Our Black Muslim Mamas Been Rockin' Hijab Since Before We Were Babies

By Jamillah Karim, with Joi Faison

Mama Marjorie, "She's the True Cover Girl"

I love Deen Squad’s new video “Cover Girl” with chorus “She Be Rockin’ That Hijab.” It captures much of what drives my writing on American Muslim women: that we cover not only for God but with style and beauty; that it is our choice; that it does not prevent us from accomplishing great things; and that Western society’s portrayal of Muslim women betrays its racism when Mary the Mother of Jesus' covering is honored and ours is vilified. 

This picture of Ayisha with child reminds me of depictions of Mary the Mother of Jesus

What better way than to convey this message than with beats, lyrics, and images portraying Muslim women around the world as cool, beautiful, and stunningly stylish?

And yet there is a better way, one that evenly represents us all. My dear sister Ayisha brought it to our attention first on her fb wall, “I'll admit, I was on the edge of my seat, thinking where the HECK are the Black Hijabis??!! I started to see one or two, but all was better when sister Ibtihaj came up on the screen!! Whew!”

And then my dear friend Joi said it:

Joi and Jamillah, Eid al-Fitr 2015

“Sometimes as an extra brown girl, of the deep earth hue, I get real tired of seeing others repped where I should be too. I gets tired of barely cameo appearances, the sidelines, and periphery. I gets tired of the invisibility, of the dismissiveness, of the ghost whispers of existences. Cause Lawd knows I gots bones and breath and feeling and prayers and fasting and giving and giving and forgiving. Lawd knows I show up on my mat daily to meet my Maker and He hear the dua of my mother tongue, learned Arabic, and the ‘Allahumma helps’ in the dark of the night, wrapped around balls of tears....Making me feel like doing a Sojourner Truth rendition of ‘Ain't I a Muslim.’”

And when Joi said it, I knew it was time to be like Hagar again and write as a worshipper-scholar-activist must do.

Courtesy of Nassar Madyun, Atlanta, GA

Black Muslim women of my mother’s generation, and even before her, women who embraced Islam in the 1940s, ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, made it cool and bold and beautiful to wear the scarf and the khimar when it was terribly unpopular or even unthinkable to do so. And yes, that’s what we called it back in the day, the scarf and the khimar, before immigrant Islam asserted its authority and called it the hijab.

Women in the Nation of Islam will quickly remind you of this fact, that Black women were the first to publicly identify as Muslim in America. One Nation woman told me in an interview for my second book, “I strive to let... [people] know that if it wasn’t for the sisters prior to me before ’75, I wouldn’t be able to wear a khimar, headpiece, veil or whatever; none of us would. I wouldn’t be able to carry the name Muhammad.”

Courtesy of Bilalian News, circa 1975

In multiple ways, Black Muslim women carry a serious legacy of Islam in America. Whether our Mamas were drilling at the Temple, taking care of their babies at home, or out in the street selling community newspapers (after Imam W.D. Mohammed became leader), they were rockin' hijab regally and courageously.

The Vanguard, the drill team unit of MGT, in pant-skirt uniform, Harlem, 1971

Jeanette Nu'Man, Atlanta

Maryam Sharif, Shahidah Sharif's Grandmother, circa 1976, NY

Shahidah Sharif's mother baked hijab cake for sister's birthday

Here are just a few moments from my adolescence in the Warith Deen Mohammed community in Atlanta that stand out, demonstrating the way our Black Muslim Mamas made it possible for Black, Brown and White Muslim girls to be rockin’ hijab today.

First Memory, 1980s - In the basement of a humble house in Decatur, GA, five African American women gather to design and sew clothes for a Muslim women’s fashion show. Sister Amira Wazeer, founder and designer, started the modestly attended show “Celebrations” to nurture and celebrate style and modesty.

Second Memory, May 1992 - Beyond the basement for some years now, "Celebrations" is a first-rate show featuring designers from across the country including Shukuru, Lateefah Treasures, Ikhlas Muhammad, Lubna Originals, Lady Zakiyyah, Hanifah’s Secrets, and Anju.

