How to Hang an Ayah

Reader, I married a Muslim. Was that the day my innocence began to erode? 

Sometime in 1990, two years before our wedding, my husband and his family drive from Atherton to Seattle for his residency interview. They fight about me in the car. There is shouting. In the hotel that night there is more fighting about me, and more shouting: mother and father against son. In his rage, the father pulls the phone from the wall and throws it across the room. I am too Western, too white, too Christian. I don't speak Arabic, I am not Muslim, I am not Syrian. They oppose me on principle. I will not make a good wife for their first-born son. 

At one time, the father wanted to follow the outdated tradition of arranging a marriage between cousins. Her name was Laila. At another time, my husband was engaged to the daughter of a wealthy Lebanese family. Her name was Yasmine. There were demands from Yasmine's father: 100,000 dollars a year to the young couple . . . a house . . . a full-time cleaner . . . an expensive car. My husband tired of the materialism and broke it off. Then there was me. My husband, worried about his parents' reaction, didn't introduce me to them for the first four years of our relationship. 

Now, older and the mother of two sons myself, I can see the fear behind their outrage, fear for their son, for his happiness. What if I was too different? What if I was, like so many Western women in their eyes, individualistic and egocentric, putting self before family? What if I was cold and impersonal and aloof? What if I took their son away from them?

I sometimes think of innocence as a kind of layer of the self, or perhaps a type of aura, with which we are born. It's like our mother's womb is Paradise, and we are all born a blank slate, free of the knowledge that we will acquire almost immediately as we emerge, naked and bloody and shrieking, into the world. When I was younger, I didn’t realize what was happening as it happened; I didn't see that my innocence of the ways of the world—weaponized religions, parents feuding against children, stereotypes feeding exclusion—was eroding, slowly disappearing in the face of time and experience.

My mother baptized my first-born son when he was just an infant. It had always bothered her that I hadn't. When he was five months old, we took a family vacation to Italy. She was taking a turn carrying him as we toured the Vatican, stopping in the Sistine Chapel to gaze upward at Adam receiving the spark of life from his bearded Creator. In those days, the restoration of the frescoes was newly complete, and they glowed as if reborn, liberated after centuries from the dull, dark layers of dirt, dust, and time. 

When I noticed my mother scurry down one of the hallways out of the chapel, I followed her to a niche where she stood half-hidden in the shadows, my baby in her arms. She had found a font of holy water and was busy baptizing her grandchild before his Muslim father caught her. Dipping her fingers in the font, she wet his brow with holy water while making the sign of the cross over his head: Yo te bautizo en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo, Amén. 

In seventh grade, my class watched a movie called A Thief in the Night about the Second Coming of the Messiah. My school was a missionary school in Quito, Ecuador, run by Evangelicals. All day we heard about God the Father and his son Jesus Christ; we prayed and read the Bible in religion class; we were encouraged to accept Jesus as our Personal Savior and be baptized. The only thing that comes close to the trauma I experienced watching that movie is reading a comic book showing women in Hitler's concentration camps being brutalized by Nazi soldiers (the actual rapes were hidden by blackened squares with white talk bubbles that say Help! Stop! Please!). The movie depicted the "Rapture," the future moment when the faithful, the true Christians, are spirited up to Heaven, corporeal bodies and all, leaving behind those who don't believe. In a split-second families are separated—wives from husbands, sisters from brothers, children from parents. 

That evening I asked my father if he believed in God. To my horror, he said no. He told me he was an "atheist," someone who believes that there is no God, and that nothing exists after death. Later, lying in my bed in the dark, I couldn’t stop crying. It hurt too much to imagine my father left behind, or in Hell. At one point my mother came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. She comforted me as she always did, reassuring me with whatever it took, even half-truths or outright lies. "Don't worry," she said. "When he is an old man he will return to the Church. Everyone returns to God when they are old and closer to death."

