Averroes’ Daughter
I was born and raised in Pakistan. My parents come from vastly different backgrounds. My mother is the daughter of a land-owning British military spy or what the British would call the ‘landed gentry’. My grandfather and his siblings owned a few middle-sized villages in the regions of northern Punjab and central Pakistan. It is surrounded by beautiful, charming hillsides, plateaus and salt-range valleys. This region was first occupied by Mongols and then by the Turks. When the British arrived, these people were racially white and culturally Muslim for centuries. Islam was and is the single most important factor in this region. These were physically strong people they ate a lot of meat and owned private militias. There were less than 1% conversions to Christianity in this region. They refused to speak English and dress like the British, nevertheless, the British were able to recruit local men by force but they failed to permeate them culturally. Some families, like my grandfathers’ were slightly more educated. They believed education was mandatory for every Muslim and in that Prophetic spirit, they learnt to speak English and eventually softened their attitude towards the British but their loyalties remained uncontested. Even today, when my mother’s oldest brother recounts stories of my grandfather’s dual sense of loyalty, he talks about a time when my grandfather was deployed to go to Kabul as an undercover agent for the British, upon his return he predicted, as my uncle recalls, that the British will never be able to rule our brothers in Afghanistan. He was not wrong. The British spent a lot of time and resources trying to win the loyalty of local people in this region but they failed and their mission work was reduced to education and health-care.
My grandfather had seven sons and three daughters from my grandmother, and had one son and three daughters from his first marriage. I never met the first wife of my grandfather but her children and her children’s children are an important part of our family. My grandmother died at the age of 98 a few years ago. It is common in land-owning families for the elder two sons to remain unemployed and look after the lands, and the younger sons either join the military or legal services. My uncles followed the same patterns. However, women education is least important in these families. Some like my mother, who insisted on receiving a college education, are allowed to finish their undergraduate degree but that’s the most one could aspire. Nowadays, my uncles could easily fit into a Chekov play. Daily gatherings, meaningless discussions on politics and religion, which slowly move into their own property disputes so on and so forth. They romanticize the return of the Ottoman Empire and America’s eventual downfall. Neither the Ottomans have heard their plea, and nor the Americans have been scared enough to leave them alone. Furthermore, it is also surprising how generation after generation their backward mindset towards women has not changed. I sometimes attribute my own chronic single-hood and celibacy to the misogyny and oppression I saw in my mother’s family. My father was our savior.
My father comes from an industrial city in Pakistan, called Faisalabad, previously known as Lyallpur: an equivalent of modern-day Birmingham or Manchester. Home to wealthy and uncultured business-owning families or working class that serves these families; Faisalabad is an open dumpster surrounded by industrial filth and waste. My grandfather was born in a small village in India, close to the border of Faisalabad, his grand-father converted to Islam from Hinduism. My grandfather had a middle-school diploma and knew how to read the Quran. Islam was a fairly new cultural phenomena and racially and ethnically my grandfather aligned more with Hindu families than traditional Muslims. They chose to be merchants, accountants or civil-servants. They detested guns and any association with the military. My grandfather migrated to Pakistan on 14 August 1947, the largest migration in human history which resulted in the establishment of two different countries; Pakistan and India. Muslims living in Hindu majority region were asked to move to Muslim majority Pakistan and vice-versa. Millions of people moved in both directions, carrying with them the little they could. Violence erupted on both sides and thousands were killed and injured. My father was two years old. My grandmother always used to say, my father saved the whole family. According to my grandmother, when a Hindu mob attacked my grandfather, he lied to save themselves and used my father’s circumcision as a prove of being non-Muslim. They were spared!
