Maryam Jameelah didn’t see the rightful path exactly as he saw it. Was this why he had committed her?
For Mawdudi, it was “a principle of creation” that women be docile and acquiescent. Yet whatever respect Maryam may have had for the Mawlana’s learning, she could be intractable, as her parents well knew. Even before she arrived in his household, Margaret had disobeyed an explicit command from the Mawlana. In one of her letters to him she had mentioned her love of painting and, as she contemplated her departure, raised the question of what she should do with her artwork. Countering her suggestion that perhaps the Islamic prohibition against figurative art was directed solely at portrayals of false gods and idols, the Mawlana was firm. This was no quibble. The Holy Prophet categorically prohibited Muslims from drawing pictures of living beings.
Picture making was the first step toward idolatry, he wrote back to her, striking an uncharacteristically harsh note. Idolatry is not simply worshipping an idol. The proliferation of pictures of leaders and celebrities inevitably led to reverence for them instead of for Allah. This too was a form of idol worship, he said. From earliest times, even in the Arab world, pictures served as the greatest vehicle for spreading immorality and lewdness. Now more than ever, he insisted, indecent literature, music, pictures, and statues are the most potent instigators of adultery and fornication. He insisted that Margaret destroy all her artwork before coming to Pakistan.
In the interviews she gave upon her arrival in Lahore, Margaret spoke about how dutifully she had abandoned painting once she realized it was forbidden. In his editorial excoriating Mawdudi, Ghulam Ahmad Parwez had insisted that this constituted yet another deep psychological blow. Through painting, he said, Maryam expressed her emotions and feelings. “How could it be considered haram when one of the avatars of Allah was a painter? God has said in the Qur’an that one of his great prophets, Suleiman, used to ask artists to make paintings.” Even if Mawdudi had believed it wrong, Parwez suggested, he might have brought Maryam to the stage where her creative powers could find some other outlet. For Parwez, this was more evidence of the Jamaat’s inhumanity and their tendency to impose Islam by force.
But though Margaret had renounced her art, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy her youthful paintings and drawings. Instead she donated them to the Oriental Division of the New York Public Library. After consulting with the art department, Mr. Parr had agreed to take possession of them. In her mournful cover note to a bound portfolio of early artwork, was there a measure of ambivalence in Maryam’s decision to give up her art? “Now that I am a Muslim, I hereby stop making pictures and embark instead on a literary career in service of the Faith,” she vowed. Had there been backsliding? Had Maryam disobeyed another of Mawdudi’s strictures while she was a member of his household?
There was reason to be skeptical of Ghulam Ahmad Parwez’s account of Maryam’s state of mind. Mawdudi hadn’t tried to force Maryam into marriage with a groom of his choosing. Similarly, Parwez’s description of Maryam’s romance with Islam coming up against a brutal reality was not in the least borne out by her letters home, though admittedly it was now clear that she had not been altogether forthcoming. And Margaret rarely let ten days go by between letters, yet there was that inexplicable gap of five months between the last letter from Pattoki and the one from the madhouse. If letters were missing, what else was?
Maryam was well aware of the symbolic weight of her decision to leave America. Her journey to Lahore was self-consciously styled to echo the journey of those early Muslims who followed the Prophet from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. In Arabic this was known as the al-hijrah. In leaving Mecca, they abandoned the
For Mawdudi, it was “a principle of creation” that women be docile and acquiescent. Yet whatever respect Maryam may have had for the Mawlana’s learning, she could be intractable, as her parents well knew. Even before she arrived in his household, Margaret had disobeyed an explicit command from the Mawlana. In one of her letters to him she had mentioned her love of painting and, as she contemplated her departure, raised the question of what she should do with her artwork. Countering her suggestion that perhaps the Islamic prohibition against figurative art was directed solely at portrayals of false gods and idols, the Mawlana was firm. This was no quibble. The Holy Prophet categorically prohibited Muslims from drawing pictures of living beings.
Picture making was the first step toward idolatry, he wrote back to her, striking an uncharacteristically harsh note. Idolatry is not simply worshipping an idol. The proliferation of pictures of leaders and celebrities inevitably led to reverence for them instead of for Allah. This too was a form of idol worship, he said. From earliest times, even in the Arab world, pictures served as the greatest vehicle for spreading immorality and lewdness. Now more than ever, he insisted, indecent literature, music, pictures, and statues are the most potent instigators of adultery and fornication. He insisted that Margaret destroy all her artwork before coming to Pakistan.
In the interviews she gave upon her arrival in Lahore, Margaret spoke about how dutifully she had abandoned painting once she realized it was forbidden. In his editorial excoriating Mawdudi, Ghulam Ahmad Parwez had insisted that this constituted yet another deep psychological blow. Through painting, he said, Maryam expressed her emotions and feelings. “How could it be considered haram when one of the avatars of Allah was a painter? God has said in the Qur’an that one of his great prophets, Suleiman, used to ask artists to make paintings.” Even if Mawdudi had believed it wrong, Parwez suggested, he might have brought Maryam to the stage where her creative powers could find some other outlet. For Parwez, this was more evidence of the Jamaat’s inhumanity and their tendency to impose Islam by force.
But though Margaret had renounced her art, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy her youthful paintings and drawings. Instead she donated them to the Oriental Division of the New York Public Library. After consulting with the art department, Mr. Parr had agreed to take possession of them. In her mournful cover note to a bound portfolio of early artwork, was there a measure of ambivalence in Maryam’s decision to give up her art? “Now that I am a Muslim, I hereby stop making pictures and embark instead on a literary career in service of the Faith,” she vowed. Had there been backsliding? Had Maryam disobeyed another of Mawdudi’s strictures while she was a member of his household?
There was reason to be skeptical of Ghulam Ahmad Parwez’s account of Maryam’s state of mind. Mawdudi hadn’t tried to force Maryam into marriage with a groom of his choosing. Similarly, Parwez’s description of Maryam’s romance with Islam coming up against a brutal reality was not in the least borne out by her letters home, though admittedly it was now clear that she had not been altogether forthcoming. And Margaret rarely let ten days go by between letters, yet there was that inexplicable gap of five months between the last letter from Pattoki and the one from the madhouse. If letters were missing, what else was?
Maryam was well aware of the symbolic weight of her decision to leave America. Her journey to Lahore was self-consciously styled to echo the journey of those early Muslims who followed the Prophet from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. In Arabic this was known as the al-hijrah. In leaving Mecca, they abandoned the
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