9/11. I’m one of those people who sits in front of the screen for hours at a time. I’m not a crier, but I cry so much that my eyes swell and my nose chaps from constant blowing. I'm shattered by the images on the news, and also afraid for my son who sits in front of me playing with his bulldozers and excavators. He is not yet two years old. "Why did we give him a Muslim name?" I wail at my husband when he comes home from work. "Why not Oscar or Harry?" A few weeks later I see a young man in a white pickup truck. On its sides he has used blue duct-tape to write in huge letters that run from hood to trunk: NUKE THEM ALL. 

Almost a year afterward, I’m driving from our home in Medina to Seattle. We cross the bridge spanning Lake Washington and make the long turn toward the city. Finally the cityscape comes into view, silhouetted against the gray sky. From the backseat I hear my son say, "Those buildings are going to burn down." I thought he wasn't watching, that he wasn't interested, that he was distracted by his cars and dinosaurs, that he was too young in any case to be impacted by the television screen. I was wrong.

Islam in the United States is like an oak sapling in a vast forest of giant sequoias. Its culture can be overwhelmed, dominated by Judeo-Christian surroundings, made invisible. Because my husband feared that Islam in our family, for our children, would be engulfed, rendered anemic and dismissible by Christmas trees and decorations, presents and nutcrackers, even menorahs and dreidels, he refused to have a Christmas tree in our house. Fortunately, by the time my children were aware of Christmas and decorated trees, we lived two minutes by car and ten minutes by foot up the hill from my parents. With them we could celebrate December 25th with tree selection at the local lot—everyone chiming in with their opinions; tree decoration with hot chocolate and a fire specially lit in the fireplace; and presents on Christmas morning drinking pots of tea and listening to the classic carols from my father’s collection playing on the stereo.  

The only time we had a tree in our house was the winter after I completed chemo. When I mentioned how cozy it would be to have our own tree, my husband relented, probably because he felt sorry for me with my cropped hair and sparse eyebrows. My sons and I chose a small shapely Douglas fir, which we took home and decorated with newly bought ornaments, all golds and ruby reds. The tree glowed at night, lit from within by a long string of tiny lights. Since then we've reverted to holiday merrymaking solely at my parents' house; my sons don't notice and I don't mind.

The first time I heard the Muslim call to prayer I was in Damascus. There is nothing quite like hearing it live, from an Imam calling out from a minaret high above the streets and souks of the city. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and commanding. It seemed to command attention and reverence. Never mind that most people around me continued about their business unmoved. It remained a plea for a moment of mindfulness, of paying attention to the spirit, of communing with the divine. I loved it when it woke me at dawn in my hotel room and, muffled by the walls and curtains, became a part of my dreams. I loved it in the middle of the day when it soared out and over the busy city, reminding us of greater things than the material. I loved it best at twilight, when it became a part of that in-between time of day, the sky tinged violet, the scent of jasmine wafting stronger in the waning afternoon. I heard it next in Alexandria and Cairo and Istanbul. It never ceased to make me pause and listen. Sometimes, if I could, I would close my eyes, the better to absorb the voice and the melody that seemed to hold so much—nostalgia, sadness, history, hope.

I heard it too in California, in the Atherton home of my husband's family. My father-in-law was dead. His body lay in the master bedroom on a hospital cot, naked except for a diaper that I chose to see as a sort of loincloth. The room was darkened by the drawn drapes, hushed by the thick carpet and the gloom. The widow and her sons spoke in whispers. The one consistent sound was the Quran as it played from the speakers on my mother-in-law's writing desk. My husband told me it had been playing all day, for hours before his father died. In his last moments he had been enveloped, as if in an embrace, by the musical recital of his faith.

Forty days after his death, the family held a memorial gathering at their home, as is the custom. My husband and children and I were there, naturally, as well as my brother-in-law with his wife and daughters. There were friends from all stages of my parents-in-law's life. It also happened to be the month of Ramadan and many of the guests were fasting. When the time came to break the fast, one of the family's closest friends, a mother of three grown Syrian-American children, approached my ten-year-old son with a plate of dates. "Here," she said, with her Arabic accent, "take this and pass it around to the grown-ups." My son, after glancing at me, walked around the room, balancing the plate of dates carefully in both hands. It is the practice to eat a date with a glass of water at the start of breaking one's fast. I didn't know this; my son didn't know this. Later that night my brother-in-law and his wife complained about this same woman chastising their daughter when she misbehaved. I could not join in their indignation at her bossiness—I was delighted that someone maternal and Arab and Muslim cared enough to teach my son how to navigate a cultural moment he was unfamiliar with.

