Daily Times

In Quest by Muhammad Kamran Rifat is a heart-warming book as it takes the reader through a roller coaster ride of what life is like.

Dedicated to his father Zahid Riffat who came up with the title of the book, In Quest really is a quest unto himself! The question of identity, who he really is & what the reality really is?

One can make a comparison with Xao Jing Ji’s novel Soul Mountain. It too is a journey into the exotic in an attempt to find oneself. The Sufi element of Dervaish is re-visited& redefined in both novels.

An autobiography, it beautifully captures the relationships between friends, family, work and relatives. The novel describes the threads that hold a web of complex relationships such as that of between Arsal and his mother, both his parents and the young love of Harriet, Asna, Mehrunissa and Arsal.

The descriptive passages of the four seasons: summer, winter,spring, autumn,the sunset & sunrise seen from the River Thames, the kaleidoscope of different coloured fire-works shooting up the sky on New Year’s Eve, the excitement felt at Christmas Time with Santa whilst eating the turkey to one’s fill are all festive occasions that are celebrated with full vigour & excitement! They are some of the few leisurely moments one enjoys after working for an entire year!

Arsal is a budding teenager who has only one dream-to study abroad! He was born after many prayers in a Muslim family and that is where the dilemma in his mind erupted like a ‘volcano.’ His parents brought him up in a “Christian Way” (pun intended). The instilled the basic morals & values in him but when it came to religion there was only ‘blind faith.’

As Arsal meets the girl of his dreams, the girl whose face he imagined day & night, the girl who suffered from insomnia just like he did & from here the story again takes a twist.

Asna his childhood beloved disappears without reason. Arsal is just adjusting to the grief & sorrow of her departure when suddenly she comes out of nowhere to tell him to forget her as she was ‘now married.’

Arsal felt a wave of nausea at her appearance.

And the following dialogue ensues& I quote:

“In all those years she had not forgotten my face & I who made tall claims of love & affection failed to remember the eyes which has melted me every-time they looked at me.”

The dialogue reveals a lot. Arsal, who did not recognize the sparkling eyes of childhood burning with love & friendship, had moved on in life just like Asna. It is just the shock of seeing her after so many years that causes Arsal to over-react.

“What more could I say. It’s just the uncanny way fate works. Even if it’s small world, my world just got shattered.”

“How out of all the places she had ended up in London and that too at the same shopping mall? How many more surprises my favourite city has in store for me?”

“Why did you disappear? How could you do this?”

As the questions race through Arsal’s mind, his heart and brain are caught in a struggle to unravel the mystery of Asna’s disappearance. The mystery is solved but it hurts many relations and close relations.

“I had no idea fate would turn Christmas Eve gloomy for me.”

“What time she chose to fulfil her promise. When it was darkness inside me. London was at its most bling covered in glittering decorations& glowing bulb. It didn’t take long for them to fill me with light.”

“The theme of the year was love/hope/peace/joy like they had guessed my emotions at the minute. The many shades of colours changing its course giving a different light every time I looked at them…. It was an amazing and draining day. The lights implored to look up for the rest of the year and I was looking for illuminating one.”

“London Eye welcome New Year in the most colourful &illuminated way. The tactical (planned) day combined with music & the sound of the shells exploding last for 12 minutes. One minute for every month of the year.” The long wait was worth it. The sight was spectacular & mesmerizing. An experience worth it! It made Arsal forget his worries. It shows how surroundings can change one’s mood from being melancholy to being happy.

As Arsal is caught between 2 worlds-the world of vice and of virtue, the novel explores the meaning of Religion. As his atheist girlfriend poses a question on Islam, he cannot answer her query. This is then what leads Arsal to go back to his homeland and find the true meaning of his religion. The ‘shame’ he felt at not knowing his own religion was immense.

As he is drawn towards different scholars, his experience with the Maulana with a Jinnah Cap & Doc Sahab were exquisite and changed his perspective on many issues.

He understands who an atheist really is?

An atheist is someone who uses his intellect to deny the existence of God. An atheist or a non-believer has the wrong image of Islam. And it is our duty to correct that misunderstanding and invite the dis-believer to the religion of peace in a soft and compassionate way.

