Children of Dust (24 page)

T
he responsibilities of leadership in the MSA were anything but princely.

Balancing budgets, begging the student government for money, vacuuming the prayer center, organizing dinners, setting up cheesy social events, attending interfaith meetings in the early morning, meeting with the heads of other MSAs in the area and pretending to care about their thoughts and concerns, and meeting with Rabbi Aaron, the Jewish campus chaplain, to try to establish a joint
halal
-kosher deli—these things, inglorious and tedious, occupied most of my time as president. The rest of my time was spent supporting my staffers, whether by making late-night runs to Kinko’s to make colored copies or driving around the university and plastering up posters advertising MSA events.

I also learned that leadership came with a whole host of new restrictions. Consider:

Some congregants thought that my favorite shirt, which featured a man in a fedora and had the letters NPA—National Pimp Association—written underneath him, was now inappropriate.

When I commented that I would consider getting a small tattoo on my arm, some of the members told me that it would be in bad taste for
the president to get inked, since some scholars considered the practice un-Islamic.

When I made plans to attend a birthday party at a club, I was given
naseeha
, or confidential religious counsel, by a brother who felt that this would reflect badly upon my office; and when I objected that I wasn’t planning on drinking or dancing, and that in fact many of the MSA members themselves were going, I was told that most people would think I was there solely to monitor their morality and would therefore likely be viewed as the religious police.

In short, there was a downside to being “Muhammad to the MSA”: I now bore the expectation of infallibility and heightened purity. A Muslim leader couldn’t be just an average guy undergoing the same tribulations, committing the same mistakes, and liking the same things as everyone else. On the contrary, a Muslim leader had to be an ideal that other, less religious people looked toward as a way to motivate themselves to be more pious. A Muslim leader, rather than being himself, had to be what others thought a perfect Muslim should be. The trouble, of course, was that I was far removed from piety—postmodernism and my own nature had assured that—and therefore the only solutions were to genuinely achieve perfect piety or to fake it.

As a true postmodernist I opted for the latter and called it art. It was as Nietzsche had said: “giving style to one’s character.” I styled myself a slave of Islam.

My plan to depict myself as Islamically submissive had three elements: wardrobe, conventions, and public rituals.

First the wardrobe. Adopting the Islamic “look” was easy. It required mixing and matching the following clothes and accessories:

Chinstrap beard

Palestinian-style checkered
kafiya
s (2)

Multicolored West African
kufi
, a rounded, brimless cap (1)

Elegant white, crocheted
kufi
(1)

Green cargo pants and green dress shirts (2)—green being the color of Islam

Official MSA T-shirts (2) with Quranic verses from beloved chapters—
Surah Baqarah
and
Surah Nur
—imprinted on the back (maroon and blue respectively)

Long-sleeved pride shirt in white with “Muslim” written in gold lettering across the front

Pakistani
shalwar kameez
es (2), to be seen in, particularly in the student center

Gray Iraqi robe-style
thowb
(1), to be worn during Friday sermon
Tasbih
beads (2 strings)—one string hanging teasingly out of a bag, the other hanging in the car

Islam ring for ring finger to symbolize “marriage” to the faith (sterling silver with star and crescent) (1)

Crescent necklace (sterling silver) (1)

Sterling silver wristband with Quranic verse etched inside (1)

The second component of my plan involved showing off my new wardrobe at the Islamic conventions that were a big part of my job as president. The best place to show off the fashions of the faith was the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA.

Every Labor Day the ISNA held a convention in Chicago. It was the biggest gathering of Muslims in the Western hemisphere. Believers came from everywhere, filling Chicago’s hotels. College MSAs used funds they’d collected over the year to subsidize the trip for at least some of their members. People went to listen to lectures by superstar evangelists like Hamza Yusuf and Siraj Wahaj and to go to the massive
bazar
, where everything from Medinan
miswak
s—teeth-cleaning sticks—to Indonesian devotional music was available. There were workshops and seminars and networking events for young professionals, where they discussed such things as how to tap the market of rich Muslim doctors. For the bachelors and bachelorettes in their mid-twenties—clearly past marital age—there were expensive matchmaking banquets at which prospective spouses wore color-coded name tags corresponding with their age. (Some of the parents, many of whom accompanied even their middle-aged children, complained
that the colors ought to correspond to degrees or income, since those were the most important barometers of marital eligibility.) Often, prominent religious figures from abroad were invited to ISNA conventions. One time Shaykh Sudais, the lachrymose
imam
of the Holy Mosque in Mecca, flew in secretly during the middle of the night to lead the morning prayer. When he didn’t cry during his recitation, everyone was disappointed and some brothers rioted.

