The Muslimah and the Pool

I want to talk about how a Muslim woman, upon reaching adulthood, and starting to abide by Islamic dress rules for her manages not to miss out on that wondrous hobby that is swimming. I love swimming, I adore it. I grew up in a hot sunny country in a swimming pool. Becoming a woman, and even though not yet a hijab wearing woman, meant that swimming was no longer such an easy activity. Swimming costumes for women fall short of the Islamic dress code to say the least, and if you wanted to even partially abide by these rules and still swim, your only option was women only swimming sessions. Luckily this was an option for me, as was the option of a womens only beach.

In London I discovered, that often even when the local pool advertises a womens only swimming session, this is often accompanied by male life guards, or is overlooked by a mixed-gender gym. A few pools do offer real(ish) womens only sessions, such as Highbury pool in North London, and the Mile End Leisure centre (East London). They both guarantee that only female life guards are used. I used to go swimming in the Highbury pool, but on one occasion a man walked through the swimming area during the session. I attempted the Mile End option, but I had to queue for an hour for the ‘chance’ of getting in!

Recently though there has been an upsurge in what have been termed the Islamic swimsuit. These arguably started in Turkey with the hasema range, then spread to Australia (home of the Burqini), the USA (home of the Splashgear suit), also to the United Arab Emirates (home of the mycozzie suit) and to Brazil (home of the AquaGym suit). None of them are cheap, you are looking to pay around £80 for any one of them. But the liberation they offer makes it worth it.

Admittedly, many women are uber-conservative, and consider the wearing of trousers or the swimming in mixed company to be sinful to women. I am not one of those women, and believe each of us are different and differ in some matters. I personally own the Splashgear swimsuit and the MyCozzie suit. The Splashgear is made of a loose fitting rashguard top and wide board-trousers (made of the same material as the Male board shorts), while the MyCozzie is loose fitting lycra trousers and a long lycra top.

I have used the Splashgear suit in the public pools here in the UK, with no problems, only once did a lifeguard question me on it, but once I let her feel the material and explained that it was a purpose made suit, she was happy with it. I have yet to try out the MyCozzie suit, but because of its more familiar style (it looks a bit like a loose wetsuit) I expect pools wont be as scared by it.

The next thing I want to try is to go to one of these water parks. The only problem is finding people to go with, the Burqini craze is not quite a craze and is yet to ‘arrive’ in the UK, so it is problematic finding other Muslim women to go with me. So if you are a London based burqini owner, and would like a day at one of the Souths water parks, why not pester Imaan networking for an event like that ;) On another note, if you happen to own a sports equipment shop, why not look into stocking up on these swimsuits? People are happier to part with £80 if they can try them on, and I want some burqini friends.

Eid in the City

When I was little, Eid was a big affair. We Muslims have two Eids, Eid Al-Adha also known as the Big Eid is a four day celebration at the end of the Hajj season, and Eid Al-Fitr or the Little Eid and my favourite, is a three day celebration of the end of the month of fasting, Ramadan. As a kid, we made a bigger fuss of the little Eid, I think it was the reprieve from fasting and the excitement of eating while the sun was out that got the adults happy, and that affected us little ones. In the Middle East, we would get new clothes, and spent the Eid days stuffing ourselves with Ma’mool, date cakes, running around in our new clothes, visiting family and friends with our parents, and getting rich on Eidiyya, money adults give children during Eid. I loved Eid :)

The excitement and fun of Eid changed over the years, I still bought the new clothes, and visited people. I also added to the traditions, by helping my Mum actually prepare the Ma’moul instead of just eating it, and drinking arabic coffee. My increased seriousness of fasting during Ramadan also introduced me to what my Uncle calls Rafsat Ba’arat al-Eid, or the Kick of the Eid Cow, which is basically the tummy ache one gets from shocking the fast-shrunken stomach with rich sweets.

Then I moved to the city, and Eid, well, was not the same. It is a big city and it does take a lot of time and effort to establish a network of friends; time and energy which are a scarce commodity when also establishing your career. So the first two years, and four Eids in London were, different. The few friends I had made either went home to visit family or worked. Since my family were a 7 hour, £500 flight away, I opted for working.

Working during Eid is not a happy or pleasurable experience, the first time I did it I ended up feeling rather upset, lonely and pathetic. Not one to let the self-pity demons win though, I established my own, new, Eid routine. Disassociating with past traditions of sleeping in on Eid morning, I started attending Eid prayers. In London, my Mosque of choice is the East London Mosque. It is the easiest one to get to, is purpose built, clean, and very well organised. It is also the only mosque in London which is allowed to broadcast the Athaan, call to prayer. Even though I knew no one at the mosque, attending gave me a bit of the Eid spirit that I missed.

