The Convert – Part I

Deborah Baker
In this exclusive excerpt from her new book, Deborah Baker follows the letters of Margaret Marcus, a Jewish girl from 1950s New York who converted to Islam, became Mawlana Mawdudi's protégé and moved into his house in 1960s Lahore

In her letters home Margaret Marcus reported Mawlana Mawdudi’s teachings to her parents without gloss, as if his authority on Islam had supplanted her own. Like the subcontinent he came from, the Mawlana’s world was divided into two camps: observant Muslims, and everyone else. The former represents the epitome of good, Peggy wrote gravely from her rope bed in Icchra, and the latter the apogee of evil, Herbert and Myra Marcus presumably included. She seemed to relish the prospect of being at the center of the Mawlana’s struggle to establish and Islamic state, confident that her own role in the looming contest would be significant. Indeed, within a month of her arrival in Lahore, the fortunes of the Mawlana’s political party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, seemed to shift.

In the late afternoon of July 16, 1962, the Mawdudi household was startled to learn that General Ayub Khan had signed legislation that lifted the ban on political parties. Mawdudi immediately drew up a list of charges and demands addressed to Ayub Khan’s government. In between her accounts of Haider Farooq’s new family of kittens, the doings of the Sufi neighbors she’d seen from the upstairs bathroom window, and the servant boy’s attack of malaria, Margaret wrote her parents of the air of anticipation in the back of the house, where Mawdudi was holding an emergency meeting with his party workers.

What part would Maryam Jameelah be given to play in the political drama the Mawlana mapped out that afternoon? Mawdudi had already made space for her in his party as he had in his family. Before she arrived, he had published translated extracts of her letters to him in his party publication, introducing them as an “eye-opener for Muslim youth.” Clearly her arrival had been greatly anticipated and, given the success of her first book, Islam Vs. the West , and the visibility of her writings in the popular press, she had proven something of a sensation. But beyond her serving as an example to his nine sons and daughters, had Mawdudi envisioned her as his helpmeet, a translator to help his writings reach a broader audience? Or something else? Perhaps he calculated that an American might not suffer the same kind of surveillance and political restraints that he was subject to. Perhaps he hoped Maryam Jameelah might act as his proxy.

What exactly were his thoughts when he heard the constant tapping of the Smith Corona typewriter just beyond his study door? Did he read Margaret’s letters before he posted them? If the Mawlana’s Jamaat entourage considered her at all, were they inclined to view Maryam Jameelah not as a propaganda tool but as an interloper, even an American spy? Pakistan had long been a willing U.S. partner in the new Great Game of the cold war. There was no shortage of CIA agents about. The Mawlana had already spent several years in jail. He was not a well man. They needed to look out for him. Or so I speculated.

Despite her volubility, Margaret’s letters from the Mawlana’s house conveyed little on these matters. She seemed oblivious to the anomalousness of her position: an innocent abroad. Margaret may have assumed the Mawlana had invited her to Pakistan and taken up guardianship of her simply because he was as invested in her writings on Islam as she was. She often betrayed a sense of entitlement, styling herself as Mawdudi did, as the last word on what it meant to be a faithful Muslim and what a proper Islamic state required of its citizens.

And the Begum? What were her thoughts regarding the arrival of a young woman in her already crowded household? As part of the requirements of purdah, the women of the Mawdudi household were allowed to use only the front lawn and front portion of the house. The back garden and the Mawlana’s study, with the pile of books and papers spilling over his desk, constituted the inviolate men’s realm. Begum Mawdudi never acknowledged her husband’s associates or ventured into his study, Peggy boasted to her parents; she didn’t even know Mian Tufail Muhammad. Margaret did. She was proud of her space in the narrow corridor opposite the Mawlana’s library, intimating to Herbert and Myra that she was privy to the men’s world as well as that world of beautifully appointed teas and suckling babies. Herbert Marcus had always held that women in Muslim societies were treated no better than slaves, but here she was, their dear Peggy, not simply respected but lionized.