The youth loved the annual ISNA event. We attended primarily to socialize with other Muslims of similar age and interests. Much of the hobnobbing took place late at night, in the various hotel lobbies. The best lobby was at the Hyatt. The youth ironically called it Club Hayat, which—translated loosely—means Club Modesty.

During the nighttime at Club Hayat youth broke up into a few identifiable groups. In each group boys and girls comingled and flirted, all under the guise of talking about medical school admissions, gender relations at their MSA, alternative (meaning lesser) career paths besides medicine, and the future of Islamic leadership.

Around eleven o’clock, Club Hayat emptied out a bit as the more adventurous youth snuck out to actual clubs in Chicago. Those not able to go—say, because they were dressed in full Islamic regalia, like yours truly—were filled with resentment and disparaged those “wack Muslims.”

Around three in the morning, there was another clearing out of the Club. This time those who’d had the good fortune of finding a hookup headed outside to a car or upstairs to find an empty room. These pairs could be identified by their watchful peers: all of a sudden a sister would break away from her friends and walk toward the elevators by herself, followed, at an appreciable distance, by a brother pretending he was sleepy. They would get into different elevators, of course, that would—due to Islamic magic—stop at the same floor. (The elevators at the Hyatt were glass, so observers could catch all this.) Sometimes these encounters didn’t work out so well, though, often because the girl and the guy had different expectations in mind. In that case, the guy would end up forcing himself on top of the girl, and she—feeling that she couldn’t cry out for help since she was doing something sinful at
what was supposed to be a place for learning Islam and being pious—would end up taking it.

All the remaining youth at the Club stuck around until the morning prayer. Then they prayed and snuck into their rooms with their sleeping (or wakeful) parents. The adults, who normally would have imposed nine o’clock evening curfews on their children, didn’t interrogate or get angry if this late arrival was discovered, because this was an Islamic convention; everyone knew that at a large gathering of Muslims, all the participants were pious.

When I arrived at the ISNA convention decked out in my Islamic regalia I received a lot of attention from brothers and sisters. When I was riding with my fellow MSA-ers on the shuttle from the airport to the hotel, a group of youngish bushy-bearded brothers in long white
thowb
s, lecturing to one another about the benefits of living in a Muslim country and pledging to one another that they’d leave “this immoral America” as soon as they got their parents to pay off their student loans, glanced appreciatively in my direction.

My clothes had so much impact that a guy from another delegation—he’d introduced himself earlier as Razaq—saw me walking alone in the parking lot and came over to make a confession of his sins.

“I go to clubs,” he said. “I don’t drink, but I just can’t stop going.”

“Clubs are
haram
, of course,” I reminded him.

“I know,” he said. “I really try to do
halal
things, but it’s hard. My parents aren’t very religious. They’re opposed to my sister wearing
hijab
.”

“Well, you don’t wear a beard,” I noted. “You should grow one to support her.”

“She’s a better person than I am.”

I nodded. “But you have to want to be a better Muslim,” I told him.

“How?”

“Being a good Muslim is about representing Islam,” I said. “You must show Muslims and non-Muslims your love of the faith—usually with external symbols. Start with a beard.”

Razaq shook my hand with great aplomb and thanked me for giving him guidance. “Bro, you’ll be a great leader for Muslims one day!”

I already am, I thought.

Soon I initiated the final part of my three-pronged plan for achieving piety: public prayer. It came about as I thought back on the advice I’d given Razaq. I decided that if I could just do something big—something that would show all the Muslims in the MSA how much I loved Islam—perhaps that would create a moment of sublimation, a sudden eradication of all their doubts about me, and bring an immense infusion of gravitas to my tenure. In short, I needed a public display of submission. Something big and explosive. An act that would annihilate all doubts in one swift swoop. A flash of light that would burst across the landscape and let every onlooker know in emphatic terms: this Muslim represented Islam like no one else.

I petitioned the various deans and administrators at the university, seeking their approval to play the
azan
, the Islamic call to prayer, from the bell tower on an upcoming Friday. I went to a designated committee of three and had them listen to various recordings of the
azan
. Looking pleased with themselves for their intercultural tolerance, they agreed to play the recording by the
muezzin
of the Holy Mosque in Mecca.

