Jeddah ( Incomplete DRAFT)

by Maimona Khan on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 2:56pm

In order to understand a people, one must live among them, work with them, eat with them, socialise with them and try one’s utmost not to become like them?

Living in the West, I grew up as a confused child being of Indian origins, with British surroundings, and Islam apparently, as the final cherry on top. I skipped along brainwashed with Bollywood movies, Soft-Rock music, Disney cartoons, American television, Indian food and British education. This was all to go nicely with the side dish of regularly practising prayers that my parents (alhumdullilah) instilled in me. All in all I felt confused, like a cocktail of different ingredients; the Islamic commodity being the most diluted part of the drink.

It was at 17 that I first fully actualised a long-standing identity crisis, it had been there the whole time but as a monotonous hum in the background. Then the age long question of “who am I?" came to surface and I realised the worth of my religion in giving me the answers I was looking for. And from this point onwards I adopted Islam as the core of my existence picking and choosing from it the Wisdom it bestowed upon me in settling the conflicts within my own self.

Being Indian and British were still pieces of my identity, but I chose to identify the core of my being to be Islam, and I got along with life with no real crises in identity since. Although judgement does continue to flicker about my delayed adoption of wearing hijaab. But that is a matter, I am comfortable to say, is between me and my Creator.

It was originally when I travelled to historical Egypt and artificial Dubai, that I had noticed relapse in defining my identity. There was, in these nations’ people an obsession with my ethnicity although I decided to humour them and retort with origins that were in no way my own. Yet still, never in my life have I felt so Indian as to when I decided to move to Jeddah, and live in a Kingdom of Saudi Arabians.

Feeling like an outsider when moving to a different country is hardly an epiphany to come by, especially since the borders of this land are outlined on a different continent altogether. The language was something I wanted to learn, and the religion I wanted to practise with more certitude. Although the latter objective was achieved, amazing what one can achieve in the solitude of one’s own apartment, I hardly think this was because of the land I was in. Albeit the close proximity of the azaan prayer did melodiously call out to my heart, reminding it to acknowledge and witness the existence of God.

So there I was, with my red and pink rucksack, my new Miss Sixty black jacket, enclosed within an abayaa. As I entered the school to which I had come to teach I was greeted with the deliciousness of the oud burning in the atmosphere around me. I had arrived in an Islamic nation, alhumdullilah. As I sat in the Principal’s office I could not help but ponder over the reality of my situation. Needless to say, as a young lady who had not travelled far outside the vicinity of my hometown, before being yo-yoed back to it, a definite long term move was not something I could have imagined being in the cards for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I had not lived a sheltered life, I had come on Umrah just the year before (alhumdullilah), but living outside the geography of the United Kingdom was not something I could have ever imagined. After all, a common saying of mine was and still is Lesta is the besta!

In coming, her trepidations upon entering the room was hardly noticeable, this lady, my new boss, did not walk, but glided, as though she had paid off gravity to allow her this treatment. She was travel size, complete with high platformed space shoes, which no doubt cost more then my whole ensemble put together, groomed to look the part of a very well taken older lady (masha’Allah). We spoke, and our repertoire was really of no great interest, needless to say as I got up to leave for home, she glared at me with her piercing eyes and remarked “So elegant.” Of course at this point in time, exhaustion was my only friend, skyping family until the early hours of the morning meant I was hardly one to enquire about such a random comment.