Shahbaaz gently lifts the tattered curtains and enters his small mud house as he hears the innocent cries of a newly born child who has just set her soft tiny feet into the world. The village midwife, Chachi Sakina, greets him with a hesitant smile, extending towards him a tender bundle. Her face betrays pity, but her words convey a hollow congratulations to Shahbaaz, “Mubarakaan hovan Shahbaaz puttar , you are the father of a beautiful girl”.
Shahbaaz’s eyes look worried as soon as he hears those words. He looks longingly at the pink bundle, the sentiment of fatherly love fleet through his face, but he quickly makes himself look away. Without even looking at his wife, Hafsa, he hands the bundle back to Chachi Sakina, and exits his house silently. His disappointment is now clearly etched all over his face. It seems he has aged a hundred years since he entered that room a few moments ago.
That night, as Shahbaaz sits on a charpoy with his father and other men of his family, he tells them the news. His face is buried in his hands. They pat his shoulder and tell him they are sorry. An elderly man of the village suggests burying the baby girl alive. Shahbaaz feels a pain in his heart at his words. He finds an excuse, “No, Khan Bhai, Mullah Hikmat said last Friday in the mosque that it is against Islam”. Khan Bhai tells Shahbaaz they can take the girl to a faraway place and bury her, nobody will find out. “This is your fifth daughter Shahbaaz. We are poor farmers. Where will you get the money to marry her? How will you collect her dowry? Look at Feeqa, he had only two daughters but he buried his third one, and you have five.”
Shahbaaz’s old mother enters with a tray full of cups of tea. She has already heard the news from Chachi Sakina. She hands her eldest son a cup of tea, places a hand on his back, and offers her advice “I say, my dear Shahbaaz, you get remarried. Hafsa can only produce daughters. She will never get you a son. There is no lack of brides for you my son. The whole village wants to marry their daughters to you.” Shahbaaz’s mother has never really forgiven his wife Hafsa for bringing such little dowry to their house at her marriage. Since the day Shahbaaz got married, she has harbored the desire for Shahbaaz to get remarried so they can accumulate more wealth when the new bride brings in her dowry. This seems to be an easy solution to her for all their financial troubles, especially for paying the dowry of her own daughter who is soon to be married.
Shahbaaz’s neighbor, Fooda, tells him that he has heard of some new method in the city through which the doctors can examine a pregnant woman and tell if the child in her womb is a girl or boy even before the child is born. He suggests that Shahbaaz go to the city when Hafsa is expecting next, and get the child ‘dropped’ if it is a girl again. Fooda tells Shahbaaz that he has heard that this process is being carried out in Pakistan with the latest imported technology from ‘Amreeka’. It is the safest and quickest way; all his cousins in the city are doing this. The biggest advantage is that it is a fast and private method so no one among the relatives and neighbors finds out that the woman went through it.
Shahbaaz is depressed at everybody’s advice. He feels helpless and very sad. In his heart, he is ashamed of himself for not welcoming his newly born daughter. Suddenly, he gets up from the charpoy and tells everyone he is going to sleep. He then sets off in the direction of his house. He enters his mud house whose walls have witnessed the birth of all five of his daughters. He finds Hafsa asleep, her youngest daughter hugged to her chest. He strokes Hafsa’s hair, thinking of the pain she went through that day, and very carefully lifts up the child. She yawns but luckily doesn’t cry. He looks at her with all the love in his heart and places his finger lightly in her hand. She clutches it instantly with her little fingers, as if telling her father to please keep her. He whispers to her, “Don’t worry my daughter, I will protect you. I will collect your dowry and I will marry you to a prince.” He plants a light kiss on her forehead and places her back next to Hafsa. He then enters the next room of his house to see his other four daughters sound asleep. He smiles sadly to himself, as he walks up to each one and kisses their foreheads, wondering what fate has in store for each of them.
He walks out to the front room, and looking at his wife Hafsa, promises himself that even if his family has to go hungry, or sell their small field and skinny goat, he will not kill his daughters like the other men in the village. He will bring them up as his religion Islam tells him to, collect their dowry as he is compelled to by society, and then get them married.
Tears slide down Salma’s cheeks, as she thinks of the hardships her family has to bear for her marriage. She remembers how one day in the past year she had decided to decrease her family’s suffering, by ending her life, but Shahbaaz, her father, had taken her to the doctor in time and she had survived. Her mother and sisters had wept for days and had told her they could not live without her. Her father had made her promise that she would never even think of doing something like that again. Thus now she has no choice but to silently see her family endure pain and keep living her life under the immense guilt she feels for being born a girl.
From the window, she can see her father, plowing their small piece of land. He is old and weak. His bones are showing, and how could they not, she thinks. For as long as she can remember, her whole family only ate one small meal a day to save money for her and her sisters’ dowries. They did not even drink the milk from the goat; they would sell it instead. “But that is not the only reason,” thinks Salma. Her father had become weaker after the shock of her elder sister, Sammo’s death. After what happened to Sammo, he had worked even harder to collect the dowries of his other four daughters, so that they would not share Sammo’s fate. Sammo’s in laws had claimed her death was an accident, but even the children in the village knew otherwise.
Since the day Sammo had gotten married, her in laws had heaped taunts on her for bringing inadequate dowry. At Sammo’s smallest fault, her husband, Sheeda, and his mother would threaten her with Sheeda’s remarriage. Sammo never told her parents, Hafsa and Shahbaaz, about her problems, but word gets around in the village. Those were the days when Shahbaaz’s health deteriorated the most. He would curse himself for not having given more dowry to Sammo. Hafsa would always console him by reminding him that they had met every demand on Sheeda’s list, but Shahbaaz still felt guilty for not giving more.
