the Nation of Islam. In case folks don't know what this is, I suggest you read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, whose birthday it was yesterday, to understand a little bit about the Nation. Though my mother would legally change her name from Patsy to Khalilah in the 70s (I never knew my mother as Patsy), along with changing her surname, she wouldn't actually come into what those in the Nation called "orthodox Islam" until years later, after I was born, actually. She identified as Muslim, but she didn't really start practicing until after she'd already married my Christian, son-of-a-preacher-man father.
And that's where my story begins.
But back to my mother. She wore a hijab in following the NOI dress code until she was 22 years old or so. She then decided she was tired of living under her parents rules and under the rules of this organization that she was beginning to no longer believe in. She decided that she wanted to see, "What the other side was like." How they lived, their values, their freedom.
And so my mother did.
And she did in a way and a series of events transpired that I know she's willing to tell me, but it makes her all very nervous. So I let her know she doesn't have to tell me anything. I can imagine.
These were the circumstances in which I was exposed to Islam as a child, with a history of my motehr and her entire family believing that white people were the devil, the mothership, whatever else...to my birth 10 years after the death of Elijah Muhammad when many black people left the NOI, as my family had then learned about and then embraced Islam.
The story of the Nation of Islam is an interesting one...that resulted in the random, spontaneous sprouting of a lot of indigenous American reverts to Islam, many times without the direct influence of immigrant populations. I didn't see an Arab Muslim until I was 11 years old. Before that, the only people I saw were black Muslims.
I didn't meet South Asian and African Muslims until high school. And so on.
But anyway, I pay homage to my heritage, as a daughter of a revert, from a family that left the NOI to find Islam, in the story I'm writing, A Rose Much Desired. That's an aspect I don't talk about a lot. I don't see it written about a lot, those of us who are now the first generation of people not born into Christian families or NOI families, and I think it's a perspective that deserves attention.
That being said, I must say, "Bad Habits" by Maxwell is a great song that inspires me for some of the themes of the story. Particularly this part of the chorus:
This is the highest cost
Take you and make you off
Live you and leave you lost
Will you forgive me?
I like the play on words there.
But yeah, I'm being relatively vague about everything because a big part of the experience of the story is uncovering the characters, and so I don't want to uncover too much, but yeah.
I find that I live a lot of my life trying not to repeat my mother's story, that part which she regrets. Smoking cigarrettes is one thing, though she's quit for so long I don't even remember her smoking. But that part of life that she desired to "live like the other side," I never wanted to go through that...
We human beings probably have a lot of space to screw up. I mean, we screw up all the time, every day, even when we're not aware. That's why we in fact need salat like we do...to help us out when we falter.
But in terms of that...a period of time when any given brother or sister decides to let go...of their values, of morality, of their faith, for a time...I feel like you can always come back, and things can be okay, but it's like, by consciously making the decision to stray, you're paying that highest cost that Maxwell is talking about.
What is the highest cost for me? In exchange for folly, which can be drugs, sex, whatever, you are paying the highest cost...your constant guilt. As a person who was already someone grounded in morals and faith, you can't just throw that away. You can return to your former self, sometimes easily, but you've already paid the highest cost. What you've done will stick in your mind as bitter remembrances, and it's something so big, as a Muslim, though you know God is merciful...you just feel like you have to repent that one thing, that part of your life, whatever, for the rest of your life.
In exchange for a moment's pleasure, you are left discombobulated. This is the highest cost...
Now my mother has a daughter, which she couldn't before have imagined at the age of 22 (my mother didn't want to have children...and then I was born, and my mom said my first words were 'ah-hah!'...not really, I'm making that up), and she still cringes to reveal this part of her life.
I don't wonder about it because as an egocentric child, my mother only existed after my birth...what happened before is less relevant to my reality. Not entirely true, but I don't need to know.
I'm making my own present.
Anyway, I think this song is interesting because...it's funny because one of the themes I'm writing about, particularly the opening relationship between Mo and Desiree, is a lot like this...and it's funny how I, not knowing anything about such relationships, never having been in one myself, write something that is so in line with the theme of this song...
Anyway. Maxwell is coming to Boston on the 13th of July. I will be there.
Wasalaam.