As the appointed Friday drew closer, I became more and more excited. I made plans to lead the whole MSA out to the bell tower after the Friday sermon that afternoon. I sent out letters exhorting people from all across Atlanta to join us for a supplication after the
azan
. I even sent out gleeful messages to MSAs all across the East Coast, gloating rather prematurely about “our”—I meant “my,” of course—success.

It was a cool fall afternoon. I delivered an impassioned sermon on the merits of being truthful and then we went outside as a community, men and women, old and young, student and staff, and we stood under the bell tower at two-fifteen. Shortly after the bells chimed the quarter-hour, the voice of the
muezzin
from Mecca rang out across the university.

“God is Great! God is Great!” rang the
azan
. “There is no god but God!”

Students sitting at the outdoor cafeteria looked up in confusion at this sound they’d never heard. They could see me, wearing a
thowb
and a
kafiya
, leading my community.

I looked around me at the fifty or so Muslims gathered in a circle. I had expected to see tears streaming down their faces, hands outstretched in prayer, faces wreathed in nostalgia and reverence as loud exclamations of “
Takbir!
” went up. I had expected to see warm smiles directed at me, both thankful and deferential. I had expected to feel as if we were one body, bound together by the beautiful voice of the
muezzin
. I had even hoped to see CNN cameras, representatives from other MSAs from up and down the East Coast, and perhaps representatives of national Muslim organizations who had come to read letters of commendation. The
azan
was supposed to be an act of transcendence so immense that afterwards not only would no one doubt my potency as a Muslim leader, but I, Amir ul Islam, would become a legend among America’s Muslims. Maybe the news would reach Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and in Arabic and Urdu Muslim journalists would write that a young leader in Atlanta, the president of his local MSA, had managed to hold one of the first-ever public calls to prayer in the West, and certainly the first one at an elite Christian university.

Yet as the tones of the
azan
rang out, it wasn’t like that at all; it wasn’t as I’d imagined and hoped. A couple of people got emotional, true; a couple of people smiled; a couple of people even thanked me. But no cameras. No organizations. No commendations. No international celebrations. In a swirl of breeze and fall leaves, everyone disappeared.

I was left standing alone under the bell tower.

A
lmost as soon as I had become president, I started feeling like I was losing the MSA. No one came to the Quran study sessions I held. No one was inspired by the sermons I gave. No one had sudden epiphanies about Islam in the middle of the night and called me to share them. I hadn’t gained esteem in anyone’s eyes; in fact, I was slipping.

I wanted to resign, but thoughts of my father’s
mannat
came rushing back. The covenant was inescapable. It was the overriding imperative of my life. It encompassed everything, overriding all opposition. It couldn’t be rejected; it couldn’t be modified; it couldn’t be foresworn. I was an implicit signatory to a contract that was inked in my blood, my history, and my future. I couldn’t let the MSA fail. I couldn’t let the community disintegrate. Even as a fake Muslim my allegiance to Islam had to be concrete.

The pressure I felt over both the MSA and the
mannat
, compounding the ordinary senior-year stress, kept building up. One afternoon I hurled my Islamic ring against the wall of my room, then rushed across campus and gave my necklace and bracelet away to girls in the student center. I tucked away the
thowb
. The phone rang repeatedly that day, but I ignored it. I wrapped a
kafiya
around my head and tried to sleep.

When the phone didn’t stop ringing, I was eventually forced to pick it up.

“It’s Sam,” came the voice. He was a West Coast organizer who contacted me from time to time, asking me if I’d read his latest e-mail compilation about what was happening in the Middle East.

“Do you need something?” I demanded gruffly, not wanting to chat.

“Ariel Sharon!” he said loudly, referring to the leader of Israel’s right-wing opposition. “He’s causing trouble in Jerusalem. Trying to incite violence!”

“Who?” I had only vaguely paid attention to the name in the news.

“A butcher,” said Sam. “An Israeli war criminal. Even the Israelis admit that he was responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon—attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in which as many as three thousand Muslims were killed. He walked into the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in the middle of the Friday prayers just to show Israeli muscle in one of our most holy places!”

Sam was still talking, but I was no longer listening.