Meanwhile, purdah meant that the Mawlana made phone calls on her behalf. Her watch, broken on the journey from America, required repair. He or some underling filled her prescriptions for vitamins and acne cream. The American consulate needed a photograph of her face; she required a chaperone if she was to be unveiled in front of a strange man. On any particular day there might be a letter to her editor at the Voice of Islam to be posted or a thank-you note to Dr. Said Ramadan. Ramadan was the son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, living in exile in Switzerland to escape an Egyptian death sentence. She also corresponded with Sayyid Qutb’s sister Amina in Cairo and Muhammad al-Bahy, the director of cultural affairs at al-Azhar University, not to mention her parents, her sister Betty, her cousins, and aunts. Furthermore, upon the publication of “How I Became Interested in Islam,” magazine editors, newspaper interviewers, and prospective suitors deluged Mawlana Mawdudi with requests for interviews with Maryam Jameelah just as the prospects for the Jamaat-e-Islami were looking up.

Whatever Margaret’s role was to be, whatever merit her proximity to the Mawlana afforded her, it seemed purdah proved less of an obstacle than Urdu. Margaret could hear the low voices of the Mawlana’s party workers (“my father’s family!” Haider Farooq had called them) on the other side of the door, but she could not yet understand them. The typing continued.

Yet before I could begin to fathom the political and family dynamics of the Mawdudi household, Margaret Marcus’s letters to her parents were suddenly all about a man named Hakim Rai Naimat Ali Khan and his wife, Khurshid Bibi. The return address was no longer the Mawlana’s house in Lahore but a place called Pattoki. A month into her stay, Peggy explained, she had received a kind letter from these friends of Mawdudi. Khan and his wife had invited her for a visit. After three days her childless hosts, whom she soon referred to familiarly as Baijan and Appa, asked her to stay on permanently as their daughter. Margaret gladly accepted, returning only briefly to Lahore to collect her clothes and books.

The lifting of the ban on the Jamaat had occasioned her move, she explained in her second letter from Pattoki, responding to Herbert and Myra’s concerns and questions about these developments. The Mawlana had been overwhelmed by work, leaving him no time for his wife and family, much less for her. This had created a certain amount of tension in the house, which had its effect on everybody. In fact, it was the Mawlana who initiated the new arrangement.

So, with barely a backward glance, Peggy introduced a whole new cast of characters. Liberated from those Westernized and urbane Lahoris, and the close quarters of the Mawdudi household, she was in the thick of this new life in no time at all. Though Mawdudi remained her guardian and she continued to correspond with him, her letters to her parents now filled up with the minutiae of life in a small town an hour south of Lahore. For eight months the letters from Pattoki poured out in a bubbling current.

I let myself be carried along by these new developments, losing myself in Margaret’s slipstream account of a busy household in a small town in the Punjab half a century before. Then, in the second to last of those twenty-four letters, I was furiously trying to back away from the precipice in front of me. After an unexplained five-month lapse in correspondence, Peggy wrote from yet another address. The building on Jail Road in Lahore was known locally as Paagal Khanaah. Just under a year after her arrival in Pakistan, Maryam Jameelah had been committed to the madhouse.

)))))

Paagal Khanaah

Jail Road

Lahore

PAKISTAN

July 1963

…

The more I considered it, the more convinced I became that the Mawlana and his political cadres had taken against me. Baijan, I now saw, was in league with him, however reluctantly. He and Appa had been nothing but kind to me. But not one week before I received the Mawlana’s letter, I had noticed that Baijan had grown quiet and withdrawn. He and Appa had recently returned from Lahore, where they had gone to see a doctor about Appa’s migraines. Or so I had been led to believe.

Except for that single trip, whenever he wasn’t at the medical dispensary or at meals, Baijan spent hours on the roof, pacing, repeating his Dhikr and running his fingers through his prayer beads over and over again. Long after the electric and kerosene lights went out, I could hear Baijan pace above my head, alone with Allah. When I commented on Baijan’s distraction and absorption in his prayers, Appa suggested that perhaps Baijan was planning to become a Sufi. Now I could only conclude that after wrestling at length with his conscience, Baijan felt that he had no choice but to agree to Mawdudi’s plan. That was when I first became frightened.

I immediately took refuge with a village neighbor so I could collect my thoughts. I tried my best to keep a rein on my fears. This was very difficult. Not since my departure from New York had I known such unceasing torment. Of my many correspondents, however, there was one man I trusted implicitly. He was a journalist in Karachi named Shaheer Niazi. He alone had expressed a frank skepticism as to the saintliness of Mawlana Mawdudi.

