love as a sacrifice: Abeer's Story

Abeer wishes to stay anonymous.  Certain details including names were changed in order to maintain her anonymity.

"Ahna, your relationship with God is more important than your relationship with any man," Abeer said to me as we walked arm in arm down the congested streets of Cairo.  We were heading to Tahrir Square, the heartbeat of Cairo and the site of mass demonstrations throughout history.  This was the platform of the 2011 revolution in Egypt, where thousands protested unemployment, poverty and government corruption, forcing President Hosni Mubarak out of power after three decades of rule.1

Stock photo by Ifrah Akhter

We paced to the roundabout and crossed the large lane of vehicles futilely scrambling to overcome traffic.  The smog rose up from thousands of taxis, cars, and motorcycles.  Pedestrians flooded the sidewalks and continuously crossed the many lanes of hurried traffic.  After only four days in Cairo, I moved with frogger-like caution.  Abeer, on the other hand, had the strut of a runway model as she quickly dodged vehicles with ease.  Over the sound of thousands of honks, Abeer and I walked quietly still maintaining our arm in arm link.

Abeer is 39 years old and is a single mother of 3 children.  She exudes an overwhelming sense of peace, moving gracefully from one moment to the next.  After only three days of knowing each other, we grew very close.  Her soothing smile and eagerness to laugh pulled us together to form an easy friendship.  

"All the men in my life wanted to take," she told me as we hurried along the sidewalk.  "Now I don't want any husband.  I help myself and my children without men.  I'm always thinking about how to get money without men, without marriage, because no one deserves me."

The center of Tahrir Square in Cairo

I smiled and happily gripped Abeer's arm with my opposite hand.

We were on a mission to eat koshary, a popular Egyptian dish of lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, tomato sauce, rice and a variety of noodles mixed together to create a delicious blend of carbohydrates.  We walked into Koshary El Tahrir, which is famously known to have fed hungry people taking to the streets during the 2011 uprising. 

Abeer dresses conservatively with style, wearing beautiful hijab's ranging from simple off white to leopard print.  She has an amazing voluptuous body (which she keeps for herself).  She had told me that she was divorced, yet I noticed she wore a gold wedding ring on her finger.  

"For me, love is marriage," Abeer said as we sat down upstairs in the crowded restaurant overlooking the streets of Cairo.   

Koshary <3

"When I got married before I considered my husband my love, my soul, my whole life, but I find that he didn't deserve any of that," she said about her first marriage.  "I found a man and got married and I found that he wanted to take without giving.  He wanted to take my time, my heart, my feelings; take as he can and doesn't give anything."

We were served our koshary in metal bowls and immediately soaked it with the obligatory lemon juice and spicy sauce on the table.  I doused my koshary with the spicy red sauce and as I glanced up I noticed Abeer was looking at me with wide eyes.  I knew I had made a terrible mistake.

"Why are you wearing a wedding ring?"  I asked her after taking a bite and clearing my throat.  My eyes were already watering.

"I wear it because people don't accept a divorced woman," she answered.  "They think I am an easy woman because I don't have a man and they want to use that for sex.  Any woman: hijab, not hijab, religious, not religious.  You can find his sister divorced, his daughter divorced but he can't see or accept any woman that is divorced.  He is not polite about it."

Abeer saw me struggling with the amount of heat I naively added to my koshary and offered her bowl to me.  After several objections, she sternly continued to insist, saying she didn't mind the spice.  I finally gave in and switched her bowls.  

Abeer's ring

"How does your religion influence your view of love and relationships?" I asked her after much relief to my senses.

"Islam wants to save us, especially woman, from men.  And also save men from sin.  (We) must be covered to keep us from men, our body is very expensive.  No one can look at my body but me and my body is very beautiful.  Because I am covered he wants to take a look."

In Cairo, the vast majority of women dress conservatively, covering everything but their hands and face.  A minority even cover their face with niqab or burka and their hands with gloves.  It is very rare to see a woman casually walking the streets with her arms, shoulders, or legs exposed.  

"I want to keep to my husband only and choose him to take all of this," Abeer said with her hands on her waist, "(we have) one body and Islam taught us that it's something special."  

Abeer explained that there is a spectrum within Islam and her faith lies in the middle.  She said that her daughter, Mena age 17, recently decided to wear a hijab outside of her home.    

Cairo, Egypt

"She enjoys wearing hijab and she likes it.  She decided to wear it.  I didn't force her," she told me.  "Middle of Islam is very easy and comfortable.  We do everything: we have fun, we go to the cinema, we love music, we love all people, we speak with men and women.  If I want to make love I get married."

"Do you make love without marriage?" I asked.

"No, it's haram," she asserted.  Haram is the Arabic term for forbidden.

"No man deserves to do this thing in Haram.  You deserve to be the right woman, you deserve to be a respectable woman," she explained.  "If he loves me he will marry me and make me a queen, he will respect me."