The conflation of the word “massacre” and “Muslim” had caused me to think about something other than myself. The Muslim world flickered in my imagination. I began thinking of the genocide in Bosnia, with its mass graves and organized killings; of Chechnya, where the violence against Muslims had caused me to confront Wolf Blitzer when he came to my university to show his daughter around; of Iraq, where half a million children died under President Bill Clinton’s sanctions—deaths that his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, called acceptable; of Kashmir, where the Indians occupied the land and forcibly resettled Muslims; and of the Muslim Uighur people in China, who were being brutalized by the People’s Army.

Startled out of my funk, I realized that I had an obligation, as a future leader of Islam, to step up and say something, do something, organize something. God knew how many accolades could be earned in the process. I might even be able to make the MSA important again!

I quickly read up on the current Israeli aggression and wrote an article about it. I sent it to the campus newspaper, having signed it as
president of the Muslim Students Association. Announcing the affiliation was the most important thing.

Sam was pleasantly surprised by the interest I showed and made me one of his favorite points of contact. A few days later he called again, this time bearing news about Rami Jamal al-Durra, a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy who had been caught in cross-fire with his father and been killed. Sam sent pictures of the terrible scene, with the bloodied father clutching his boy in desperation. The powerful images evoked sympathy. Split into a time-lapse strip, they were ready for distribution to activists.

“Hold a vigil,” Sam said. “Invite everyone. Raise awareness about the killing of children.”

I looked at the six pictures for a long time. If I couldn’t bring the MSA together after this helpless child had given up his life in the service of Islam, then indeed I was the lowliest Muslim to ever set foot on earth. I had to make certain that I didn’t let Rami down. The rest of us, Rami’s people, had to find a way to make his death meaningful.

That Friday I dedicated a sermon to the plight of all Palestinians. Then, to specifically mourn Rami’s death, I organized an event outside the student center. Attendees read tragic poetry and held up candles in the waning evening light. The event had the lachrymose atmosphere of a wake. It was a funeral in absentia: at the end I read a eulogy called “I am Rami.” The aim of the eulogy was to evoke emotion, to elicit tears and make people suffer—to suffer as I was suffering under the
mannat
, suffering for the sake of Islam. With suffering we could become one with one another, a seething and pulsating and crying mass of sufferers. Only a crescendo of wails on behalf of suffering Muslims could ensure my continued relevance.

After my article the paper called me to ask about the so-called second
intifada
and I told the reporter that I thought suicide bombings by Palestinians couldn’t be defended, but neither was Israeli aggression justified. It made me feel honored to have my opinion sought.

As my voice spread around campus, pro-Israel students began writing scornful and angry responses via e-mail and in the university paper. One of the letters to the editor referred to the Palestinians as “savages.”

Sam found out about it even before I did and called me immediately.

“That’s the language of dehumanization!” he thundered. “You can’t let
them
get away with this!”

Using my authority as president of the MSA, I blasted a mass e-mail to all the prominent student activists, ethnic groups, and school officials, complaining about the offensive word. The e-mail spread all over campus, and there were many fierce and angry responses aimed toward me.

Suddenly something surprising happened: the members of the MSA, seeing their leader under attack, started coming out of nooks and crannies and extended their support. Not only that, but people who had never attended an event before—and in fact had never shown much interest in Islam—were suddenly not just aware of the MSA but looking upon it fondly. I had put “us” on the map.

“Are you the president of the MSA?” an attractive, dark-haired Latina asked me in the student center.

“Why?” I asked cautiously.

“Did you write that e-mail about the dehumanization of Palestinians?”

“Yes.”

“That was good of you,” she said, smiling. “Are you guys planning any events in the near future?”

“If you give me your e-mail address, I’ll add you to my list,” I replied, thinking that I could use that information to ask her out.

I soon discovered that it wasn’t just at the local level that I was becoming well known. Sam had shared my words with other activists all across the country, and soon they began writing me messages of support and encouragement.

Their attention—the sort of attention I didn’t receive for making the public
azan
, the sort of attention that had been denied to me among the believers in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan—confirmed to me that the path of resistance I had taken, this path of noise and agitation and ruckus—all of which was packaged in the word “justice”—was the path Amir ul Islam should’ve been on his entire life. I asked myself why I hadn’t stood up for Palestine before. Wasn’t it the case that many of the childhood heroes I had—Muhammad and the Caliph Umar and
Salahuddin—were remembered because they had some role to play in Palestine? If I wanted one day to be considered by historians as someone who deserved to be mentioned within the annals of Islamic history, I too had to stand for Palestine.

I decided to take the political activism one step further.