They arrived in Pakistan amidst extreme poverty and fear. For decades, as my father tells us, sometimes my grandfather would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming that the Hindus are coming back to get our property. My father’s childhood was grim, he was the fourth son in the line of twelve children; six sisters and six brothers. My grandmother although an illiterate woman, taught them the value of time and punctuality. She taught them to pray to God in a simple language for everything. This is the generation that made Pakistan. They were big people. The country was new and a deep desire to fulfill the promise of the founding father, the great Mr. Jinnah, was widely felt. My grandfather found a job in the Pakistan Irrigation, as a clerk. Known for his honesty, he considered even bringing a pencil from work as a theft against the state. He smoked hookah all his life. Only said his morning prayers, and because he could not pray in Arabic he spoke to God in Urdu. Never fasted a day in his life but performed his religious duty through his upright and unblemished character. My grandparents made sure all their children received proper education and were excellent housekeepers. So, it was not uncommon for me to see my father and my uncles cooking and doing housework along with their sisters and wives. Tradition was important but being righteous and progressive was even more important. My father taught us always to live a life free from any tradition or convention which defied our conscience. For instance, he finds weddings to be wasteful so he refuses to go to any and was extremely unhappy arranging my sisters’ and brother’s weddings.
“As a result of my upbringing, I never aspired to be a white woman, instead I saw myself as the daughter of Averroes: a woman from the 12th century Andalusia, but positioned in a new world order.”
Overall, my father represented the urban-mercantile Pakistan and my mother the land-owning provincial. How they met is a story for another day. He is a small structured man, who felt his girls were always unsafe in an extremely patriarchal society. When we were young, my father introduced us to the love of learning and education. He instilled in us a desire and hunger to change our lives through it. Unlike my uncles from my mother’s side, my father talked about America’s contribution to humanity through production of knowledge, especially emphasizing the remarkable Jewish population in America. At the same time, we were given a complete education in Islamic history and Quran. My father taught us religion in two ways, first he did not shy away from discussing the
historical position of Muslims and second, he also taught us the progressive elements of Islam. My father is a renowned scholar of Islamic Finance and very well read on the history of Islam, along side his outward career as a very senior auditor with the United Nations. When my father donated his books to the Islamic University in Malaysia, three large carry vans came to our house in Islamabad to collect hundreds of books which my father owned. He used to say, Muslims have lost their political power and moment. Our people, he would refer to Muslims, have no idea how to respond to Western Modernity. It is my father’s reformative spirit, which has inspired my practice as a Muslim and as a researcher. Moreover, he also showed us the real progressive elements of Islam. Islam gave tremendous power to women. He used to say, Muslim women never bow down to the desire of any man ever, they are masters of their own destiny. He gave us the confidence to be forth-coming and straight-forward with men. This has led to me form extremely meaningful and purposeful friendships with men across different cultures.
He sang Persian poetry from 14th century, and created an atmosphere of Islamic high-culture in our house but also forbade us to romanticize it, so that we do not create an unnecessary hatred for the West. The West, as my father would say, is now an inevitable force to reckon with, we have to learn and form adequate responses to its values, a response of tolerance and compassion but also learn from it. As a result of my upbringing, I never aspired to be a white woman, instead I saw myself as the daughter of Averroes: a woman from the 12th century Andalusia, but positioned in a new world order. A world where Muslims no longer held any power and western education was the only way possible to progress and freedom.
My father expected me to use my education and creative abilities to impact my own people and introduce reformative ideas in Muslim community. I have been using my work, my research and my friendships to talk about my faith and showcase the Islamic high-culture but the task is tremendously hard and arduous. Every country I have lived in, my identity is often a riddle to people around me. I am either seen as a colonial subject, trying to pass as white, running away from my own oppressive culture, or seen as a threat to white culture, taking from them their jobs, their men, their experiences and/or imposing my own values onto them. Sometimes it’s very hard to keep my head above the contemporary jargon, but I feel necessary to educate people to a see in me a new kind of Muslim, who is essentially connected to the older values and culture of Islam. Perhaps in this way, I would not only serve my people but also form connections with people from other backgrounds.
My mother who loves my father very much has never really seen much value in the project of education. My mother can turn any topic of discussion in this world, whether it is war, famine, death of a celebrity, my teaching etc, all to one subject which is: my marriage. Growing up, I hated the idea of marriage. I saw very little value in it and I always turned my nose up on people who got married. When I was young, I used to dream of only one thing: studying at Oxford but then I made it to Cambridge and found a godmother/mentor in Oxford. My cousin Hassan famously said to me, Maria, now you may end your life, just like the man who came back from the moon, since all you ever wanted has been achieved. How well he knows me! I believe, my mother’s greatness lies in her humility, she has shown us through her relationship with my father how sharing your life with another person can be a task even more difficult than just getting into Cambridge or Oxford. The very project of finding the right person and loving them for who they are, every single day is a project only saints can carry. She looked after my father’s health, his children, left him to write his books in the study, never felt small or reduced in his status, threw large and very successful dinner parties and took care of all the practical business in the house. If you asked my father which schools we went to, or what did we even study, he would not be able to tell you anything about any of us. He was the philosopher/father/king but never involved in the smaller matters of our lives.