Amira Wazeer

Celebrations featured in AJC, May 10, 1993

Five hundred women from Atlanta and beyond meet at the Hyatt Hotel for Celebrations, now the biggest fundraiser for the Atlanta Masjid. In her royal dress, Sister Amira proclaims to the crowd of sisters in delightful, majestic garments of various hues and expressions both modest and striking at once,

“You are royalty, you are the vicegerent of Al-Malik (The King of Kings). Dignity of dress therefore is required. Hesitate not! Seize the opportunity to be recognized as a believing woman.

“We are trendsetters. Europeans have copied Islamic design. We have influenced the garment industry to the point that Islamic style is in. Head wear is in. What we have been doing for years is now vogue.”

Third Memory, July 1992 - Before my senior year of high school, I finally embrace the scarf on my own after my mother has been encouraging me to wear it for the last four years. And I make the choice not when it is easiest and most convenient--that is, during the school year where I attend Warith Deen Mohammed High--but during a summer program at Clark Atlanta University. My mother seizes the opportunity to make me feel beautiful in my scarf. I recall it vividly. After a quick trip to the material store, she brings to my dorm room scarves of every color you can imagine--pink, purple, white, navy, yellow, red, black, and sky blue--in material easy to wrap the way the women in my community have long rocked it.

Fourth Memory, July 1992 or 1993 - On a hot afternoon in July, a congregation of nearly 100 Muslims stand on the parking lot of the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam to view a press conference in response to “Women of the Veil,” a 12-page report featured in The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Although no members of the invited press attend the conference, the five African American Muslim women panelists--including a pediatrician, a computer analyst, and a school principal--express their dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Atlanta newspaper covered Islam and Muslim women in the Middle East.

And so when I watch the Deen Squad video, not only do I feel sentiments like those of Joi and Ayisha--Where are the Black Hijabis?-- but also I feel indebted to the women of my mother’s generation. I feel called to write their stories once again.

Always, I carry deep respect and recognition for our Black Muslim Mamas, even on the day I took my highly anticipated picture with Ibtihaj Muhammad. After my picture with her, I took one with her mother, Sister Denise. We all know that it was her mother, always conscious of God and modesty, who spotted girls fencing in a schoolyard and directed Ibtihaj to the sport that would make her famous and us proud.

September 2016

How I would love to post my picture with Sister Denise except that she requested that I not share it on social media. And that’s how our Black Muslim Mamas be rockin’ it: always humble so their daughters can shine. My Mama, yo’ Muslim Mama, Ibtihaj’s Mama, our modern day Hagars.

I could go on. Of course Deen Squad's video evoked gratitude for my spiritual Mama Tayyibah Taylor, the first to make us Cover Girls via her creation Azizah Magazine. But I’ll stop here, and since we are celebrating Women’s History Month, I'll end with an excerpt from my book Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam, co-authored by Dawn-Marie Gibson. 

With Tayyibah Taylor in front of MLK statue at Morehouse Chapel, March 2014

This excerpt is from one of my favorite sections, “Women Worshippers: Dress and the Practices of Sunni Islam,” where I describe the way in which Imam Mohammed immediately introduced the five pillars of Islam and other practices in 1975. (In the late 1970s, the new Nation of Islam community is called the World Community of Islam in the West, WCIW):

Modesty was still emphasized as an Islamic value, but women could now wear mainstream clothes. Women were happy to design new styles or shop at the store. Amidah Salahuddin notes, “Imam W. D. Mohammed eliminated the garments in the Nation of Islam [as part of] transitioning us to become more Americanized so that we would fit into American society and in our workplace and not seem as though we were different.”

Women in the WCIW developed a unique form of dress that continues to set them apart as women under the leadership of Imam Mohammed. This distinction results from the challenge he left for women to figure out for themselves how to create a uniquely American or African American Muslim style. This was very different from other Sunni African American Muslims at that time, who simply adopted the dress styles of other Muslim cultures. 

Atlanta Muslim women continue the legacy of Celebrations with a show organized by our generation, The Sealed Nectar Fashion Show, led by Naimah Mwenda Abdullah

“The challenge,” Jeanette Nu’Man describes, “was trying to figure out what to wear that was appropriate and understanding the Qur’anic guidelines in terms of what modesty really means.” Fashion shows became popular in the community, recalls Fareedah, as Imam Mohammed invited fashion designers to “come forward with some ideas.” 

