If Islam Ruled the World

Written by: Qatar Cat Copyright © 2006

We were sitting and talking one lazy afternoon in my house. My friend – pretty local girl, miles of lashes and heavy black shiny locks, lovely smile showing off her pearly whites, thick black kohl accentuating her already deep, beautiful brown eyes. Blue jeans, pink shirt, fancy beaded Moroccan flats. Abaya and headscarf thrown casually on the other sofa. Let’s call her Miriam.

‘Why are you so negative towards Islam, Cat?’ asks Miriam, absent-mindedly flipping through my husband’s FHM magazine. ‘You just don’t know how nice it is’.

‘Me? Negative?’ I am somewhat unprepared for this question. ‘No way. I am not negative at all. And I am pretty sure it’s very nice. Maybe I am a bit sceptical… It’s just – well, you know me, I am not a believer. I am just as skeptical towards Christianity, only it’s a bit closer to home, so I am kind of used to it. But the whole idea of believing in God – I guess you have to be brought up with it. My parents are both atheists, you know.’

‘Really? But that’s horrible! How can you not believe? How can THEY not believe? Your parents?’ A look of genuine surprise in her exotic eyes, fingers still turning pages.

‘I don’t know, it happens. Where I come from, some people are really religious. Some are not at all. I guess I fall into the latter.’

‘But… wouldn’t it be nice if everyone believed in God?’ she asks, almost pleading, almost naïve.

‘I don’t know, Miriam. I think it would be better if people were more tolerant to the beliefs of others.’

‘Yes of course… everyone should be tolerant. Islam is the religion of tolerance, you know.’

I didn’t have an answer to that, and so I rose to get some more water from the kitchen. I am a terrible host, and my house is totally devoid of any kind of treats to offer our rare guests. Miriam got hold of the remote and started zapping the channels, magazine still on her lap.

‘Tell me why you think Christianity is better than Islam’ she demands, transfixed on the presenter of some afternoon talk show.

‘I don’t think anything like that, silly.’ I put a glass of water in front of her and try to pull FHM from her hands. Impossible.

‘Let me! I don’t have anything like that at home! This is so funny!’

‘Yes I know it’s funny, I also suspect it’s totally haram (forbidden), so good Muslim girls shouldn’t!’

Miriam retaliates by smacking me on my thigh with the magazine. ‘Oh shut up, Cat.’ Giggles. ‘Stop being so damn sarcastic. Better look at this one’s ass.’

Few minutes and lots of giggling later we are done comparing models and she says: ‘Don’t you mind your husband looking at all these girls?’
‘Nope.’
‘Why?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Well, he has you, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes he does, but I am not a model.’
‘So what? He should adore you as you are.’
‘I am sure he does.’
‘And yet he looks at these girls? Why?’
‘They are very pretty. I like looking at them too. And obviously, so do you!’
Miriam slams the magazine shut, ‘I don’t!’
‘Well give it back then!’

‘No! I am not done yet!’ She opens the magazine again and changes the channel on the telly. ‘Look, look, Shakira! I love Shakira!’ MTV channel… just in time for the video. I love this Colombian chick too, especially her last song. So I watch the video and Miriam jumps up trying to copy Shakira’s moves. To my utter envy she actually manages pretty well. ‘See? Like that!’

To me, Miriam looks thousand times better than any model in FHM. And there, I have it! ‘You know why I don’t mind my husband having those magazines? These girls, they are not real. They are just paper and paint.’

‘Yeah yeah whatever. They are gorgeous! And so is Shakira!’ The dancing continues until the end of the video clip. She is so uninhibited, really, Miriam. I don’t think I would be able to just jump up like that in front of her and shake my stuff. I guess years of serious girl partying do make an impact.

She falls on the sofa next to me and grabs the water. ‘Still, I think it would be great if all people were Muslims.’
‘Why, Miriam?’
‘There would be no wars anymore.’
She has a really good point, I have to give her that. I think most conflicts are religion based. Yet, I am not convinced.
‘Miriam, can you imagine how much I will have to give up if everyone just converted to Islam?’
‘Like what? You would gain so much more!’

And she went on telling me about all the nice things that Islam would give people. Mostly it had to do with families being closer, women being more protected, and of course everyone eventually going to heaven. While she was at it, I made a small mental list of things that will be no more should proper Islam rule the world. Just off the top of my head:

• FHM magazines
• Shakira videos
• bacon sandwiches
• figure skating championships
• all other professional sports with female athletes
• women’s tennis (I love tennis, so it gets its own category)
• portraits and statues
• Christmas
• wine and wine bars
• prom dances
• beauty pageants
• dating
• Hollywood movies
• Gothic cathedrals and beautiful mass music
• seaside open air night clubs in Athens
• knock-out piña coladas
• Copacabana babes in bikinis

I could have gone on thinking and counting, but I chose not to. Instead, I told Miriam about some of the things that I would surely miss.She looks at me incredulously and laughs: ‘Yes, it’s hard to imagine you without your tennis.’ She finally puts the magazine down and looks at her diamond-studded watch. ‘Habibti, I have to get dressed. My sister will be here soon to pick me up.’ She stands up and wraps up in her abaya and headscarf. How come she looks gorgeous in this stuff? When I tried them on (of course I did, lol, I am a girl, we try things) I looked like a refugee nun from Albania. Miriam, on the other hand, looks like royalty. Her mobile starts wailing with some ear-splitting Arabic tune. That must be her sister, already in the compound coming to pick her up and go to some relatives’ house. Miriam kisses my cheeks and whispers in my ear as her sister stops her car in front of the house: ‘Don’t tell her about the magazine.’

