Boys. A sticky topic for all Arab fathers.
I was allowed to be friends with the amus’ sons. They were practically my cousins. Our friendships were platonic. Even as we grew older and approached our teenage years, we knew that some of the more daring Egyptian boys and girls who Baba said had, “gone off the right track” were dating, but they dated people outside the Egyptian community. The friendships of the boys and girls within our close-knit community remained innocent.
Baba had not waited for me to become a teenager to have ‘the talk’ about dating. He drilled it into me from the age of eight.
“Boyfriends are haram,” he would repeat.
Haram and halal—what is forbidden and what is allowed in Islam. They were the two most well-used words within Baba’s vocabulary. If a kissing scene came on the television, we had to change the channel straight away.
If we were at Regent’s Park with Baba and saw a couple rolling about on the grass we were automatically told, “Look the other way, they are haram. If you look, your eyeballs will testify against you on the Day of Judgement.”
I had strict instructions for high school. I was allowed to have male friends as long as they didn’t become boyfriends. Any raging pubescent hormones were to be suppressed until I was old enough to get married. According to Baba that would not be until he saw my university degree in my hand. That was the Egyptian way. You get your degree and then you get married. Whether as a woman you actually got a job and use that degree would be the decision of your husband.
To be honest there weren’t any boys at school that I fancied anyway. They were mostly Christian and as a Muslim I already knew that even if I had taken a liking to any of them, it would be a waste of time. Muslim women aren’t allowed to marry a non-Muslim man unless he converts to Islam first.
*
Baba controlled everything. What we read, listened to and watched. Arabic music was allowed. English music was not. When Top of the Pops came on, we had to change channels. His reason was that Arabic songs were innocent, while English songs were filthy, and that the obscenities in English music made it haram.
At school, my friends would be singing the latest tunes during break time, and I couldn’t join in their sing-a-long because I had no idea what they were singing! I didn’t know the latest Spice Girls or Britney Spears tracks.
As I entered my teenage years, I started to question Baba about his music ban.
“Haram is haram,” Baba would say. “The words in the songs are from the devil. They will have a bad effect on your soul. If you do not stop complaining I will forbid Arabic music too.”
So, like any normal teenager’s reaction to their parents forbidding something, I began to rebel.
My friends would make copies of their cassette tapes and give them to me. I hid the tapes in a blue plastic storage box under school textbooks in my room. I took them out and listened to them on my Walkman with my headphones plugged in.
Since I was allowed to listen to Arabic music I never thought Baba would doubt that I was listening to anything else. But on a Sunday afternoon, as I sat on my bed with my earphones plugged in, Baba marched in to my room, yanked my earphones out of my ears and put an earphone to his ear. I had been listening to Oops I Did It Again by Britney Spears
“Are there more tapes?” Baba asked and I lied and shook my head.
I thought I had fooled him but later that evening, while I was having a bath, he raided my personal belongings, including the blue plastic box, and confiscated my cassettes.
As soon as I had the opportunity, I complained to Mum about it.
“Can’t you try and convince him?” I pleaded. “Songs are just words; they don’t have any effect on me.”
“I can try but I can’t promise anything,” Mum said. “You know I’m rubbish at persuading him to do anything.”
Whether she had or hadn’t talked to him, the rules didn’t change. So I found other ways to listen to music.
Baba had taken away all my tapes, but not my Walkman, which had the radio. So I started listening to Kiss FM instead, which opened up a whole world of artists and genres. I started off liking the mainstream artists and girl bands of the day: Pink, Mis-Teeq and Destiny’s Child. Then I developed a liking for rock music. Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Calling and Linkin Park were my favourite bands.
The battle to listen to English music continued until I finally won at age fourteen.
My best friend at school, Faima, asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her that I wanted The Calling’s album.
“Is that a good idea?” she asked nervously. “Seeing as your dad doesn’t like you listening to English music.”
“Well, it will be a test of how heartless my dad can be. If he isn’t heartless, he will allow me to keep my birthday present,” I said defiantly.
Turns out that Baba was not as heartless as I thought or maybe he had just had enough and caved in. The Calling’s first album, Wherever You Will Go, was my first official item of music.
Now that I was allowed to listen to English music, my brother Ahmed started to dabble in it too. We would put our pocket money together, walk to HMV on our local high street on a Sunday afternoon and buy CDs. We explored different artists together.
Ahmed, who was only eleven, was developing a strong liking for rap and grime. He was obsessed with Eminem and So Solid Crew.
We still weren’t allowed to play music out loud at home, but we were allowed to listen to it with our headphones plugged in, which Ahmed and I agreed was a good compromise.
*
There were happy memories too. Although Baba was strict and not at home a lot of the time, he would spend Sundays with us. The day would start with him cooking up a big Egyptian breakfast: fried eggs with lots of black pepper and salty cured meat called basturma, Egyptian falafel called tamayya, and fool, which is mashed fava beans mixed with tahini.
We would then get washed and changed and he would take us out. Usually it was for a trip to Regent’s Park followed by an ice cream and a stroll along Edgware Road.
While we were at Primary School, Baba went back to university part-time to study for his Master’s degree and changed career paths to publishing and media. He left his job as a salesman and joined the world of Arabic newspapers, many of which had offices in London.
Egyptian men are proud. Having a degree in petroleum engineering and a job as a salesman hadn’t gone down well with him, but back then it was the best job he could find as a new immigrant. Now, as an editor in a highly-regarded, international Arabic newspaper, he could be a ‘somebody.’
Mum continued to be a housewife. She hadn’t gone to university and she believed that by giving all her time and undivided attention to her husband and children she was being a good Muslim woman.
I had different aspirations for myself. I was the top student every year during Primary School, I continued to be a teacher’s pet and I passed my 11+ exam. From there I got into a Grammar School. I was determined that I would be one of these modern Muslim women who would get married but have a career too.
I could be an architect, a scientist, a teacher—my chosen career changed each year. I would go to SOAS, Imperial College or Goldsmith’s like all the amus’ older sons and daughters.
Baba’s new job meant more money and more money meant Baba’s dream could finally come true. He bought a respectable three-bedroom house in North West London. Our idyllic British-Egyptian family was complete—Mum, Baba, four children, a house with respectable neighbours and lots of amus living nearby.