The two hijab styles that evolved and most set this community apart were the “scarf,” a square scarf folded into a triangle and tied around the back, and the “headwrap,” or gele. Early on, some women wore the scarf loosely tied with bangs slipping through the front. Eventually more women adopted the headwrap, which Jessica describes as a peculiar trend in which women went from the very conservative uniform headpiece to a more relaxed version—that is, the lightly tied scarf—to a more conservative form in which women again covered all of their hair in the headwrap or the scarf. Here is why she moved to the headwrap: “For many of us, it was getting back to a personal identification or expression of our covering. For instance, a lot of us were Afrocentric and chose to use more African ways of covering versus looking at Chicago [namely, the Bilalian News] for our style. And then the fashion started kicking in and we saw different ways of expressing our modesty.” 

Jeanette also chose the headwrap because she had worn Afrocentric clothing in college prior to joining the Nation. While Jessica and Jeanette were embracing their African heritage in Atlanta, Amidah observed women in the WCIW being influenced by a variety of ethnic Muslim groups in the more cosmopolitan setting of Harlem:

We had the Senegalese sisters with all their headwear on. And then we had a lot of the immigrant sisters from Pakistan . . . and Egypt. So the khimar [a hijab with the material draped beyond the neck, either to the back or the front] came in and sisters were doing that beautifully. . . . We had so many influences that you could pretty much [come up with any style]. And then we had sisters like Lubna, African American sisters who were designers coming up and developing their own fashion wear for sisters of African American background, so that they have their own expression.

American clothes, either store-bought or handmade, eventually predominated as the style that came to characterize women in Imam Mohammed’s community, but because of modesty requirements, even the American clothes took on a uniquely African American Muslim expression. “Short dresses over pants,” recalls Fareedah, were an example. “They were very attractive.” On top of such modest arrangement of garments, the headwrap mostly, but also other hijab styles, would unmistakably mark these women as Muslim, which most women desired.

I invite you to purchase a copy of Women and the Nation to read more. For now, enjoy more pictures that Ayisha and I found in our personal collection. Many of them were taken during the Eid Holiday, our favorite time to rock our head wraps boldly and beautifully.

Shukuru's Daughters

A Glimpse into a Day of Raising a Black Boy: I See the Moonlight Where Some Only See Darkness

By Ayisha Karim

Kids 3 yrs ago: "Frozen" on the Green

Let’s just say that the lives my kids lead are drastically different from my own childhood, especially up until now. For example, my daughter traveled to four towns in Italy at the age of five months: She witnessed the Trevi Fountain, Michelangelo’s art at the Basilica in Rome, and sat adorably in a gondola as we crossed the canal in Venice. Also at five months, my son had his first trip to Disney World, yet it was Mommy’s first time. He even went a second time on a plane to accompany me at the fancy Disney Wedding complex to witness one of my best friends from Brazil and her husband renew their wedding vows of ten years. That was a luxury which neither me nor any of my siblings had ever had, and I bet you none of my three siblings have made the trip yet, even though we’ve all lived in Georgia pretty much all of our lives.

Bottom:Vatican, Rome, Italy; top: Disney World, Orlando

I’ll give you another example of this vast difference in childhood experiences. Last week, as my daughter had a meltdown the minute I was trying to get out of the door to get us to school, where I teach, and she attends Kindergarten, just to get her a few feet away into our fairly new Honda sedan, I had flashbacks of my own mother. In this memory,

My mother was rushing us across a busy street to catch the bus—she, dressed for work, was leading three children behind her (her eldest son walked or caught a ride to the neighborhood public high school). But, I, elementary school age, wasn’t running fast enough that particular morning. And my mother, who had already made it to the other side with my older siblings, noticed with her third eye that I was in the path of the car quickly approaching. Being the superhero that she was, she turned around, focused her eyes and energy on me, ran and grabbed me like a running back, and carried me to safety. The thing is, she and we went through all of that before even starting our school and her work day.

A few years later, my mother got her first car as an adult: a used, clean, long station wagon that she’d carry as many people in at one time as possible, especially single mothers with children, who were in a similar situation to the one she once found herself. God bless every single bone in that woman’s body. 