A fresh bout of hot tears stream down Salma’s face as she remembers the day it happened. Sheeda had come by their house to tell Shahbaaz the news of Sammo’s death, “The gas stove burst on her,” he had told Shahbaaz plainly. For the first time in her life, Salma had seen her father cry that day. Women in the village told Hafsa later that Sheeda’s mother had pushed Sammo into the stove in the courtyard; their neighbor’s son had seen everything with his own eyes when he was flying a kite on the roof of his house. Hafsa had walked around the house like a dead person for days afterwards, but she never told Shahbaaz about it. He had probably heard anyway she told herself. There was no use telling him, as even if they went to the police, nothing would happen. They did not have the money to bribe them. They had lost their beloved daughter Sammo and nothing would bring her back.
Shahbaaz and a few elderly men of the village had gone to Sheeda’s house forty days after Sammo’s death. To their surprise, Sheeda’s new wife had opened the door for them. Shahbaaz felt hurt and angry that Sheeda did not even wait for forty days before getting remarried, but he hid his feelings. They had come here to get Sammo’s dowry back from Sheeda, Shahbaaz reminded himself, he was free to live his life however he wanted to. Sheeda refused to give back the dowry saying he had every right to keep it since he was ready to marry Sammo’s sister Salma. Shahbaaz had felt the urge to hit Sheeda then, but he restrained himself and quietly walked back to his house with the other men. He told Hafsa that night that she never should have sent him to Sheeda’s house, but they both knew it was necessary to at least try since they were the legal heirs of Sammo’s dowry and it would contribute towards the dowry of their remaining daughters.
Salma’s thoughts shift to the present. She feels insecure and scared. The family of the man to whom she is supposed to get married soon, Aslam, had visited her family a few days ago and given them a list of their demands for dowry. To Salma, it seems like Sammo’s marriage happening all over again. That had also started with the set of dowry demands from Sheeda’s family. Aslam’s list was even longer than Sheeda’s. Salma remembers her parents’ conversation. “As the years pass, new things like the television and the motorbike come in the bazaar, and their demands keep increasing,” Hafsa had said. Shahbaaz had replied, “The only reason I have said yes to Aslam’s proposal for Salma is that his list is shorter than the lists of the other proposals that I had turned down earlier because of money shortage. Aslam’s family is much poorer than our family, and he is less educated and much older than Salma, that is why their demands are less. I wish I could marry our Salma to someone who was younger and more educated but with our financial situation it is not possible since they will demand a higher dowry than Aslam. We also have to think of Salma’s younger sisters and their dowries. At least we can afford the dowry Aslam has asked for even if he is much older and less educated. Salma is passing marriage age and every day only makes her older.”
Salma is now reminded of her childhood friend Afshan; they used to share their dolls as little girls and pray that their futures would be identical, but Salma prayed just now that may she never share Afshan’s fate. There was a burglary in Afshan’s house the night before her wedding and most of her dowry was stolen. The next day, when the groom’s procession, baaraat, came to Afshan’s house for the marriage ceremony, her elder brother quietly informed the groom’s father of the burglary and begged him to understand the situation. He promised that they would still give Afshan the complete dowry within the next few weeks after her marriage. The groom’s father, however, halted the ceremony on the spot. Afshan’s father and brother pleaded with him to change his decision but he did not. Afshan’s father even took off his head wrap, pagri, and placed it at the man’s feet, but he had made up his mind. The entire baaraat returned from Afshan’s house. After this humiliation, Afshan never got any more marriage proposals. Her brother and father had collected her full dowry now, but she was still unmarried. Women gossiped about her in hushed tones all over the village. Salma wondered how Afshan was doing now. They had not met for a long time as unmarried girls were not allowed to meet her -- there was the superstition in the village that if Afshan’s ‘cursed shadow’ fell over the unmarried girls, it would spoil their futures as well.
Lost in these thoughts, Salma suddenly hears the sounds of the Azaan from the mosque nearby. She gets up slowly and performs her wudu, spreads her prayer mat and begins her prayers in the direction facing the Kaba . As she spreads her hands in front of her face to make dua , she feels the presence of Allah. It is from Him that she draws the strength to carry on in life. Thoughts of Him make her feel secure enough to face her fears. Her Allah is the only one who is aware of the sorrows in her heart and He can soothe her pain and protect her. She now feels less scared, almost hopeful.
Salma is a young girl and her heart is also filled with innocent dreams of a happy and beautiful future.
Yes, Islam prohibits burying baby girls and if Islam hadn't prohibited it he would have gladly buried her. Don't you see the whole "kafir" world is busy burying their newborn daughters. It's not "inhuman", it's "unislamic". Sick people...
I have read the whole story and altough it does not surprise me, it makes me very sad.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by shawaiz: *
Yes, Islam prohibits burying baby girls and if Islam hadn't prohibited it he would have gladly buried her. Don't you see the whole "kafir" world is busy burying their newborn daughters. It's not "inhuman", it's "unislamic". Sick people...
[/QUOTE]
Burying baby girls is haraam. There is not doubt about that. But Jahez as such is haraam too. And that´s what our people back home in Pakistan tend to ignore, especially in rural areas.