The End of the Affair

A short story written by: Qatar Cat © Copyright 2006

People say infatuation doesn’t last for long. But how long is that? A glance, a minute, a train ride, a week of nine to fives? I say infatuation can last way longer than that. In my case, it took years to get over you.So this is it, then. After years of insanity, I am finally free. Free from you and the world you lured me into. Exciting, tantalising and unpredictable world that made my heart beat so loud I couldn’t sleep at night. The same world that forced all traces of reason from my mind and turned me into a raving lunatic. I got lost in you and in your world and I didn’t look for a way out. I loved you as I have never loved anyone before. I loved you as no one has ever loved me. You didn’t love me as much as I did, but you came very close to it. Or maybe I only imagined it because I wanted it so badly, because I needed you to love me just the way I loved you. Yes, you were as selfless and wanton in this relationship as I was. You and I both went absolutely crazy. We existed only for each other and for our love, our madness.

How did it happen? How could it end just like that just when we were thinking about another year together? I don’t know. All I know is that it’s over.

I knew it was over when, after not hearing from you all day, I didn’t send a test message to my own phone to check whether the service was down again. And when I noticed that, it hit me. All the little pieces of the puzzle came together and I knew: I was no longer your prisoner. I knew it when you took your wife shopping to Milan and it didn’t hurt me as much as it had 6 months ago. I knew it when, after telling my husband I was going to my usual weekly pottery class, I actually went to a pottery class for the first time and enjoyed it. And you weren’t even busy at the time. I knew it when my phone bill was less than a thousand riyals for the first time since I had met you. When my daughter ran into the room while I was chatting with you and instead of sending her away, I left the chat. I knew it when I cooked a meal at home from scratch after a very long period of erratic last minute takeaways and microwave dinners. I knew it when I absentmindedly kissed my husband on the cheek while watching a movie together, and he pulled me close and hugged me tight… and it felt good. I knew it right then. And for the first time today, when you said you had to go, I didn’t ask you as I always do to stay five minutes longer. You felt it then, too.

I still love you, I guess I always will. I am just not obsessed anymore. I know now that I could live without you, and I could even be happy with my husband again. I don’t regret a thing. You are a good man, and my respect and admiration for you will never fade. You have shown me more love in these two and a half years than most people will ever see in a lifetime. Together we learned so much. But I know now that we will move on. We owe it to ourselves and each other.

Prayer

Written by: Qatar Cat

You said I’m but a limb, a mere extension
My toes one step away from crossing lines
And though it was never my intention,

You forced me to protect myself with lies.

You marched your troops across my aching body
You crumbled my defences with a glance
In your domain I’m shunned by everybody
And on my own I hardly stand a chance

My wounds won’t heal, my heart will never soften
You said it was my fault, you called it tricks
You dug your spurs to bleed my pride so often
And used your whip so often just for kicks

I see your faults, oh yes, I watch them grow
The whole pathetic, cruel, rabid lot
Who do I think I am to tell you so?

Who do you think YOU are that I cannot?

And do you know, wounded and neglected
In my defeat, I hope and pray that I,
A mere limb, may soon become infected
And bitter poison kills you as I die.

© COPYRIGHT QATAR CAT 2005

The Talking Walls

written by: Qatar Cat

My first impression of Qatar? Walls and walls around. Houses and apartment blocks hidden behind solid concrete walls, often with 24-hour security planted at the gates. Walls 3 to 4 metres high. Where I come from, we don’t have walls around our homes. People take pride in their lawns and decorate them obsessively with rocks, oversized pots, feeble fountains and, sometimes, even swimming pools with one or two sun beds neatly arranged on a tiny patch of grass. These are considered to be “luxury villas”. I wish people of my country knew what “luxury villa” stands for in local Qatari dialect.

Then again, how would I really know what a luxury villa is like? What stories unfold within these walls? Sometimes – a rare glimpse, when the car with tinted windows is either let in or let out, a driveway, a lawn on each side, a mansion – but never more than just a glimpse, as the gate is immediately shut and I drive by wondering. I start to imagine what kind of people live there, what they do, how they spend their days and nights behind those impenetrable walls. Are they local? Are they executive expatriates for whom now only a residence of such magnitude will do (although back home they could have never afforded such luxury)? How many people live there, and how many do they need to run the house? Walls hide a multitude of secrets, multitude of stories. A life shielded from prying eyes, life which is closely guarded and of which not a word is uttered to the outside world.

I remember once an acquaintance of mine, a local man, invited a few of his American and British colleagues for a casual lunch in his house. They were looking forward to meeting his family, but instead were led into a separate part of the house through a separate gate. What a surprise that must have been. Casual lunch turned out to be a grand 4-course meal prettily laid out buffet style on a separate table. Dessert, coffee, tea. And not a sound, not a hint of the life outside this perfectly styled dining room. Yet there was a woman’s touch in everything, from lavish decorations of the dining table and of the room itself to the thoughtfully created and assembled meal. The Western guests were tactile enough not to ask questions. Walls within walls.

I was told that the strings of lights on the houses and their walls mean there is a wedding in the family. Now, we don’t have such lights around our houses at weddings back home. But we open our doors and invite everyone we know to join in the celebration. The wedding lights here are inviting and cheerful, but the walls clearly mark the boundaries. They say “Do not enter”. They say, “You are an outsider”. They say, “Do not stare”. What a nice feeling it probably is, to be allowed in, to be welcomed by a smiling face behind these walls. I guess I will never know. I am an outsider.

© COPYRIGHT QATAR CAT 2005