Despite her cultural background, my father’s influence has transformed my mother’s thinking on women rights. I believe, she was naturally a force to reckon with but my father’s support empowered her even more. Subsequently, it was not my father but my mother who got my three sisters out of their initial unhappy and exploitative marriages. Her lack of tolerance towards oppressive men is not only remarkable but thoroughly endearing and hilarious. Her ability to stand up to authority and put her foot down, or simply joke with men and treat them as little boys is rare and unique for a woman her age and background. You can say, she has the energy of a military commander and a soul of a saint.
But my mother expects a son-in-law from me and it’s an on-going dialogue. The demand is over bearing and at times frustrating. Having moved three different continents and four countries, I have somehow never found marriage through my mostly distant romantic connections or fantasies. I have no idea why that is so, but somehow that’s been my lot. But when I look at myself, I only see a slew of amazing people who came into my life. From my golfer friend in Lahore, to the Jewish Don Juan in Berlin or the wise Egyptian tycoon in England. All these men provided an opportunity for me to grow and learn something about myself. Failed, my mother would say, you have failed and, in many ways, I have also failed in the eyes of my Western friends. I am neither here nor there. For instance, in Berlin, I would join my friends for clubbing; dance all night with strangers, never drink alcohol but would return to my dorm room just in time for the early morning Fajr prayers around 6 am. Many times, I would go and offer my prayers in my friend’s rooms, one of them being a Thai boy, Pirachula ( now an assistant professor of philosophy in Toronto). He would be diligently working on his German grammar quietly at his table, I would offer my prayers in the corner of his room and sometimes even take a nap in his bed. For a long time, there was gossip about me and Pirachula, I would only chuckle at that. In my mind, I saw and see myself as Averroes’ daughter, I relished my friends and life around me but kept my connection with God. I have never seen a conflict between the two worlds.
“At work, I sit in a room where almost everyone comes from a different cultural background. The only thing which brings us together is pedagogy and coffee.”
With all this cultural baggage, I have started my journey in New York, one of the hardest places in the world to survive with some of the most talented and affluent people. I feel overwhelmed, lost and unseen. It is hard being an immigrant: someone on the receiving side of any culture. Muslims were once big people and they ruled the world. If I was born in 12th century Andalusia or India, music and sherbet would flow through my father’s courtyard. We would look charitably at local non-Muslim populations and try to include them in our cultural and educational advancements. Now, it has all been lost and the grief of that loss is felt in every Muslim’s heart. Many move to the West, yet choose to remain close to their community. I have dared to step out and connect with people outside of my culture but have found it difficult in maintaining the respect of my peers. Our empire is gone, but our stature has not reduced. It was once fashionable to be a Muslim. I firmly believe, that any cultural practice and moral value, if it’s dictated by the current Empire becomes an imperative. Soon another Empire will take over and several values which the West so dearly holds will become obsolete and backward. My father used to say, the glory of Islam will never come back now, we have to serve the humanity and God as best as we can. I have listened to my father and humbled myself, but it is painful and exhausting at times to be an outsider.
In New York we are all outsiders. At work, I sit in a room where almost everyone comes from a different cultural background. The only thing which brings us together is pedagogy and coffee. There is absolutely no overlap of value systems, we may assume we follow the same rules and laws but internally our lives are run by deep set patterns carved in our early childhood- shaped by people who no longer exist. I often think of the stories I would like to tell my children- my journey so complicated and yet so rich. I carry with me just like all of us in our school, hundreds of years of collective wisdom and memory. I wonder, as parents, academics, and artists, how can we teach our students and children to honor the different cultural, ethnic threads inside them so they can see themselves as a whole?
