Surrendering

Culture. How I blame you so easily of following it. I know it is right to follow the culture you live in. So when your uncle took a second wife you even found it unacceptable. It is how we were raised here. To only accept one wife, one life partner. And yet, somehow, more than onegirlfriend is almost too acceptable. And just knowing that drills my soul out of me a little because you had labelled me as one of those replaceables.

I always wanted to make you understand that there is a line between culture and religion that we have to understand. Religion is a way of life. Culture is the life around us.

You too often had culture dictating you, from the places you stole me away to, to the complete avoidance of prayer and showing devotion. This culture robbed you. You may not think you feel it, but you lost your belief so much that all that was left was culture.

Here in the western world of TV, models, clubbing and idolizing celebrities you see freedom. So much freedom it pinches a little when those last dollars fall onto the counter to buy one more pair of shoes you don't have space for in your closet. And then as you stared into that empty black leather with a designer label you wondered how you would get your freedom back. Totally drained. No more energy left to use in this cultural world.

Sure, your seasonal contracts pay you thousands of dollars and you can open yourself up tofreedom again, but how can you fill the hole of your culture? You will never be accepted as you are, you must keep spending to dress right, eat right and go to the right places. You're stuck. There's nothing left. There is no left. You cannot choose anything. You can never stand still to breathe. Keep moving, even if your shirts rip to pieces as you pass through the crowds and you drop your expensive new watch to see it crushed. Keep moving and collecting.

I have a question about your connection. How do you connect to something you keep imitating, but don't stop to reflect, to question, and talk about?

All you believe in is this rapidly changing sense of style, based on whose sense, I don't even know. All you believe in is culture. Then you look at shalwar kameez and see religion. It's just a cultural dress that is long and loosely fitting because the culture of India and Pakistan is influenced by Islam. Peace. Modesty. It's not religion as much as you pretend it is. And when you put those Junaid Jamshed shalwar kameez on during Eid after skipping all your fasts in Ramadan, you weren't being religious. You were just showing off. You were strutting around trying to be a style icon in a musjid. Did you even stop to pray? I know you were trying to impress me with your chameleon transformation and model looks, but you could have just left the culture stuff behind and let me see your belief. Let us connect at an intellectual level.

But you are so cultural. So lost in your norms and traditions. I can't even find your train of thought most of the time, and when I do it's stereotypical. I can always figure you out. And most times that familiar anxiety crept back over my heart and I so often wanted to run.

Religion is something else. It's all about belief. It's about positive action. Good character. It's about community, about peace, about keeping yourself out of despair. Despair. Despair that you had drowned me in as you pulled me out of my peace. Religion is about believing in God. And somehow you never seemed to accept anything about Him. You never seemed to accept my tries at bettering myself.

You have beautiful eyes, I always get lost in them. That was your knife. Dropped onto any thread of conversation I began about hope and happiness. Even when I was talking about our future you would bring out your blades. Chop. Slice. Smack. No talk about religion, no talk about beliefs, I could hardly tell you about the news. You always wanted to talk about stuff. Stuff. That stuff from the shopping malls, and that you got online. You liked to talk about people at least, but you were biting the flesh off of every friend we had and every other person we met. A bigger gossiper than I ever realized while I walked with you. I yearned to talk about the prophets and messengers of Islam, the best examples for us. But you would get tired of me. You are too cute to be a history teacher. Another stab.

Shallow git.

You hoped for and saw nothing more than surface appearance.

You were so cultural sometimes I couldn't even believe you were a person. You fit too well into that cultural ideal. That well dressed young man, charismatic, charming, has a lot to say about everything on TV, every political idea, and of course he never got into silly backwards conversations about religion. God forbid that ever happen.

Prisoner.

You walked in circles, spun in loops, and you never went anywhere new. Not with your mind. You just developed your idiocracy further without adding any new drop of knowledge.

And yet you always promised that you were a Muslim. Because I would only marry a Muslim man. Somehow though, any real trace of you following that was just lost.

I feel like a Muslim, isn't that enough? I don't have to practice everything. That's how it is love. Don't worry about it. We can be old religious people later.

You're so confused.

I can understand that this culture is strong, but how did I see light and come out when you always made yourself so strong I could not escape any of your suggestions? You seemed so strong always. Why didn't we come out into the light together? Why didn't we both find seeking knowledge exciting? Helping the community meaningful? Them as extension of our families. The obligation to give to charity as something to bring poverty to an eventual end. Why did you leave all the religious parts of Islam behind and just follow the cultural aspects from South Asia? You handed me a ring, put on some shalwar kameez and never let me do anything you didn't like. You always pulled me away, pulled me to those dark meetings with your friends, those long walks in the middle of the night dangerously close to the water I couldn't swim in, and pushed so many new songs on me that from you singing them to me I already had them memorized. All that music about clubs and women's body parts and breaking into pieces over lost love.

I turned on that Ipod twice, once when you handed it to me, and second when you wanted to listen to something to cut me off from discussing telling my parents about your proposal.

Give a woman knowledge and she educates a nation. Didn't you worry that maybe my brain wasn't fit to raise your kids? Why didn't you discuss anything?

You made yourself so temporary. Cutting me off. Wearing different styles constantly, unsure of how to immerse yourself properly into the world. Listening to these constantly new songs, that happened to cost a dollar a piece. But a thousand, two thousand songs, what was that right? You could have done so much more. But you just sat in the temporary pleasure of the world swaying your head to the music, putting on the dress of those around you, never bothering to discuss what was going on and that always bothered me the most. You didn't know what happened to you.

You didn't know that you were getting lost in despair. You were clinging to me. I became a life jacket for you, even when I didn't know how to swim.

You saw me as a light in your dimming world, and as you tiptoed closer you lit fire to the light. Burning it up and confusing me. Like a firework, I was bright and then I began to fade and be consumed by smoke in a darkened sky.

When we first met you always stood in awe to all that I said about being a person who stuck to what they believe and constantly renewing your intention so even when you go off track you put yourself back refreshed. Then you began plucking those thoughts out of me, until we both sat together dimly imprisoned.

Now I understand why you couldn't let me go. You wanted to change. But you forgot to renew your intentions and got so lost in making me like you that you didn't let me teach you the little I did know. You wanted me to understand you, and whenever I gave you advice you didn't remember to take it.

Don't worry. It's never too late to change. Even though I left to escape your darkening heart, there may still be light there. There is still hope. And I know you can feel it. I saw you last Friday at Jummah wearing your Junaid Jamshed shalwar kameez. I'm thinking you found a better guidance than me. Maybe you did something good in your life and Allah loved it so much he guided you.

Perhaps one day soon you can be a lifeguard for someone. And maybe one day soon you will truly be free. Inshallah (God willing) you will be free. I'll keep you in my prayers as a person I knew once who lost his way and needs to find it again.

Assalamualaikum (Peace be upon you).