I wrote to him of my deepest fears concerning Mawdudi’s intentions. As it seemed impossible for me to stay on in Pattoki under Mawdudi’s guardianship, I needed his advice. Could he come to Pattoki? I needed help figuring out what I had to do to extract myself from Mawdudi’s control. I would require new lodgings. I wanted nothing more than to remain in Pakistan and live simply and independently. He wrote back immediately. He would come as soon as he could get away.

But before Shaheer Niazi had time to arrange his journey, Mian Tufail Muhammad, the secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami Party, arrived in his sparkling white shalwar kameez. He was accompanied by a pretty young Peace Corps volunteer named Janet Hanneman and a nondescript man from the U.S. consulate. Hanging back was yet another man, handsome and heavy-set, whom Mian Tufail Muhammed introduced mysteriously as Dr. Rashid, a personal friend.

After an awkward round of tea, I was told to pack and get ready to go. Filled with foreboding, I nonetheless acquiesced. I was entirely at their mercy. Of course, the entire village turned out to get a glimpse of the uncovered, slim and attractive “Memsahib” Janet and that only added to the spectacle. After an hour or so, the car stopped. Even before I looked out the window, I had somehow known where I was being taken. I turned to Janet.

It’s the mental hospital, isn’t it? She nodded sadly.

We thought it was the best place, she said.

Once I had been admitted, I snuck a look at my case file. There I discovered a copy of the Mawlana’s March 12th letter to me and all my suspicions were confirmed. Dr. Rashid turned out to be the hospital director and answerable to the Jamaat-e-Islami.

I wondered if Shaheer Niazi would ever find me.

)))))

According to Margaret, the crisis had been set in motion when she received a letter from Mawlana Mawdudi. Dated March 12, 1963, nearly eight months after she had left his home, his letter was quite different from earlier ones, she told her parents, so distinct as to make her think Mawdudi had not written it. She studied the letter with a wary eye, each time testing it for a false note. Leaving aside an account of its content, she was suddenly struck by its tone. Mawdudi had never addressed her with such detachment before! He did not mince words, Peggy reported; it was a cold and ruthless letter. She couldn’t help but conclude that it was not addressed to her, but written so that the Mawlana might justify his subsequent actions to himself. The thought terrified her. After this preamble, Peggy then provided a bare summary of the letter’s contents.

Mawdudi began by saying that it had always been his intention to find her a suitable young man to marry. He had first thought her misbehavior was due to the frustration of her unmarried state. Given the most recent report from Pattoki, he now felt he didn’t want to risk the ruin of a good man’s life. The Mawlana then proceeded to outline not only her transgressions in Pattoki but list those she had committed in Lahore as well.

Earlier, Peggy had assured her parents that it had been entirely her own decision to leave Mawdudi’s home. She now admitted this wasn’t the case. The Mawlana had sent her to Pattoki to be “rehabilitated,” and on the evidence of Baijan’s testimony he had evidently determined that her rehabilitation had failed.

If Herbert and Myra expected to learn the substance of the Mawlana’s complaints from their daughter, they would have been disappointed. Whatever Margaret stood accused of doing, her crimes appeared to be either so inconsequential or so damning that she couldn’t bear to repeat them when she came to account for how she happened to be writing from an insane asylum.

I assumed evidence in the archive or the library would settle such questions and determine the direction of the story. But the March 12 letter was not among those letters in the Maryam Jameelah Papers. All I had was Margaret’s account of events: an account that, she now admitted, hadn’t been entirely truthful. I was thus obliged to consider, too, whether Margaret Marcus’s panic over Mawdudi’s intentions was, like her ardent religious zeal, a symptom of some deeper and more private pathos.

Or was it that beneath the story that Margaret’s letters told, there had all along been another story, a shadow story in which Herbert and Myra’s deepest fears about their daughter and the man into whose care they sent her were realized? Was she truly in danger? Had she been dispatched to Pattoki because she had displeased Mawdudi in refusing to marry? Had party elders or a jealous wife turned him against her? Was the lifting of the ban on his party somehow related to this development? n

To be continued…

April 22-28, 2011 - Vol. XXIII, No. 10