Probably the biggest difference between the lives me and my siblings led and that of my children (4 and 6  years old) is the nature of their education and school environment, which gets to the heart of my storytelling here. After a couple of admissions seasons, my daughter has begun her first year at a wealthy, non-Muslim private school, which happens to be where I have a teaching career. I work in the high school in the next building. Well, last week, her baby brother attended a student observation, as he did last year. I apply both of them each year to hold a spot just in case we choose the private school option for the Fall. Last weekend, I sat in on the parent panel again and listened to four White moms and one Black dad share why this school is the absolute best bet for their own kids and all the kids applying in that room. Again, I felt confident about my decision to sacrifice and send my daughter there and fortunate that they welcomed her in. And with the one Black father sharing success stories of his Black children, and hearing the concerns of the only other Black perspective parent in the audience, I was beginning to feel secure in my inclination to do my best to send my four year old Black son as well.

Daughter (far left) and classmates @ school's Open House

After the parent panel discussion, I went up to the moms, introduced myself and thanked them, spoke intimately with the Black mom about her comments, trying to reassure her that she was doing the right thing by looking at our school. This time, I didn’t mention to them that I also taught at the school, or maybe not even that I already had a child enrolled. Still, as I normally do in these environments, I still feel like a bit of an outsider – a feeling not at all new to me. I continued on to the playground, where my two kids were with their dad, who made it to one of these events for the first time, and chatted with other perspective kids and their parents. I even met one who was at Duke the same time I was there and whose cousin was a student at another prestigious private school when I began my teaching career a little over 15 years ago. I thought, yes, this is where I’m supposed to be in this moment: here with my children. Even though it’s not the Islamic school that I attended or the progressive charter (free) school with more children of color, this is where we’re supposed to be, due to the life choices and advancements that their father and I have made. We both attended some of the best colleges and grad schools in the country, worked for leading institutions, and served on school and community boards. Our parents and grandparents had sacrificed in major ways as well. We’re setting our kids up for ultimate success in this rapidly changing society.

But just as I was growing more and more confident about the steps I was taking for my son’s future education, I had a reality check around what it means to be not only Black in this country, but in particular, also what it means to be a Black male, whether grown or just a baby:

We walked back to our car, the three of us. My two kids were jolly, singing loudly, as I asked that they keep their voices down. We were parked just across the street from the school in front of the park and golf course, where many take their daily jogs. My son was picking up sticks and wood chips along the way, maybe even throwing them. By the time we made it to the car, there was a tall, fit White woman approaching with a baby stroller.  Hasan, in his love of strangers phase, decides to move close to her and flick a small piece of wood or tiny matter on her. It really was more of a gesture than anything. I seriously told Hasan that behavior wasn’t appropriate…And when I looked back at the woman to show her that I’d noticed what he’d done and followed through with the appropriate parental duty of reprimanding, I was shocked by what I saw: a look of disdain on her face. Not a smile to be detected in the least. Where I, and many other parents of all backgrounds, would have smiled it off knowing it was typical four year old boy behavior, this grown woman’s face reflected a sentiment that should only be reserved for criminals, heathens, or a person much older; not a preschooler. The scary thing is, I wasn’t really all that surprised.

In that brief, painful moment, I remembered that my baby is not a baby to everyone here. My sweet, four year old Hasan (whose name means "good") is to some in this country, first and foremost, a Black man, to be controlled, feared, seen as innately guilty, and worthy of less from the start. In that moment, I remembered who our current president was, the rich neighborhood I was in, and the relevance of having the entire month of February reserved for Black history.

Monica Thompson said it best in her piece “Considering Motherood and Murdered Black Children”:

What is it to be a Black woman in this country and to contemplate being a parent?  It is having so many hopes and dreams, but also nightmares fueled by the daily reminder of the fact that hate and a criminal justice system warped by racism would put my child at risk. 

I imagine my child growing up.  He would run and ride bikes.  He would like to play outside with his friends like Tamir Rice  who was shot on an Ohio playground or Nicholas Heyward who was killed while playing games with his friends in New York.   So when I think about becoming a mom, I think about Tamir and Nicholas’ mothers, Samaria Rice and Angela Heyward. (Ebony Magazine)

So, as with many things that come along with parenthood, I’ll have to consider more deeply the path of my Black son’s educational journey. Where I look at him now and see moonlight, many others out there only see darkness.

Son under the "Super Moon," Nov. 2016

* My reference to "moonlight" is inspired by a quote from the highly acclaimed film Moonlight stated by the character Juan, played by Mahershala Ali:

"I was a wild little shortie, man. Just like you. Running around with no shoes on, the moon was out. This one time, I run by this old... this old lady. I was running, howling. Kinda of a fool, boy. This old lady, she stopped me. She said, "Running around, catching a lot of light. In moonlight, black boys look blue. You're blue. That's what I'm gonna call you: 'Blue.'"