At that moment I realized how different our upbringings were.  That for me, losing my virginity was almost a badge of honor, a kind of coming of age, but for Abeer, it was something more sacred, something important to care for, protect, and eventually give away to the only man in your heart: your husband.  

Abeer carefully ate the koshary I destroyed and pulled out a napkin from her purse to wipe her nose.  I quickly grabbed the dish, apologized, and begged her to let me take it back so that I could suffer the consequences of my actions.  She refused repeatedly and told me to eat what was in front of me.  

I faltered because I have encountered this type of sacrifice in Egypt many times before.  Egyptians frequently go out of their way to help, support, and make you feel more comfortable without expecting anything in return.  From something as small as sharing food with a complete stranger sitting next to you on a bus to seeing someone looking lost and running over to help them find their way with any means necessary; everyday Egyptians work together in a complicated yet simple network of generosity.  Some call it 'values' others 'customs' but to me, this always felt like love.

"Thank you so much," I said with a soft smile.  

"So will you tell me how you met your first husband?"

"Yes, I had dreams, I always wanted to travel and to be a businesswoman something like that but my father didn't want this and said that women must be at home," she told me with a firey assertion.  "For religion, not all Islam does this to the woman.  Islam respects women, Islam saves rights for women, but the habits and traditions (say) that forcing marriage is Islam.  No, it's the traditions that are very different from mine.  So now I do what I want and what I see is right!  Now I am different with my father.  I had a fight with my father.  (I told him): 'Don't interrupt my life at all.  You disturb my life because you forced me to marry this man.  Then I have three children and he doesn't spend on them and doesn't want them. I have all the responsibility because you chose for me the wrong man so I carry this responsibility all my life!"' 

She sat back and took a deep breath.  "This is all a test from Allah.  An exam to test our patience, test our beliefs and our faith," she said as I saw her entire body relax.  "I don't want to injustice my father...I think he just thought that was right for me because he doesn't want his daughter to be a divorced woman--he knows well that the community denies them.  Perhaps he too is afraid to face society as a father to a divorced daughter, it is a shame for him."

"So what was the breaking point?  Why did you decide to get a divorce?" I asked.

"He would beat me a lot, beat me hard.  I was 21 when I married him.  I was young and so sweet.  At first, I didn't want to marry him but my father forced me to marry because I had a lot of engagements and I canceled (them).  So this time my father said, 'this is the last time, get married!'  So I married him but I didn't want him from the beginning."

It hurt me deeply to hear that Abeer was abused by her first husband.  Their relationship would last 10 years and would drastically change the course of her life.  She is currently fighting in the courts for financial help from him.  Although her first attempt was unsuccessful, she is hopeful that with enough tenacity she will eventually get the support she and her family deserves.

But Abeer didn't give up on love.  A few years later she met a man whom she fell easily for.  He was already married and she became his second wife.   

"He was very kind.  But he married another woman and could not adjust between us," she said.  "In Islam, men can marry more than one woman at the same time with a limit of four wives.  It's a rare thing to see it happen as not every man is fit to do so and God made it clear that you have to be just with all of them.  God said only marry one if you can't be just to them, that's why almost all Muslim men marry only one and my ex wasn't a just person."

She said that his first wife was jealous of her husband's new relationship with Abeer and that the relationship got messy quickly.

"From the beginning, he was not sincere.  He only wanted me for fun and this was very humiliating and could not be carried on.  I want to be a wife and have rights.  The first wife has all rights but the second wife does not have any rights.  I said no, I am like her if you can't adjust between us then no.  He preferred his first wife because his children are from him.  I have kids also, and my kids do not belong to him.  The first wife has a stronger personality but I am very kind and easy because he is my husband I respect him.  In Egypt, they prefer the first wife."

We sat there for a moment in silence.  

"You're so strong Abeer," I said breaking the silence.  I tried to imagine the strength it took to stand up to her domineering father, to leave two men who were wrong for her, to raise three children alone, and to do so in a society that she feels doesn't accept her as she is.  Love has been a tumultuous experience for Abeer, yet she does not give up.  She does not accept anything less than she deserves. 

"Love is a sacrifice.  You must sacrifice something to prove that you really love and you really want to be with me all your life," she asserted.

We finished our koshary and then Abeer suggested a female's universal cure for heartache:

"Let's get some ice cream," she said and we quickly got up and headed out of the restaurant.

It was dark now and as we sat with our ice cream in the center of the busy intersection of Tahrir square I thought about how incredible it is that even across the world and in a society that is so different than my own Abeer and I were giggling about boys, chatting about our family, our dreams, and love.  I realized that even though we are different, we are essentially the same.   We both desire to be loved and to love, like every other human in the world.  Abeer feels to me like family and our love for each other crosses ambiguous borders.  After a while, we got up and strolled down the street, laughing about God knows what.  And of course, maintaining our link as we walked arm in arm through the dynamic streets of life.

Thank you so much habibti.  In Shallah we will meet again <3

Citation:

1.  By Yolande Knell.  BBC News, Cairo. 25 January 2012

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16716089