Unlikely Saviours

"And and and if you recite the kalimah ."

You will no longer have to go to hell.

You'll go to heaven .You know , with us."

This last statement is made with solemn conviction.

Somaya smiles beatifically. Beaming gummy seven year old piety through multicolored braces.

She has come to save the white heathen from her path of wayward sin and lead her blinking into the light .

I look at my feet. Now would be a good time for an earthquake .

Or anything really.

A sinkhole. A Hurricane.

But God is clearly otherwise occupied or maybe he's on team Somaya.

She is on a mission, today she is His anointed. The chosen one.

"...You can't drink though or wear shorts, because legs are haraam."

I wish I hadn't come.

I wish I'd never met Somaya.

I wish that my mother hadn't sent Somaya out to play with us and I really really wish I hadn't introduced her to Linda.

Linda regards Somaya impassively.

"So I'm gonna go to hell?"

"Yes. With your entire family . You're all kaafir see,"

Linda considers this. "And If I say..that... ye know, what you just said.That thing. I won't go there?"

"That and no shorts or alcohol , oh and

pork.You can't eat pork.Its haraam."

"And boys. They're haraam as well ."

Somaya counts through the summarized list of filthy western vices handed down by devout desi parents to their susceptible offspring.

Linda points at Alan.

Alan is Linda's best friend, second only to football and baby spice on her list of favorite things.

"Is he kah-fir ?"

Somaya nods with what I think is unecessary enthusiasm ."Yes, definitely."

"And pork is haha-ram?"

Another Nod.

"And he's ha-ha ram too?"

Linda laughs.

Alan is visibly offended. "What's a ha-ha ram. And why am I it?"

"HA-raam ,"the pint size proselytizer enunciates.

"It means FOR-BID-DEN. "

" Ah, so we can't eat him? S'pose that makes sense. Why are boys only ha-ram.D'yer folks eat the wimmin."

Linda is suddenly interrogative.

Somaya flounders. At seven she's not quite sure why boys are haraam.But they are, of this, she is certain.

She is determined to make this work. This might just be the day after all.

Her very first convert.

She improvises desperately.

"Girls are haraam for boys too.It means YOU can't eat him and HE can't eat you. THAT'S fair , right."

Satisfied with the undeniable egalitarianism of her statement .The gums and braces make a triumphant reappearance.

That makes sense, of a sort...I suppose.

I have never up until this point given any thought to the possibility of being eaten or the supposed haraamness of boys.

I consider Alan.Would I be willing to endanger my immortal soul in order to eat him.

Alan is congenitally scruffy. And always smells of eggs, bacon and unidentifiable but unpleasant things. I don't think acting on this particular injunction will require any sacrifice on my part.

"Me da said yer folks don't treat wimmin right."

Lindas tone is now edging on hostile.

The summary banishment of her entire familial unit to the nethermost pits of hell by Somaya may have been a mistake.

"Yer probably eatin all the wimmin."

I knew bringing Somaya out was a mistake.

Linda now suspects us of a particularly misogynistic form of cannibalism.

Since God has not obliged by delivering a convenient natural disaster to our corner of suburbia this evening.

I decide to practice damage limitation and end the rendezvous before Somaya decides that an infidel not open to conversion is fair play to wage holy war upon.

Fast forward twenty something years to a house in karachi.

..."and then she spent the next eight years completely paralyzed and bedbound because she didn't go on seh rouza when she had the chance ."

A certain ominous satisfaction imbues that last line.

I nod in humble acquiescence.

She looks at me suspiciously. My approval and sincerity are both suspect.

I'm visiting a jamaat of tableeghi ladies near our home.

It's something I do on occasion. Hoping against hope that some of the cast iron certainty that these women wear like armour will rub off on me.

The account of the woman who spent eight years paralyzed subsequent to her refusal to join their cause is a cautionary tale trotted out for my benefit, after half an hour of consistent but polite refusal to go in a jamaat on my part.

The honest reply would have been.

"I do not want to go. Its hot.I am incapable of tolerating other people in my personal space for more than two hours at a time ,and much like Cinderellas makeover my public appearances have a rapidly diminishing half life .Towards the end of which I revert to a melting pumpkin.

Besides I'm essentially a 3 year old in a 33 year old body with notoriously finicky eating habits and I will miss my bed".

That is the honest answer.

But that is not an acceptable answer because I'm a wuss and I know they mean well . So I smile and I say InshAllah.

Half an hour of evasive InshAllah's later my devotion to the cause is being questioned . Well meaning or not I now wish I'd replied with a more direct answer.

I don't doubt the sincerity that these women have. It takes belief to leave the comfort of ones home and go out and preach to people who do not want to listen.

I do on occasion question the direction in which their sincerity is channeled and I now understand how Linda might have felt being strong armed into salvation by an accusatory and judgmental savior.

Despite the uncomfortable proximity of other people and their often unwelcome opinions .I will probably go in a jamaat at some point in the future .

Converting the heathen may not be on my immediate agenda.

I doubt I will ever be a Somaya.

But it does serve as a spiritual retreat of sorts.

Also excuse any inadvertent innuendo from our younger selves. PS. I quite like tableeghis. I find their wholehearted sincerity gratifyingly uncomplicated.