Being in London also meant that no food craving went unanswered, and a quick trip to the delis in Edgeware road transports me back to the Middle East. So part II of my eid routine is Edgeware road to stock up on ma’mool, and ghraybi, arabic shortbread, which I then take with me to the office to share with colleagues over coffee. I started that tradition because I could not imagine Eid without the cakes or the coffee (be it Arabic or nescafe gloop), and my nice colleagues humour me and seem happy enough to eat the odd date cake.

With time, my network of friends has grown and my relationships with people that I met in London has evolved. I am in a better position to be able to make plans for these big days, my Eid traditions now also include dinner ‘somewhere nice’ with the women who have stayed in London. This year I was also planning on extending this to a attending a play as well with the ladies from Imaan Networking. However, due to some rather fortunate promotions by some airlines I was able to procure some seriously discounted tickets back to visit my parents, and am now enjoying homemade ma’mool, arabic coffee, sun and sea!

Eid Mubarak to all !

The Pub and the Hijab

Islam, I firmly believe, is a religion of moderation, and is a self proclaimed ‘middle ground’ religion. People have taken this to mean that it falls in between Christianity's’ focus on spirituality and the love of God, and Judaism's respect for dogma and law. I take the view that it also applies to our everyday lives, that a person must take equal care of her spiritual, physical, emotional, and social needs, and that there often is some interplay and give and take in ones life to achieve this balance. When living in the predominantly Muslim Middle East this was really easy, I faced no conflicts, not only could I avoid the ‘major sins’ it was also the social norm that the makroohaat (things which are not sinful but are hated by God) were avoided anyway. Take sitting in a pub as an example, in Islam this is technically a makrooh because effectively you are putting yourself in a situation where you may be tempted by alcohol, a mahroom (banned). In the Middle East, networking and socialising do not normally take place in pubs or bars, therefore your work or social life will not suffer by avoiding these places. This is not the case in the UK, where work dos, and alot of networking goes on after hours in the pub.

I moved back here about 8 years ago, having spent 22 years in the conservative Middle East. During my postgraduate studies I managed to predominantly avoid the pub scene, I did not feel it was a big deal to go the pub or be around alcohol, half my family are English, and we often as a family would go for a pub lunch. This was fine as I was with family, but when I went to university and donned the headscarf, I felt that it may be inappropriate for me to go, so I didn’t. However, I did feel very alienated from my fellow academics, and from the inner workings of the academic scene. I was very fortunate in the year after my PhD in that I met a group of wonderful Muslim women in surrey. One lady, a Syrian, ran Quran circles for Arab women in her home every Friday. For those of you not in the know, a Quran circle is one where we would take turns reading a page from the Quran and then the circle leader (the Syrian lady in this case) would discuss the background and meaning of those verses. The Syrian lady was very knowledgeable, and she was very conservative, more so than I am, but this one day one of the other women asked her what she thought of Muslims going to the pub for a work do, Her answer rang true she said something to the effect that since attending work dos was a part of work and the social cohesion of work colleagues there is benefit in going, and that as long as one did not make it a habit, there is no harm in going.

I took this on board when I started my post in London, and joined my colleagues in the pub, where seminar speakers were taken after they had presented their lecture. I definitely felt the benefits of this compromise on my part, I felt more a part of my department and not such an alien. I even managed to network and obtain invites to present seminars at various universities in the UK.

I also feel that since I now enjoy more camaraderie with my colleagues I can be more open about my faith. I am less shy about excusing myself to pray for example, and I no longer feel that I cannot chat about my life. They chat about there’s, about living with partners, and drinking, while I chat about being annoyed that say I didnt get up for suhor (the pre dawn meal in Ramadan). Aspects of our lives that are alien to the other, but its nice that we can just be ourselves to a larger degree than I had thought we could.

The hard part is not making a habit of it, I try and not go all the time, without appearing anti-social. I often wonder whether my love of life (dunya) and material acquisitions is taking over. Maybe I am seeing positives in the makrooh to justify my dunya ambitions? To this effect I make more of an effort than I did in my Middle East days with my faith. I go to the Mosque, and actively seek out Muslim friends, to help ground me and keep me on the correct path. I pray to God to guide me, and to help me in keeping true to my faith and my work for the afterlife.

InshAllah I am doing ok.

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