By Syiqa Suhaimy
"Love in a Headscarf" by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is a memoir about the writer's search for the One to be her husband. The author is a British writer of East African and South Asian origin. She grew up in North London and made her career as a writer and commentator for many channels and magazines, including The BBC, The Times, and The Guardian. Her first book, "Love in a Headscarf," won the Muslim Writers Award in 2009.
Making an introduction in her first book highlights the debate over what constitutes "love." Love is different in every culture and in every book. Women grow up reading and believing in fairytales, hoping to find their own prince charming, and so did Shelina. "Love in a Headscarf" defines her as a representative of all women who hope to find someone who has ‘the click’ and turns out to be the one with whom she can share her whole life journey of finding true love from the Divine. As she stated in the novel, families are the foundation of Asian identity. Everything you do, including marriage, must be considered by the rest of the family. The central theme of this book is marriage, and Shelina's quest to find the one has led her to learn more about Islam and how being true to her religion means challenging the traditions.
Shelina begins her story by describing an arranged marriage in her first chapter, "The First Time." In this chapter, Shelina had to meet with a potential suitor named Ali, and all of these meetings of suitors were arranged by matchmakers whom Shelina referred to as "The Buxom Aunties." These aunties are what made arranged marriage possible, and it has been going on for generations. There are various aspects of arranged marriage that Shelina believes are unfair to women. Women, for example, must be completely prepared before the meeting, but men must simply show up, even if they do not want to. Her aversion to double standards belies her opinion that arranged marriages are ultimately the best option since they follow Islamic principles in spirit but not in detail. As a result, Shelina did not fiercely resist her culture, but she desired to elevate the connection with her faith rather than mindlessly following tradition.
The first step she took was to challenge the Buxom Aunties by declaring her ambition to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. She told the story of Khadijah, who proposed to the Prophet and whose existence as a woman 600 years ago was not restricted to her home. She owned businesses that she entrusted to her husband, the Prophet, to manage. Khadijah was likewise resolved to look after her husband when he meditated at the ancient Cave of Hira. Shelina exposed the discrepancies between culture and Islam by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro by herself, despite the Aunties' warnings that it was not a very ladylike thing to do and that men would not be interested.
Despite the risk of Shelina standing up for her religion, the aunties were still friendly and offered her numerous meetings with potential suitors. She went through many meetings in which she met a variety of insolent, awful, and disastrous types of men. Those men may not be as rude as other people think, but they just are not the right match for her. Throughout her journey to find the One, Shelina realised that her quest for love from a companion needed to be intertwined with her quest for love with the Divine rather than done separately. Her goal is to find someone with whom she can share the journey of discovering true love from the Divine together. Towards the end of the novel, she realises that she is fully capable of embarking on the journey herself. Islam is about finding a companion to complete half of your deen while moving forward to improve yourself as a person.
After myriad meetings with potential suitors, Shelina finally found her perfect companion, but interestingly, without a matchmaker. She found her Mr. Right at the end of the novel, unexpectedly, in a charity organisation. Indeed, her journey had taught her that love comes in many ways and to have love that is stable and comfortable is really vital than to have the adrenaline-rush type of love. In searching for the love of a companion, we must also search for the love of the Divine, because everything that exists comes from Him, and from Him we receive everything, including love.
In Chapter 4, the author depicts the double standard women had to endure throughout the journey of finding the one to be married. Arranged marriage is a process that connects all kinds of people: the parents, the mother-in-law, the Buxom Aunties, and men. Men were frequently excluded from in-depth discussions; men only needed to have been raised in good families and have a good occupation. However, a distinct conversation took place with women, and a very detailed list of qualities is required to be a nice, suitable potential wife. For example, the girl should be shorter than the man, younger, fairer, and have a nice attitude. And with a nice attitude, she must know her place as a wife, she could never be too educated or too independent. The double standards between men and women had a great impact as Shelina made up her decision to be the change to that ludicrous injustice.
