HOW does a born Muslim meet a revert American Muslim woman? ‘Wow! Masha Allah, Allah guided you. It's such a pleasure to meet you.' Little more than speaking glorifying words do we do. Helping her out in the issues she may be facing hardly crosses our mind. Reverts aside, our attitude gets worse toward Muslims in general. Meet Umm Ni'mah, an African American woman whose ancestors were slaves and who grew up in the late 1960s in New Jersey under the cult of Elijah Muhammad. She embraced Islam in her early twenties. “I remember how I'd often pass by a Masjid on the bus and look at how beautiful and clean the sisters looked. I wanted to be like them, I wanted to look like that,” Umm Ni'mah recalls. “I found no real satisfaction from dating and going out dancing. I wanted to submit to something greater to feel fulfilled, not used. I became tired with wasting my life and my time.” “I started to practice true Islam. I read the Qur'an more and more. I tore down and fought my desires within myself in order to please my Lord, Allah Alone. I cried to Him a number of times to remove the evil filth of shirk from my chest, my mind, and my soul. I tried to follow every rule I could and I loved reading about the religion, Alhumdulillah.” Reborn with Islam, Umm Ni'mah's life was filled with peace, contentment and gratitude. She found the purpose of life and the way to success. Then came time for the next stage of life, the desire of every youthful being, the world's prelude to fantasies – it was time to get married. “I married at 26. We had a son together.” But marriage is more than a fantasy, it's about adjusting to one's role, caring for each other and building a family. “We argued a lot and our marriage did not last over two years. We divorced, may I add, happily?” Like Umm Ni'mah, her husband was a practicing Muslim and a student of Islamic studies. He left for Yemen with their son, Abdur Rahman, to study Islam and live in a Muslim country. He remarried and settled there. Two years later, in 1999, it was Umm Ni'mah's turn to travel to Yemen. It was her own Hijrah (migration to a Muslim land). “After two years of staying away from my only child, I wanted to leave the non-Muslim land and be with my son and support him,” Umm Ni'mah wrote in email to Saudi Gazette. “At the airport, a couple received me and escorted me to the village where my son lived. I had high hopes that my son would be learning Islam and benefitting from living in the Muslim land. Everyone seemed anxious to meet the sister who'd let her only child go to the land of the Muslims at such a young age. They didn't know the pain and hardships I faced alone for doing this.” Reunited with son Abdur Rahman was brought to her. “I held him and he looked at me like, ‘wow mom, where have you been'? “He had lost his mother tongue and was speaking Arabic and another dialect. To my disappointment, he was not enrolled in any Islamic classes. His father studied all day and he was with his stepmom most of the time. I noticed I had to instill in him good manners. Much to my dismay he did not have any.” Life in the village was not very smooth. Her former husband's wife thought Umm Ni'mah was in Yemen to take away her husband. The threatened woman and her family made clear their hostile intentions. “I assured her I did not want her husband,” Umm Ni'mah says recalling the problems she and her son faced. Married again Umm Ni'mah started missing the support of her family back home. She looked towards getting married again. Several Muslim men proposed her, but she declined. “Most were poor students. I didn't want someone who could not feed me or who didn't have a job. Some were just looking for a ticket to America.” Finally she agreed to a man who promised to take care of her and help her out. “He had proposed a year earlier but I had declined him and he was very upset with me then. But, this time he was kind and apologized for his rude behavior. I thought good of him and excused him. He was about 14 years my senior so I figured, maybe he'll be kinder.” What Umm Ni'mah or her Wali (guardian) didn't do was search extensively for a good match. She didn't vet her suitor completely or take hint from what people said about him that “he finds faults with people.” The marriage was a short-lived disaster. “If Muslim men don't honor their women and children then how will our nation and families survive with honor?” Umm Ni'mah questions while telling the physical abuse she faced in her second marriage. She had enough of Yemen and decided to return home. “My expectations of Muslims left me numb. I mean I was a Muhajir. Why didn't I get the treatment of a Muhajir? Where were my Ansar?” the hurt mother asks referring to the time when Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his