6

The first time I heard about jihad, something within me soared. Yes, I thought. This is the way I must live.

I was at home attending a daras when the mullah shared a simple story.

“After Uthman embraced Islam, he married the Prophet’s second daughter and later became the third caliph of Islam. This cost him dearly. His relatives were enraged, and they tortured him, leaving Uthman no choice but to leave behind his wealth and flee the land. Years passed, and Uthman regained his former prosperity. But instead of hoarding his riches in the anticipation of future troubles, he gave generously. More than once, he spent a great portion of his resources on the welfare of Muslims, and when some poor refugees approached him and asked for help, he gave away most of the wheat from his stores, although merchants were willing to pay great sums for the grain. When asked why he had done this, Uthman replied, ‘I will get a greater reward from Allah.’ In time he came to be known as Al Ghani, which means ‘generous.’ We are all called to take up the jihad against poverty. Allah himself smiles on those who do.”

Something moved within me when I heard his words. I had known about Uthman Al Ghani all my life, and I’d seen generosity on display in my father’s actions. But somehow I had never thought of poverty as something we Muslims had to struggle against. I knew generosity was good, but until that moment, I had not realized just how important it was. If I embraced generosity with the same passion as Uthman Al Ghani, I believed that I, too, might receive a great reward in heaven.

I wasted no time. I began by giving all my pocket money to local widows and orphans, and after a few weeks of doing that, I was hungry for more. I decided to take the expensive gold jewelry my father had bought me and sell every last piece of it. Every rupee went to a local widow.

My parents were proud, but their joy had a limited effect on me. While their blessing was a good thing here on earth, what I really wanted was the assurance that my future in heaven was secure. My mother’s smile and my father’s stiff nod of approval were no match for the fear within me.

†

Though our street was full of upper middle-class families like mine, the neighborhood was diverse. I only had to walk a few blocks to find beggars and street sweepers, and there was a knot of children from poor backgrounds who spent their days playing in the streets when they weren’t working at home. Many of these children were orphans, and all of them were too poor to pay the registration fee and buy the notebooks and pencils required to go to school.

Most people ignored these children. But I could not. The more time I spent with them, the more pity I felt for them. I had known them all by name for years, ever since I joined the state school and fought my way through a mountain of homework every day. I would sit outside on the flat roof of our home with an open book on my lap when I wanted a break. The children would stand beside me, asking what I was reading and pointing out any letters they recognized.

When my mother heard about my interactions with these children, she told me that it reminded her of her own childhood. She had wanted to go to school, but her father refused. So every day when her brothers returned home with their books and sat down to study, she would sit beside them, pestering them with questions. She did not stop until she learned to read.

This gave me an idea. I thought about asking my father for assistance, but I knew he saw little value in education and would not have any interest in my educating the poor. Anwar, however, was more than happy to help. He arranged for a box of textbooks, notebooks, and pencils to be delivered from the madrassa. As soon as the materials arrived, I informed the children that if they wanted to study, I would meet them in the courtyard in front of my house every day after I finished school.

I was careful to call it tutoring rather than school. I did not want to give my father reason to shut it down, and I also knew I could not offer the children all the education they needed. Calling it school would raise its profile, raise their hopes, and put too much pressure on me. It was better to keep things simple.

The sessions were basic. Each day we would meet for thirty minutes and work through two pages of either math and English or science and Urdu. I made sure we all broke to pray when the sun was starting to set, and if any of my eight students were late, I would adopt the sternest expression I could manage, tap my wooden ruler on my hand, and warn them not to be late again. They never were.

†

“What’s the best thing you have? Give it to Allah.”

Those words from the lips of the mullah were the only ones I heard on a particular Friday afternoon. As soon as he uttered them, my mind latched on to the memory of the day I gave away my gold. I counted down the minutes until I was able to leave the daras, head upstairs, and open my closet. I pushed aside all the dresses that were hanging up and grabbed the one I wanted—the white dress with the intricate embroidery I had spent so much time making. It was beautiful, and I’d been saving it for the day when I finally got my mother to agree that I could wear it. It was the best thing I had.

I took the dress straight to the home of one of the children I taught. My student’s mother was a widow with five daughters and one son, and they were poorer than most. My father bought them lentils and oil from time to time and so did other people in the neighborhood, so the mother was used to receiving charity. But when I told her that I was giving it to her daughter, she refused.

“It’s too much,” she said. “Everybody knows how hard you worked on that dress. Your mother often talks about it with pride. I can’t let you give it away.”

After more urging on my part, she accepted the dress, and I returned home feeling good. My mother smiled when I told her what I had done, and she agreed that surely Allah had seen me.

As I lay in bed that night, I remembered the day I’d given away my gold jewelry, and I slipped into an idle fantasy about receiving a better dress in return for the one I had given away. I knew it was foolish, but I couldn’t help feeling excited as I got up the next morning and opened my closet. Would I find that I had been rewarded again? Might there be a beautiful white wedding dress, just like the ones I had seen in magazines, waiting for me?

There wasn’t, of course, and I spent the rest of the day feeling disappointed—partly with Allah, but mainly with myself. How could I have let myself become distracted by such a childish fantasy?

If I were being completely honest with myself, I would have to admit there was another reason for my increase in generosity. Some months earlier, my father had announced that it was time for me to get married. Neither of my older sisters had attended high school, and both were married when they were still sixteen. As far as my father was concerned, seventeen was far too old for me to be single.

The pressure was on. If I had any hope that my father wouldn’t marry me off to some random man who tried to impress him, I needed to be the perfect daughter. If I failed, he would see me as just another problem to be solved as quickly as possible by marrying me off.

I had to make him proud, and to do that, I needed to be the most devout, studious, and generous girl in the city. He already knew I was generous, but that was not enough. He barely paid me any attention, so how was I going to convince him of my other attributes? How could I change his mind if his eyes rarely ever fell on me?

My sky had two moons: the fear of eternal damnation and the fear of losing what little control I had over my earthly life. These twin struggles became the two dominant forces in my life. Yet to my dismay, the harder I strived, the worse I felt.