#HagarLives

Read more at EBONY http://www.ebony.com/life/considering-motherhood-and-murdered-black-children-503#ixzz4ZACihPkP

A Black History Month Message to My White and Immigrant Sisters and Brothers

By Jamillah Karim, with Joi Faison

When I watched I Am Not Your Negro and heard again the brilliant James Baldwin’s famous quote that “the history of America is the history of the Negro in America. And it’s not a pretty picture,” I understood that I had to deliver a message to my White and immigrant sisters and brothers, and their children whom I love dearly. And I must do it on the platform of Hagar, peace be upon her. As our Muslim sisters and brothers too often forget that the Muslim nation was built on the struggle and sacrifice of a Black woman, too often we forget that America was built on the struggle and sacrifice of Black women.

Black women have been forgotten and overlooked in Islam in the way that we have been forgotten and overlooked in America, and the concept that best describes how this happens is “intersectionality.”

Intersectionality refers to the way that overlapping identities intersect to make individuals and groups multiply disadvantaged. I am Black, I am woman, and I am Muslim. I make up three different groups, each marginalized and discriminated against in its own unique way. The black struggle, the women’s struggle, the Muslim struggle, each has its own resistance movement and strategy, but what about the individual who crosses all three struggles? Who speaks to her unique plight at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities?

We speak for ourselves. It was Black American women who theorized and further developed the concept of intersectionality because we were in the struggle for black liberation and yet treated as subordinates by our Black men, and we were in the struggle for women’s rights and yet treated as less of a woman and human being by our White sisters. So we have had to speak and stand up for ourselves, tell our stories and speak our truth, and fight multiple fights.

One of the implications of intersectionality is the invisibility of individuals and subgroups within a larger group. So for example, when it’s time to organize and bring people to the table, who will represent the black struggle at the pulpit and podium? Men. Who will become the face of women’s fight for equality? White women. Black women become invisible because we don’t represent the struggle and we become invisible twice and we become marginalized twice, and we become forgotten twice. And then we are called angry and bitter and militant because we speak up for ourselves, but who will speak up for us? Who will stand up for us?

And this is what happening in our Muslim communities. Black Muslims and Black Muslim women are made invisible. And don’t get defensive, and don’t deny it. It’s designed to be that way. It is how white supremacy and patriarchy work. White supremacy, which is really the party of shaytan (the devil), is sustained by pitting marginalized groups against each other so as to prevent us from standing together and rising up to dismantle systems of oppression. So don’t deny that we are all complicit because that’s how we have been programmed and brainwashed. And so the only way to resist is to be intentional about it, to prioritize it, to prioritize the fight for Black people and Black women because when you strategically fight the fight for Black women, you are prepared to fight any cause in this country. Because don’t forget: our foremothers, they were raped, then forced into the fields to labor, and then they nursed their own babies and the mistresses’ babies. This is what our country was built on.

And so if you claim this country, you have to claim this history, you have to claim this struggle. Anti-black racism is so systemic and part of who we are in this country that you either resist it or you become complicit in it. The first  strategy of resistance is not rocket science but fundamental Qur’an. “We created you in nations and tribes to get to know one another.” Radical empathy. Try walking in my shoes. Read my history, read my literature, memorize my poetry, teach it to your children. Attend my mosque, attend my conference, invite me to yours, live in my neighborhood. This Black History Month, go see I Am Not Your Negroe and Hidden Figures. Watch the documentary 13th. Excuses for not caring and not knowing are no longer acceptable.

And don’t think that because you love Muhammad Ali and read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, it means that you are down with my people. Rather, it means that Allah has chosen White and immigrant Muslims to be leaders in recognizing what has been done to Black people in this country, that it is your moral duty to truly be brother and sister with Black people, and that God has given you an advantage in the fight for and with Black people by putting love for Ali and Malcolm in your hearts.