In her meetings with suitors, Shelina finds most men do not really put such effort into the whole arranged marriage process. The first meeting had already given her a number of reasons not to continue the process, but she had a culture to listen to, and it's been proven for generations. Her culture taught us that we must pursue marriage at all costs and not let our instincts lead us astray. However, being a human with the gift of fitrah had opened her eyes to see that Islam let her to trust those instincts. Fitrah is the inner conscience of one’s mind and soul, the natural instinct by which we innately know what is right and what is wrong. Shelina’s culture had given her less respect for herself by letting her give chances to insensible men, but her religion offers her options and respect for herself. This chapter has opened our eyes to slowly reflect on our culture to see if there are any discrepancies that we can change to become better Muslims.
The highlight of this chapter is her realisation of the significance of that elusive spark; it is not vital and should never be the first priority on the road to seeking love. The writer’s portrayal of Karim had gotten her to experience "magic" between them and truly want the meeting to work, but Karim's lack of empathy demonstrates how manners and honesty should come first. The lack of empathy in someone's traits reflects their entire personality, and 'spark' means nothing if the other party does not respect you. "[T]he love we define as 'that sensation' is not a comprehension of Love's timeless and universal truth. That shallow emotion of desire is as distant from Divine Love as one can go ", (Janmohamed 16).
Moreover, after the 9/11 attack, Muslims were a hot topic to discuss among non-Muslims; the Quran became a hot seller to gain more understanding of what Islam is; and the most blatant recognition of a Muslim is the headscarf. In chapter 6 (Semiotic Headscarf), the author discusses her own experiences as a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf and her feelings of terror for doing so. The vital aspect she reflected on is how hijab is regarded as oppressive and Muslim women are actually forced to wear it. A slew of questions about the headscarf rang in her ears.
She argues that Islam teaches its believers to be modest in every conceivable way, which includes clothing. She also stresses that Muslims sometimes get it wrong about being modest. Wearing a headscarf is only one of the ways to be modest, but Islam teaches us to incorporate modesty in every way possible. The part where Muslims had to suffer consequences for the 9/11 attack as terrorists happened briefly as the author wanted to draw connections to the headscarf.
The author herself produces a list of questions and answers them through logical reasoning. For example, men do not have to wear a headscarf like women do, and even Muslims do have questions about this at some point in their lives; hence, the author highlights how men love to question how her hair looks. Unconsciously, this gave us the answer because the way women’s hair looks completes the imagery of how men would categorise a woman, and this is the exact reason why women should cover their hair. Women should dress modestly so that they are respected for who they are rather than what they look like. Indeed, Islam has done nothing but promote peace, and every belief has its own perfect reason. Her most notable argument can be seen in her statement of the possibility that this core idea of seeing a person for who they really are could simply end all racism and gender inequality once and for all.
She gave a proper introduction to what arranged marriage is to the readers who have never experienced it. Albeit her opposition towards the process of this arranged marriage, she does agree to some parts of it that align with her faith in Islam. The strength of this story comes from the writer’s explanation of Islam and how beautiful Islam is as a peaceful religion that has done nothing except what is best for all of its believers. The decent exposure to the religion of Islam is strongly depicted in details to give a clear background. For example, by meticulously explaining Hajj to her readers when she wanted to mention the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Muslims to perform Hajj. Besides, Janmohamed also wrote a beautiful explanation about the headscarf: the reason Islam has obligated women to wear it, why Muslim women want to wear it, and the connection between Islam and the headscarf.
The balance could be more stressed when the writer wanted to talk about women's independence. Choices are within the hands of every woman to decide how she wants to live her life. The author could go into greater detail about freedom of choice and how it is acceptable for women to be stay-at-home mothers if that is what they truly want to do. The opposition to the "traditional wife" should become a constructive elaboration for people who do not understand the reason why women are the ones to suffer. Consequently, a thorough explanation of women’s independence to choose needs to be included as a balance towards Islam and its rights for women.
In future editions, the author may want to elaborate on her next journey of finding true love from Allah, which she shared with her companion, as there will always be something to learn about Islam through a spiritual journey. Besides, a continuation of setting Islam as a foundation, but this time in marriage, can be a response to all the questions the writer had when she was single. For example, the way Allah has created each human being as a pair and how they complete each other. Marriage requires effort and stability; as the author claims in this book, the explanation for stability in a relationship may become clearer to readers through personal experience. Thus, the suggestion will unconsciously give a whole new perspective to those men and women who are still struggling to find a life companion. As Islam should be the pillar of every relationship, future editions could give an explanation of the importance of defending Islamic principles as the core of life.
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