Amr be Marouf va Nahy az Monkar
BY MONIR GHOLAMZADEH BAZARBASH.
She gives me a bag of hijab pins to use when I hold my baby. Then I would not need to worry about my scarf. She says, “You are careless with your hijab. Take these and coordinate the colors of pearls with the colors of the scarves. You have so many scarves. I keep buying one for you on each occasion. But you just keep wearing these plain-colored shawls. Who says hijab cannot be fashionable? Don’t you see the Turkish fashion models who wear hijab? Yours is not hijab when the hair growth shows under your forehead. God has said to prophet Muhammad to tell his wives to pull their scarves closer across their foreheads.” My mother gives me a whole bag of scarf pins. She has brought them from Mashad. Not from the woman who sells scarves and pins in the mosque. She has gotten them from a store that sells tasbih. The bag has twenty pins inside, four different kinds. A U-shaped metal one that looks like the anatomy of a uterus. A P-shaped metal part hangs from it and holds a filigree flower attached to a dahlia attached to a heart. The length of it is 3.5 centimeters with the ending part. The address of the shopping center is on a small piece of paper. It is named Mosa ibn Jafar Alayhossalam, after the seventh Shia Imam. Our neighborhood mosque is also called Mosa ibn Jafar. I cannot name the imams from memory after the fifth Imam. There are twelve of them. They will ask me to name them in the grave the first night after my death. The night of terror. The living people will pray the dead person's prayers between the last two prayers at the night of burial. It will help the dead transition into the new world with ease. My mother does not approve of my outfit in the stores. She sews oversized kimonos for me that swallow my body shape. As my baby is growing, I always use the pin with white pearls with streaks of grey like the marble on the stairs. When my baby pulls the pin from under my chin, I no longer feel guilt for my bare head. I go. I write the sun's event.
Monir Gholamzadeh Bazarbash was born and raised in Urmia, Iran. She lives and teaches in Florida with her son.