I speak on behalf of and with the thousands of Black Muslim women who claim the legacy of Hagar. As sister scholars and activists, our voices support and amplify one another’s. I end with the voice of one such sister, Joi Faison, who builds upon Baldwin to describe why Black women’s and men’s speaking for ourselves is a threat:

"Baldwin’s quote here perfectly explains the discomfort, because the change that our voices bring threatens white privilege, false realities, and the elevation of one person at the expense of another. Articulation gives voice to truth and it resounds with power. This is our prophetic legacy. This is our African American legacy. We must stand as our religious forefather, Muhammad, peace be upon him, stood on that mountaintop and call others to morality, to goodness, to God. We must stand as our activist forefathers Malcolm and Martin stood, having been to the mountaintop and seen victory on the other side of truth. It is our duty and we shall not fail our Rabb or our legacy." -Joi Faison

**For an important comprehensive list of articles by Black Muslims that speak to intersectionality, invisibility, and resistance to anti-black racism and anti-Muslim racism, see http://www.blackmuslimpsychology.org/invisibility.

I No Longer Need a Man ... to Kill the Cockroaches -- I Am Hagar!

By Ayisha Karim

“In some traditions, the cockroach represents adaptability, the ability to sense subtle changes, and the ultimate ability to survive any conditions – they have crawled over the Earth for hundreds of millions of years – true survivors… they teach us to go with the flow and adapt to your surroundings, to survive…” – Friend and Colleague, Ellen

Last Friday night, I sat alone in my cold house, suddenly thrilled to receive a text from my older brother, telling me that he was on his way over. This particular brother is an amazing storyteller and asks very little from his hostess. 

I know that brewing up a fresh cup of any coffee that I have in the house and offering it to him in a clean mug, on top of a saucer, is the ultimate delight for him…along with giving him my undivided attention, a listening ear, an open heart. (But then again, I’m somewhat of a coffee snob, buying fancy coffees from around the world. He’s begun to depend on a higher quality roast with me.) My brother likes his coffee black with a hint of sugar, as he’s oftentimes on his way to his second job, a nightshift involving physical labor. This time I even have a fancy red velvet cupcake to offer him along with it. I only had one cupcake, however, expecting that I’d be totally alone that night. Plus, due to our humble upbringing, one in which I don’t recall ever owning a coffee maker (not even the $10 one), my brother is accustomed to partaking in the skimpiest of accommodations and finding the gift/comfort/good in it. And well, I, the hostess, took pride and joy in being able to serve and cater to him in this way. Being the baby of four, it wasn’t my natural role to care for and look after my older siblings. Not until I became an adult, a wife, and caretaker did I see the normalcy, beauty even, in being a relief, an aide, guide to them, as they’d been for me for as long as I can remember.

Brazilian coffee from "Estrada Real", the Royal Road

So, we sat on the couch together, sipping our coffee, my full body turned towards his, listening intently to every word, as he shared his thoughts on the recent elections, why so many Americans voted for Trump, his day job as a barber in the local barbershop—where his customers range from Muslim friends he’s grown up with and Black women who wear short hairdos to the local kids (ages 6-17) who sweep up hair for an extra dollar and manage to take in lessons on how to be a Black man in this society.

In the same breath, he offers his take on the stagnant state of a large portion of our local Muslim community, stemming from not truly knowing the example and character of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and prayers be upon him). Commentary like this, on the moral decline of our American Muslim communities, or the lack of activism within them, was becoming more prevalent. Oh, how I love to see the pride in my brother’s eyes and hear the expertise in his voice as he speaks about such things. 




And then the conversation turns, as it always does eventually, to his wife, the love of his new life – his friend, his ride-or-die chick, his partner in this, what would otherwise be, cruel, cruel, "man’s world." A long-lasting smile appears on his face as he talks about his wife’s latest theories, shenanigans, projects, and successes. My brother is a gifted comedian on the side, so one of the ways he shows his love for his wife is teasing her. Her latest thing had been putting powder on big bugs, thinking this would get rid of them for good.  He laughed hysterically as he told me that her trick was not only ineffective but that he’d shown her a better way: “I told her, ‘Look, watch this.’ And I’d open the door and watch them walk right on out the door. See, they don’t want to be inside in the first place.” And just like that our conversation turned to waterbugs and cockroaches.

