Arrival of the New Imam
Just eight months after I’d started lessons at the mosque, it was announced that a new imam would be coming, a permanent one this time. There had been talk of it for quite a while. The current imam gathered us all one night to tell us and he seemed excited that the position would finally be filled and there would be no more chopping and changing.
To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention. There had been so many new imams while I was there that it seemed this was just another one to contend with.
Meanwhile, I had found myself a friend at the mosque – a plain-looking but kind girl called Farqad. Her name meant ‘star’ and she was to become my star and shining light. Farqad had eight siblings, so she knew what it was like to be bullied by her brothers and we sympathised with one another over that. Farqad lived at the other end of town and came on the mosque bus. Asif and I always arrived before the bus, so I would save Farqad a space next to me. We’d sit at the back, along with some other girls, and chat until five o’clock when our lessons began.
I remember clearly the first day the new imam arrived. The evening light had begun to fade and the first chill of autumn was in the air. I was still wearing a summer jacket and wasn’t quite warm enough. I wrapped my arms round myself to try and keep out the cold, but still I was freezing by the time Asif and I reached the mosque. Some leaves had fallen from the trees and they swirled and danced round my ankles. As I flung open the door of the mosque, the warm air inside hit my face. I glanced up at the clock. It would be at least five minutes before the mosque bus arrived.
I pulled off my shoes and placed them by the entrance, then walked into the hall and wandered over to the wooden bench. Reaching up, I flicked through the pile of books on the shelf until I spotted my own prayer book. I’d written my name on the front in my best twirly handwriting. Suddenly, I felt movement behind me and sensed that I wasn’t alone. There was someone else in the room with me. There was a new smell to the place as well. Above the scent of dusty prayer books I could smell stale spices and pungent body odour.
I heard a noise behind me and turned to find a strange man standing directly behind me. He smiled when he realised he had startled me. It took me a few moments to work out that he must be the new imam. I felt awkward, not sure what to say. He grinned and opened his mouth as if about to speak to me, but just at that moment the door burst open and a horde of children rushed in en masse. The bus had arrived.
The new imam called for the children to sit down. I took my usual place at the back of the hall and beckoned for Farqad to come and sit beside me.
Everyone was quiet, waiting to hear what the new imam had to say. I studied him for a moment in the lull and decided he was an odd-looking man. His skin was brown but he had freckles across his nose and cheeks. It was the first time I’d ever seen freckles on an Asian face before and he stood out because of them. I tried not to stare but couldn’t help myself.
Unlike the other imams he didn’t wear trousers but a dark shirt and a white sarong, which was draped across his body and barely covered his legs. It was like a short skirt, and his thin hairy legs were bare beneath it. He had a bloated pot belly that strained against the fabric and gave him an odd shape. I tried not to giggle as he waddled across the hall towards us because he walked a bit like a duck and his huge stomach made him look as if he were expecting a baby.
Compared to the other imams, this new teacher was really scruffy. He had a long, straggly white beard, which trailed down from his chin to a wispy point at chest level. When he got close to me, I realised there were bits of dried food stuck in his beard, probably the remnants of his last meal. Didn’t he ever wash? That would explain the stale smell that hovered around him.
He came over to the group where I was sitting, and when he knelt down at the little table in front of us his sarong rode up his legs so far that we could see his black underpants. We girls gazed in horror at one another. I thought how odd it was. The imam was the head of the local Muslim community – the most important man I knew – so it puzzled me that he had his underwear on display for all to see. Surely he must know that we could see his pants? How could he not be aware of it?
His voice was much softer than those of the other imams we’d had. It was a kind voice, slightly high-pitched but gentle all the same. I recoiled when I noticed his teeth, though. They were all discoloured and, when he came over to talk to us directly, I realised that his breath smelled very bad, as if something had died and was decomposing in his mouth. I guessed that he never brushed his teeth.
On the positive side, it was nice to see an imam smile. The others had been stuffy and serious but maybe this one would be different. I hoped so. He certainly looked different to the last imam, seeming almost jolly. I hoped his presence here would mean an end to all the beatings for good.
The imam told us a bit about himself. ‘I have come from Bangladesh, where I still have a wife and two daughters.’
I smiled when I heard that. I was glad that he had daughters; maybe this would mean he’d be nice to the girls – although it seemed odd that he had left his family behind. My dad would never have done that. He was always telling us that we were his life. I was glad this imam wasn’t my dad, but at the same time I was sure he would do fine as an imam.
As it was, he didn’t really have much to do with the girls. We would just come in, sit down and wait for the lesson to begin. He focused more on the boys. He was stricter with them and, like the others before him, he’d tell them off for talking. There was more pressure on boys. It was always a boy who would have to lead the prayers. Girls didn’t lead prayers. Instead, we were shoved at the back of the room, almost forgotten. We were there, but at the same time we weren’t. We were part of the scenery – seen but not heard.
There were so many children in the hall that the imam spent the first couple of weeks learning everyone’s names. He remembered mine quite quickly because I was the only Nabila.
Children were called up in pairs to read to the imam, and the first time he called Farqad and me, I was petrified. I had been having a lot of trouble learning the prayers because my Urdu was so basic that I didn’t even know how to pronounce a lot of the words, and that really slowed me up. Farqad was much better than me and already knew lots of prayers off by heart. Even though the imam had been kind up until then, I couldn’t imagine what he might do when I got a prayer wrong. I gulped back my fear, but thankfully, when we got up to his table, the imam chose Farqad to say the prayer and not me. She knew it off by heart and sounded word perfect to me, so I was surprised when he corrected her.
‘Try again, you didn’t say that bit quite right,’ he told her.
Farqad looked worried, but she needn’t have been. This new imam was a patient man. She repeated the passage in question and he nodded, pleased with her.
My heart was pounding. That meant it was my turn now and he’d find out I wasn’t nearly as good as my friend. I didn’t even understand the prayer, let alone know how to recite it. He’d lose his temper with me for sure. Tension mounted as I waited for him to speak, but his next words astonished me.
‘Very good,’ he said, looking at me. ‘You’ve both finished, so go and sit down.’
I couldn’t believe it. I’d got away with it. He wasn’t going to make me read.
‘You’re so jammy,’ Farqad whispered as we went back to our place.
A few nights later, when he did finally ask me to read, the imam sensed my fear and picked out a particularly simple passage for me to recite. I felt blessed. Everyone else got the hard stuff but I was given the easy bits. I was beginning to warm to this new imam – even if he smelt.
One day I got something wrong, but, instead of shouting and losing his temper as he had begun to do with some of the others, the imam corrected me gently and asked me to try again. He was like a breath of fresh air: nice to the girls and not nearly as strict with the boys as any of his predecessors.
But then things changed. A month after the new teacher arrived, we were reading our prayers one night when he