Page 250 - A Woman Is No Man

“Good question,” Brother Hakeem said, clearing his throat. “The father
might be the head of the household, but the mother serves an important role.
Can anyone tell me what that is?”

The class said nothing, looking at him with wide eyes. Deya was
tempted to say that a woman’s role was to sit tight and wait until a man beat
her to death, but she stayed quiet.
“None of you know the role your mother plays in the family?” Brother
Hakeem asked.
“Well, she bears the children,” said one girl.
“And she takes care of the family,” said another.

They were all so dumb, sitting there, smiling with their stupid answers.
Deya wondered what lies they’d been told, what secrets their parents kept
from them, the things they didn’t know. The things they’d only find out too
late.
“Very good,” Brother Hakeem said. “Mothers carry the entire family—
arguably the entire world—on their shoulders. That’s why heaven lies under

their feet.”
Deya listened to his words, unconvinced. Nothing she learned in Islamic
studies class ever made sense. If heaven lay under a mother’s feet, then why
had her father hit her mother? Why had he killed her? They were Muslims,
weren’t they?
“But I still don’t understand what it means,” said a girl in the back.
“It’s a metaphor,” Brother Hakeem said, “to remind us of the

importance of our women. When we accept that heaven lies underneath the
feet of a woman, we are more respectful of women everywhere. That is how
we are told to treat women in the Qur’an. It’s a powerful verse.”
Deya wanted to scream. No one she’d ever met actually lived according
to the doctrines of Islam. They were all hypocrites and liars! But she was
tired of fighting. Instead she closed her eyes and thought of her parents,

replaying memories, trying to think of anything she might have forgotten,
anything that could make better sense of things.
On the bus ride home, Deya wondered if she would ever learn the full
story of Isra’s life and death. She knew that no matter how many times she
replayed her memories, how many stories she told herself, she would never
know the full truth on her own. But she hoped against hope that she’d
remember something new. A repressed memory. A piece that would change