Which brings us to the ever-contentious topic of COCKROACHES. And depending on your socioeconomic status, the part of the world you live in, or your stance on the source of cockroaches, there’s a chance that you may not even consider these hideous creatures as ever appearing anywhere near or inside of your home. Or, you’ve totally dismissed them from your vocabulary and replaced their species name totally with that of waterbugs, much less offensive, I guess. You see, there is a shame to experiencing the terror of cockroaches in one’s home, especially if you only associate them with poverty or filth. I call those bad boys for what they are (and yes, they’re ALL male in my mind; I’ll spare you my reasoning)… cockroaches!!

My brother went on to talk about how his wife would call him on the phone while he’s at work and complain about a cockroach, or waterbug. He went on, laughing at the seemingly helpless nature of women in the presence of these creatures: “I remember even Jamillah [our other sister] would call me when I was at Momma’s [who lives across the street] and say, ‘Do you mind coming over and killing this bug for me?’” And then I recalled and shared my stories with him about depending on someone else to kill them for me.

And, out of nowhere I had the question: What kind of man will protect me from THE cockroach? Wait, do I even need a man to protect me from the cockroach? Should that still be my focus, as I now can protect my own self from the cockroach? I mean, I no longer run away from it, hide, and just pray that it miraculously disappears for good. I have learned to defeat those suckers. And like a friend recommended, I don’t even give them much of my mental space anymore because as soon as I do, they just magically appear to my dismay. But how bold I’ve become in the face of them!!

With all that I’ve gone through in these past three years as it relates to maintaining myself and protecting myself, my assets and my heart (the biggest asset of all), I’ve realized that the cockroach is really the least of my fears. However, if you had observed me in the presence of them three years ago, you’d think otherwise. But I swear, I’ve grown. I now make bold moves towards them, certain that once I’m done, they will be NO MORE! I’ll admit, it typically involves Raid bug spray (lots of it), and when it dies, I have a method for ensuring their complete disappearance. Once it’s surrendered to death and has turned on its back, I sweep it up on the dustpan and quickly flush it down the toilet. And I have peace of mind again until the next occurrence, by which I grow stronger and stronger in more ways than I’d imagined.

So, what lessons have I ultimately gained from my desperate encounters with the cockroach? It’s quite simple, actually. For years, I thought either a man, or a grown-up—someone other than me—had to protect me from one of the scariest, ugliest, frightening creatures God allowed to mingle among us human beings, esp. many female humans. And now, I realize that there are certain things that I can protect myself from quite well, and maybe even better than a man ever has. This fact became ever so clear during the holy month of Ramadan when I'd wake up each morning for the pre-fast breakfast, suhur. In the peaceful, serene darkness, I'd occasionally wake to one lying on its back on the kitchen floor, or even worse, notice its eery shadow approaching while reading my sacred, luminous text (Al-Qur'an). Now, if that doesn't teach one reliance solely on Allah (God) in the face of adversity, i.e., the cockroach, I'm not sure what does! 

Essentially, my rendezvous with the cockroach as a single woman living without a man made me realize I’ve been wrong about the traits that I need most in my next mate to thrive and live a secure, successful, and joyful existence. More importantly, the despicable creature made me come to terms with what it is about being spouseless that really worried and bothered me. Mr. Cockroach moved me to consider the traits that I really do need to find in my future mate. Essentially, it made me realize that it’s not so much the physical traits that matter, as do the emotional and spiritual ones. (Hmm. I wonder if all the lucky women out there who are blessed to have never feared cockroaches already understood this important lesson.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’d never reject my spouse’s attempt to kill the sucker -- he can have his way with the roach and me :-).  But, I, like most Hagar's, would appreciate a mate who could also recognize and maybe even speak to the wisdom in all of God’s creation…and not so much protect us from the cockroach but from the schemes of the real enemy (shaytan), hehe. Or maybe even embody the qualities of Prophet Solomon, who was said to speak every language in the world, including that of animals, perhaps, even bugs...cockroaches. Imagine that.

In his own piece about the lessons gained from coming to terms with our disdain of the cockroach, Omid Safi simply states, “We cannot live in a roach-free world. Suffering and pain are woven into the fabric of this world, as are hope, joy, and love. We can live lives where we don’t have to be perpetually traumatized by them. We have more power than we realize.” (“Getting Over Our Disgust When Life Gets Gross”; On Being)

So, yes, like the cockroach, I can adapt much more than I give myself credit for. I am a survivor, who goes with the ebbs and flow of life. I am destined to thrive. I am Hagar.