“My dear brothers and sisters,” I said, standing up after the Friday prayer. “I realize that we’re not in Ramadan, the month of fasting, but if you’ve been hearing the news from
Falasteen
, you know that our brothers and sisters are in dire straits. They have to face checkpoints and deal with Israeli settlers, and they’re denied basic human rights like home ownership. To show our solidarity, our spiritual unity, with our brothers and sisters, we’re going to observe a day of fasting. If you’d like to participate, please fill out the sheet being passed around. We’ll meet at the café tomorrow morning at four a.m. to share a communal meal before the fast begins and to pass out white armbands that we’ll wear for solidarity.”

The congregants looked uncertain. They had never before heard of anyone utilizing fasting as a form of defiance—but when I got back the sheet I noticed that many of the MSA members who hadn’t participated in activities before had signed up to join in the fast.

At the appointed hour, lots of people came to the café. Some had woken up specifically to get together and eat. Others had simply packed up their books in the middle of an all-nighter at the library and come to see what was up. Some came to support Palestine. Some came for the free food. Some came for the white armbands. Some came out of a sense of obligation or shame. Others came because of the novelty of it all. In the end, however, they came to stand around and listen to me speak.

I was the center of the spoke.

A
s tensions between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students mounted over the passing weeks, various religious figures on campus became concerned. One of these was Rabbi Aaron.

After I was elected president of the MSA, he was one of the first people with whom I became acquainted. Since then, we ran into one
another routinely at interfaith meetings. He had a position of well-established authority, and I wanted to emulate him. Often I would take walks with him and watch the way he invited reluctant Jewish students to
shabbos
. He had mastered the art of persuading impressionable youth. As I listened to the rabbi, I was spurred to learn more about Judaism, turning at his suggestion to the works of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas.

Now Rabbi Aaron was troubled by my use of my position as a religious leader to advance a political agenda. He took me aside in the chapel where we met weekly and asked me about my beef with Israel.

I felt like I’d been caught red-handed. I couldn’t admit to him that my pro-Palestine stance wasn’t based on facts (except those that Sam fed to me) or even principle. I couldn’t enunciate a reasonable, justifiable position, so I hid behind abstraction.

“There’s a war, Rabbi. War is a state of nature. Hobbes says that in a state of nature peace can be achieved only if the more powerful put down their weapons first. Israel is the powerful party in its relationship with the Palestinians. Therefore, Israel must put down its arms. Then we will have peace. So to answer your question: I just want peace.”

Rabbi Aaron opened his mouth and replied. I could see his lips moving, but I didn’t let myself hear a thing. I was afraid that if I started talking things out with him, I’d start considering the alternative opinion—and that would make me less inclined to side with the Palestinians as zealously as I now felt I needed to. I had to remain closed to counterargument. I had to practice what Nietzsche, the grandfather of postmodernism, called the “will to stupidity.”

As the rabbi spoke, I imagined putting my fingers in my ears and saying, “La la la la la la la la la la.”

A
few days later I heard about a pro-Palestine demonstration that was being organized by the local Arab and Muslim communities. It was scheduled after Friday prayer and was to be held in front of the CNN building in order to highlight media inattention to the plight of the Palestinians.

The rally was loud and full of young Arabs. They had with them all the items necessary for a good protest: Palestinian flags that they wore as capes;
kafiya
s in various colors and patterns; banners that could be carried by one or two people; and girls in
hijab
walking around forming human chains. When cars passed by, the protestors ran into the street. The atmosphere made me feel giddy. I belted out Arabic slogans, yelling them despite not knowing their exact meaning.

Various Arab guys heard me and asked me where I was from. When I replied that I was from Pakistan, they looked at each other in surprise and insisted that I had to be an Arab.

“You must be a Saudi!” one exclaimed.

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve got so much passion for Palestine!”

The praise gave me such a sense of honor that I couldn’t contain myself. There was nothing better, as a Muslim leader, than to be recognized as an Arab; after all, Muhammad, the preeminent Muslim leader, had been an Arab, and Islam had emerged from the land of the Arabs. Furthermore, I had been promised to Islam in the land of the Arabs. If Arabs were now recognizing me for being one of them, then surely I had to be on the right path.

I traded my bland black-and-white
kafiya
with a young boy who had one in the Palestinian colors of green, black, and red. I wrapped it around my head and ran around screaming, “No justice! No peace!” I wanted to be heard through the thick walls of power that CNN represented. I wanted union with the weak and the voiceless of the world.

I wanted Wolf Blitzer to do a story about me.