Wonder Woman the movie is coming out. I'm so excited. A new and improved version of a feminist icon—a strong woman, born in Lesbos, who leaves her mother and her island of sisterhood and equality to fight evil, to subdue the criminal, to rescue the innocent. This is something I can get behind, unreservedly. It feels good. My friend and I, both daughterless, plan to go together to the cinema, with our popcorn and our enthusiasm. 

Oh, but the lead actor is Israeli. Never mind. We don't know her politics. And she is so beautiful. I'm a sucker for beauty. Wonder Woman's lips are full without being pouty; her nose straight, not too big, not too small; her legs long long long; her eyes a deep deep brown; her eyebrows dark and defined and expressive on skin a silky olive without blemish. I can’t wait to watch her on the big screen, her face up close to mine so I can gaze to my heart's content while she battles the bad guys.  

Oh no, she served in the Israeli army for two years. Well, maybe she hated it. Maybe she saw things that haunt her. I read once about a soldier who urinated on the rug and the couch and the books of the Palestinians he had just evicted from their home. Later a friend who has family in Jerusalem and Ramallah tells me that Israel’s soldiers routinely humiliate Palestinian men, making them strip before  urinating on them as they stand exposed, their hands behind their backs. But what about Wonder Woman’s beauty? I bet that saved her from some of the horrors. Would they send such a person to do the dirty work? The ugly work? I bet that's it. If she ever did, she no longer supports the checkpoints, the Wall, the incarceration of children, the contempt for all that is Philistine, Muslim, Other. I look up dates and times for the movie showing. 

Then comes Gaza. Is this the third or the fourth time Israel's military has bombed Palestinians trapped, as in a giant fishbowl, by walls, electric fences, and watch towers? Wonder Woman speaks out in support of the attack. I am praying for the Israeli soldiers, she says. I think about the uncle of a friend who had his legs blown off by a bomb while in his home in Gaza. I think about the mother of another friend, who I can't help but stare at when I visit her, scarred as she is by the shrapnel that cut her face. Wonder Woman shares a photo of her and her daughter at home, soft candlelight illuminating them, with scarves on their heads and hands over their faces as they pray for the safety of the soldiers. My friend and I cancel our plans. We never see the movie.

I am watching when my son is confronted, for the first time, by a life-size statue of Christ on the Cross. He is eleven years old. Standing in front of it, he looks for a while, taking in the bloody wounds, the thorny crown, the nailed feet. After a bit, he returns to where I'm sitting and asks me, "Who is that man?" At that moment, I realize that my husband and I have succeeded in bringing up our children completely without religion, in a secular void. It's a dizzying concept, as I only truly know my own upbringing—one saturated with religion, with my mother and grandmother's Catholicism as well as the missionary fervor of my middle school's Evangelicalism. I can't remember a time when I did not know about the Crucified Christ, Mary the Mother of God, or the Holy Trinity. I tell my son what I can think of on the spot, that Jesus was a great leader who believed in kind and radical equality; as such, he became a threat and was killed by those frightened by the power of his message.

I've only gone to Confession once, as part of my First Communion. Did I and the rest of the children confess beforehand, so that we could receive the Body of Christ in a pure state? I was dressed all in white: white veil and dress, white patent leather shoes and ankle socks. Long before that day, of course, my mother made sure I was baptized into the Catholic Church. The single photo memorializing the event shows my mother, who is holding me in her arms, with my grandmother and the priest. I can see that it took place before Vatican II because both my mother and my grandmother wear long lace mantillas over their hair. Looking back, it’s a blessing that I was only made to confess once; it felt awkward and made me uncomfortable to enter the dark, close space, kneel at the miniature pew, and listen for the guidance I had been told would come. When it did come, it emanated from a disembodied voice, strange and male. Fortunately, we were given precise instructions in our catechism classes and I knew to recite, like a parrot, the "sins" I had committed before asking to be forgiven.

