THE WOMEN IN BETWEEN
By A’isha Azar
Installment 8- Naila
The Women In Between is a continuing series about the lives of Arab women who find themselves living between two cultures. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy, but the events in this series are all true.
I am invited to dinner tonight, to the home of Naila and her husband, Mohammed. She has just graduated with her Master’s degree in Hospital Administration. I met them when I was hired to clean up her English in her written dissertation, as suggested by letter from one of the professors on her committee. She needed to do this in order to be given permission to take her oral examination. Yesterday she received the news that she has graduated with a 4.0 grade, and we are about to celebrate!
I love this family!! For me, they are the finest example of what it means to have a happy marriage in the Muslim culture. Naila’s husband got his business degree two years ago and could have said that it was time for the family to pack up and go home. They both miss their extended family and their own culture very much. Instead, he realized how important it is to his wife to have her own degree, and he said that they should stay until she graduated.
Their apartment is homey and cluttered. They have two children; a little girl named Fay who is about two and half years old, and a baby boy, Abdullah. I have met Fay before when her Dad brought her along to my house to drop off his wife’s manuscript for me to look over. I tell her parents, “Fay is an American name, too. What does it mean in Arabic?”
Her father
says, “Fay was born in
I notice that Mohammed helps with his offspring quite readily. He holds his son. He entertains his daughter, who speaks the most adorable combination of Arabic and English…all in the same sentence! He interprets as Fay tells me about her new sandals. She speaks most of the sentence in Arabic and then adds at the end, “Its really cool!” I hear her mother laughing from the kitchen. She tells me that this is her young daughter’s current favorite thing to say. She says it about a hundred times every day!
We are all so happy that Naila has received a 4.0 for her thesis and orals! She has worked very hard. She looks at he husband and says, “I am lucky. Mohammed has helped me in every way. When I was pregnant with Abdullah, he would take care of Fay most of the time so I could study. He would even cook or go out and get food…. everything so I could study and not be interrupted!”
Her husband says that this is only right. “The Prophet Mohammed, peace be on him, said that women and men should both be educated. Some guys don’t like their wives to go to school, but it is her right and our responsibility to be the best people we know how to be. Some people don’t agree with this kind of thinking, but they are living against the Muslim principles if they do not think their wives and daughters should have a good education and a good job.”
When it is time to set the table to eat, Mohammed hands me Abdullah and helps his wife. They chat cheerfully in Arabic and share the task at hand. It is clear that this is not a practice for the sake of company, but how things are done around here.
Naila has
made Salik in my honor. It is one of my favorite Arab dishes. It is sticky rice
made with milk, butter and some subtle spices, according to the whims of the
cook. If we were eating with our hands, we would form it into balls and pop it
into our mouths. It is often served with a red or green sauce, made with either
tomatoes or parsley. We are also having chicken, a delicious eggplant dish and
salad. Naila’s spice mix for the chicken is one of the best I have tasted. She
tells me, “I got a big jar from Mohammed’s mother. She mixes the spices just
right. She is the best cook! I am lucky
because we get along well. Not all women are lucky and sometimes mother in-laws
in
Mohammed is very good looking. I have mentioned this before to my friend, Nadra. She is friends with Naila, but has never met her husband, nor are there any pictures of him or his family around anywhere in the house, so Nadra has never so much as seen a photo of him. Saudi Muslim men absent themselves when women are getting together because they do not share the company of women to whom they are not related. I am an exception to this rule, either because I am not Muslim, or because it can be said that the men are “doing business” with me. The rule is actually that a man and women must not be alone with any person of the opposite sex that is not directly related, but in some cultures, this has been carried to the extreme and the sexes do not socialize together even in groups. Another interesting thing that I have noticed in going into the apartments and homes of married Saudis, is that there is always some kind of foyer arrangement that separates the living room from the line of sight of the person who is entering the house. I wonder if this is a conscious choice when picking out an American living space, or if it is unconscious.
Nadra told me that she has heard very good things about Naila’s husband. There was a story going around about Mohammed that after they first got married and he brought Naila to the States, the guys were all going out together one night and invited him to come along. He informed them politely that he was married now and would be going home to his wife. I was very impressed by this, knowing many Arab women who are left at home by themselves for long periods of time.
After dinner, we all help to clear away the dishes. They admonish me to relax, I am the guest! When we get comfortable with dessert in the living room, I ask Naila how she came to marry Mohammed. Are they related? How did she meet him?
“My aunt wanted me to marry her son, but I did not want to marry a close relative because if the marriage doesn’t work out, it can get very bad between families. I wanted to marry someone else. I did not want to hurt my aunt’s feelings, so I told her I could not marry her son because I want to have a career. I knew he wanted a wife that will not work. It was good enough for my aunt because she knows her son must have a wife who wants to stay at home.” (In speaking with Arabs, I have noticed that they often mix present, past and future tenses. Time concepts are not as clearly defined in Arabic as they are in the English language. I think this is partly because time has not got the same kind of urgent value as it appears to have in the English speaking cultures. The fact that something happened is more important than exactly when it happened.)
Naila continues, “Mohammed and I each heard about each other through other people in the family. We are very distantly related. I heard he is good, has good morals and has the idea his wife should work and have a career if she wants it. After that we were both interested and our families arranged for us to meet. We both thought it would be a good match, so we are married and we like the marriage very well. We both want only two children and we both want them to grow up and have good Muslim ideas, the way it really should be and not like it is sometimes And, we both want to have good careers.”
Now that Naila has her degree, they are on their way. When they get back to Saudi Arabia, Mohammed has plans to open a small import business and Naila has contacts at the hospital where she worked before coming to the States. When I leave them, I wish them every happiness and success in their lives. I am most sincere in my wishes. I have seen very few couples of any culture or religion who are so willing as these two to support each other in every way. It has been my pleasure to witness through my acquaintance with Naila and Mohammed, the fact that Muslim marriages can be very much based in equality and lovingness.