The Holy Quran is seen as conduct of life. Just like you cannot operate a machine without reading the do’s & dont’s of its manual, in the same way the Quran guides us to differentiate between right & wrong.

As Arsal questions Doc Sahab on the issue of women, whether the veil, freedom of expression & body & the patriarchal setup in the form of polygamy, the Doc Sahab explains to him in detail with knowledge, reason, logic & intuition.

On the issue of Marriage & Polygamy, the definition of who an orphan really is, of significance.

An orphan is described not necessarily as someone whose father is not alive but one whose father does not have the necessary means to marry his daughter off according to the customs of society or because of his ‘poorness.’

As per the customs of the society the bridegroom paid money to brides’ father in exchange for her hand in marriage. Once the alimony was paid then she would be the wife but as in our society today they also used to go after ‘good-looking girls.’

Another meaning of orphan is either a girl who has lost her father or someone who is so ordinary looking that no one is inclined towards her.

Before the concept of Nikkah was introduced, orphaned women were passed onto men as war-booty. The concept of 4 marriages was applicable to that era. The mullahs used this reference as an excuse for polygamy.

“The forbidden respectable relations mentioned by Islam are sister, daughter, paternal & maternal aunt, step fathers wife, step sister & foster sister & brothers.”

One is not permitted to marry anyone from this list.

Islam makes it clear that if equal treatment of all the wives was not possible then the condition of marrying 4 times does not apply. The Prophet (pbuh) married these women to provide shelter to them and to give a name to the otherwise illegitimate child. With the advent of Islam, for the first time there came a neat & clean method of consummating a relationship through the institution of marriage or Nikkah. The Prophet (PBUH) eliminated all differentiations made in the name of age, beauty, class & education. Hazrat Khadija was way older and wiser than the prophet yet he loved her the most.

“How many young people we see in our society who marry an old woman or how many old men marry women of their age?”

On the importance of the institution of marriage the author says and I quote:

“The institution of marriage was introduced by Islam to give proper status & respect to the women. Haq Meher was given by the groom as a token of love.” However, the amount is subject to change given the evolution of the world. The primary purpose of Haq Meher is to provide financial support to the woman in-case they have to part ways.

The issue of adultery is also dealt with.

New avenues open up even when one is in despair. There is always light at the end of the tunnel and no such thing as a dead end.

The author then explains the application of Reason & Logic:

He talks of how the man is the king outside of the house & the woman is the Queen inside the house. The study of gender roles is a western concept and is not in conformity with Islam.

The famous dialogue that surprisingly comes from an English film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding sums it up very well.

“The man is the head of the family & the woman the neck. She can turn it into whatever direction she wants.”

And finally, Intuition and I quote:

“If the signal is wrong then we must try to stop and if it is right, we can proceed.” Learn to trust your instinct for sometimes the heart is right & the mind wrong.

As Arsal puts his woes behind, forgiving everyone especially his Mom, he finally understands that his mother was being sensible by separating Asna from him. What the reason was, even if it was a misunderstanding didn’t matter anymore for after she was the mother & Arsal the son. It was her duty to protect him through his tender years.

As he looks back in retrospect at his experience at the Kingston University, he is filled with pleasant & unpleasant memoirs. How he managed to make his way through the strange land getting accustomed to the weather, the culture, the diversity of class, race, colour, creed, the transport system, the grocery shop & finally the studies itself was a unique and fulfilling reality.

He remembers the promise he made to his father about quitting smoking. Once he felt the guilt at the prospect of getting caught & now it had become a habit and he was not even guilty anymore.

The journey was a long one taking him from blindly following the system to questioning his own identity. As Arsal comes to terms with the confusion in his mind and clears it through the gift of God-the Quran, he feels at peace with himself, his circumstances & his relations.

The novel is a journey from innocence to guilty, from being conscientious to having no conscience at all. Yet at the end it is reversed. Does Arsal really follow his parent’s advice? Does he learn from his mistakes? Does he become a better human? Does he become a reluctant fundamentalist or a person who is mature & educated?

Read the novel to find out! Indeed, a beautiful narrative of thoughts, beliefs, systems knit in a fictive tone to capture the personal voice.

The writer can be reached at beenishmhmd@gmail.com