companions escaping persecution migrated from Makkah to Madina. Muslims of Madina embraced them with open arms and did all they could to help their brethren from Makkah. Muslims migrants were called the Muhajiroon (emigrants) and Muslim residents of Madina were called the Ansar (helpers). Narrations record the unfathomed and selfless love the Ansar displayed for the Muhajiroon. “There were some people who helped me and were very nice, but me dealing with people from whom I expected so much more was overbearing,” she added. Back to America in 2001 Umm Ni'mah returned to the US with her son, pregnant with the child of her second marriage. Her family was furious: how and why did she marry a man who would hit her? Why did she not check him thoroughly? “I felt so stupid, I blindly trusted a Muslim?!” Umm Ni'mah said. “I went to the other room with my big belly, single again, now with two children to worry about providing for on my own.” “I cried. My five-year-old at the time cried with me. He didn't' understand why I was crying. All he knew was that his mom was sad and so was he.” Finding work She tried home schooling her children for a while to protect them from the atmosphere of American schools. When work-at-home jobs didn't quite work out, Umm Ni'mah had to search for a sustainable job for survival. “I had a really nice job helping people and I enjoyed it. My major in college some years prior was first medical secretary then I changed it to Business. So I had done some psychology and sociology courses. I used to help people find jobs,” Umm Ni'mah recalls. Things started turning around and life bettered, but not for long. Umm Ni'mah's concern this time was her children, who were getting into bad company. “My son started hanging out with a bad kid who stole things. He started missing school. Sadly, where we lived there were no mosques close by giving any sort of good Islamic classes. I knew then it was time to try and save my children from that environment.” Probably Umm Ni'mah's biggest mistake was not trying to relocate within America itself for a better Islamic atmosphere. When she had enough money, she prepared to leave once again. Back to Muslim lands “I returned to Yemen in 2007 and found work. My kids played and went from one internet café to the next with some other Muslim kids they'd met. They were supposed to go to the masjid for classes but they didn't. It was a bit difficult to keep watch on them and work,” the mother of two said. The company she worked for didn't give her a work visa, so she left, this time, for Egypt. While in Yemen her health had started deteriorating. She felt numbness in her arm and stiffness in her neck. In Egypt, her numbness increased, so she went for a check up. “I found out that I have cervical spondylitis, a condition that worsens with age it affects the bones and nerves in the body. I got a second opinion. The doctor told me to wear a collar and stop working.” Her elder son couldn't cope up with the Arabic in school, so he had to drop out. Despite all the strenuous efforts, Umm Ni'mah and her small family were not quite benefitting in the religious purpose they sought out their journey for. Lost hope in marriage At the young age of 41, she has lost hope in marriage. People come proposing to her through her Wali (guardian) in order to “help her out”, but when her Wali mentions they can help her even without marriage, they back out, and of course without offering any help. “In most cases it's all about what they can get out of women, and not what they can offer! There are very few strong men left in this world I fear,” Umm Ni'mah dejectedly mentions why she's been single for nearly a decade now. “We don't need men who act like children; we want them to be men, men who are providers and protectors.” “Look how the Prophet (peace be upon him) took care of widows. The tolerance and understanding he had about the nature of women to keep the family. Sadly, our men today have not just failed their women, but they have failed themselves being men.” What now? Though educated, her deteriorating health has made it increasingly difficult for her to work. Umm Ni'mah now depends on her mother to send money for their survival. Her first husband sends money only for his son's food, while her second husband, she says, never sent any money for maintenance except once, several years back. She hasn't considered going back to America. Apart from the expenses of livelihood, her medical bills are an added burden. The scholars she consulted with tell her to seek charity. Her saving is running out and her retired mother can only help to a degree. She looks forward to any aid and help she can receive. Her son Abdur Rahman Edwards can be contacted by email: [email protected].