I can never understand my parents-in-law's opposition to our marriage when I think about their past. My mother-in-law came from a wealthy family; at one point, her grandfather's Damascene household included concubines and Christian slaves. My father-in-law had to work for money starting at a young age. She was Sunni and he was Shi'a. She had rich suitors, whom she categorically refused, despite their lavish gifts and extravagant promises. He fell in love with her intellect and her beauty at their university. She was attracted by his revolutionary ideals. He soon had a price on his head for his subversive activism. Her brother was the chief of police, and, for the love of his sister, this brother helped the couple escape to Egypt. They eloped by driving her Volkswagen Beetle to the base of the mountains and traveling the rest of the way on foot. They were, for that time in Syria, yin and yang, oil and water, black and white. They came from different classes, conflicting versions of Islam, and warring political factions. How, then, could they oppose my marrying their son?

My children and I accompany my husband on a work trip to Alexandria. There, my husband's Egyptian colleague takes us to the "Sports Club," a huge park in the middle of the city that reminds me a little of New York's Central Park, except that it's more contained and offers a mosque, two restaurants, a polo field, an Olympic pool, and several playgrounds for the children. It is a Friday, the only day off for Egyptians. There is a sandstorm somewhere near Cairo and we feel its effects in the white misty air; sometimes my teeth crunch unexpectedly on a grain of sand. Around midday we hear the call to prayer. Our host, a jolly father of two, asks if my husband and older son would like to pray with them in the nearby mosque. My husband hesitates, discomfited, but I encourage him to go, and to take our son. I want him to experience some of his Middle Eastern heritage by praying with his father in a mosque. Yet as they leave and I watch their backs recede, I worry about him. I hope that his father will guide him through the motions of Muslim prayer: the positioning, the kneeling, the genuflecting. That he won't feel awkward or strange or alone.  

What my parents-in-law didn't realize before I married their son, when there was so much strife around the idea of his marrying me, was that we are actually quite compatible. We both are familiar with non-white, non-American belief systems and ways of living. Growing up, I identified primarily with my Peruvian mother over my Anglo father, and listened enthralled to her stories about her childhood in Arequipa and Lima, a childhood that included gallops on Moro the horse at the hacienda, constant piano practice, nuns in a boarding school, and summer days on the beach eating anticuchos and picarones. We both are attached to our families. I cried for two hours straight the first day of our honeymoon because I missed my mother. I dreamt about my family in California every night for a week when I first moved to Seattle. My husband saw me only on Saturdays for years when we were dating because he felt badly about leaving his parents alone on weekends. He still calls his mother every day, no matter what, wherever he is. In terms of religion, we are both lapsed. I don't practice Catholicism; he doesn't practice Islam. We have been shaped by the cultures of our religions, certainly, but we don't actively live their rituals and regulations. We both are academics, and constantly discuss culture, politics, history. We love tea and drink it all day long. On weekends we insist on teatime, when we sit for a bit in the middle of the morning with cups of Assam or English Breakfast and talk, our whole family, or just he and I if our sons are not around. 

Our house represents us—my husband and me. You only have to look at our décor, the furniture and the art, to know us. Persian rugs and Peruvian mirrors complement each other perfectly, carved bronze vases from Syria set off hammered silver trays from Peru. There is a harmony, I like to think, in our house that reflects a harmony in our union. I have a young friend in her twenties, who is like a daughter to me. Perhaps because she is a child of divorce, this daughter-friend loves to comment on the interior of my house; to reflect on the way our collection of furniture represents us and our marriage; to discuss, once again, how the side table inlaid with mother-of-pearl from Damascus and the carved leather coffee table from Lima together enhance the look of our living room. It gives her a satisfaction I share, that of an intertwining of two parts to make a greater whole.

We do have a Quran in our house, as well as a Bible. They are more decorative than instructive. We also have a plaque carved with the words of an ayah. An ayah is a verse from the Quran, and ours is the most famous one, about God's infinite love for us all. When it comes time to find a place for it in our house, my husband takes the carved wooden plaque with the beautiful Arabic script his mother gave us, and hangs it carefully above the door frame of the front entrance to our house.