Copyright Oggbashan August 2019
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
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"No, Mo. We're not wearing any Hijabs. Never!"
"But, Carol, you are my sisters now. If you don't cover your hair in public that shames my honour."
"Fuck your honour, Mo! Your mother may have married our father but he isn't Muslim and neither are we. We are your older stepsisters. You have to accept us as we are, as your mother has. She hasn't tried to change us, neither should you. You are part of an English family, not a Muslim one."
"At least look at them, Carol. They are pure silk."
"I don't care if they are pure gold, Mo. They are a symbol of male oppression and we aren't wearing them for anyone, especially not for you."
"And I agree with Carol, Mo," my sister Anne said. "We are not Muslim, and even if we were, we'd never wear a hijab. The next request will be to cover our legs and shoulders. Like Carol, I say fuck your honour. We are respectable English girls who look after ourselves and our own honour. So does Rebecca. She wouldn't wear a hijab either."
"But Rebecca is engaged to marry my elder brother. As a Muslim wife she must wear a hijab." Mo was horrified.
"Rebecca won't be a Muslim wife, Mo." Anne said. "She's a Christian and won't change for Abdul. They are having a Registry Office wedding, not a Muslim or Church one. She has told Abdul that she will not appear to be a Muslim and she won't cover her hair or anything else. If he suggested that, not only would the wedding never happen, but Rebecca would beat Abdul up."
"She wouldn't! That would shame Abdul." Mo protested.
"She fucking well would, Mo, as Anne and I would for you if you tried to insist on a hijab for us."
"I wish you wouldn't swear, Carol. It's not womanly. And my name is Mohammed, not Mo."
"I'll call you something stronger than Mo if you carry on like this. How about male chauvinist PIG!"
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We had had similar arguments before ever since our father, Andrew, had married Mo and Abdul's mother, Sadia. Our mother had died five years ago in a car crash. Their father had died in an accident at work and their mother had worked in the same office as our father. He had helped Sadia with the compensation claim, with the insurance claim on their mortgage and the two of them had a mutual respect that gradually changed into love.
We liked and appreciated our stepmother and she understood that the two of us were adult English women who lived our own lives. But her sons thought that as males they were responsible for us and should insist that we behaved in a way they thought appropriate.
Abdul had met Rebecca and was struck by her independent nature and intelligence. She had been working on him to change his attitudes and accept that he lived in a society that treated women as equals. We thought Rebecca was more than Abdul's equal. She organised him, ran him and was obviously the dominant partner in their relationship.
Mo, or Mohammed, was worried by Rebecca's control of Abdul. He thought that he ought to insist on his role as the dominant male since or father and Abdul wouldn't accept that role. We two sisters, slightly older than Mo, and vastly more sophisticated, resented Mo's attempts to make us into submissive Muslim-style females.
Even Rebecca was finding Mo's attitude irritating. Because she was annoyed, so was Abdul, yet Mo became even more authoritarian as we all opposed him. It didn't help that Mo worked as a buyer for a supplier and manufacturer of Muslim dress. His working life was surrounded by Muslims who had a financial interest in getting women to dress in 'modest' Muslim styles. As an employee he could get a discount on their products and very good deals on end of lines. But neither his mother, nor us, his step-sisters, nor Rebecca his sister-in-law to be, would wear Muslim dress. The closest any of us came was that his mother Sadia would wear her one and only hijab on the rare occasions she went to the mosque. She would take it off as soon as she got home and never wear it again until her next visit.
Mosque? That was part of Mo's problem. Mo and Sadia went to the mosque closest to home. The Imam and all that Mosque's leaders had been born in the UK, grew up speaking English and were relaxed about being in a tolerant western democracy. They understood and sympathised about the conflict between living as a Muslim and interacting with people that weren't Muslim. They knew our father Andrew, knew he wasn't Muslim and had intention of becoming one, but that he was quite willing to accept Sadia as a Muslim. Andrew was liked by many people at that mosque and willing to help with any problems within his expertise as a commercial lawyer. He had a wide understanding of the conflicts that could arise between a business owner who was a practising Muslim and UK laws for companies.
But Mo went to the mosque nearest his work. Their Imam was a recent immigrant from a deeply traditional rural area in his country of birth. His command of English was very limited and he worked using the classical Arabic of the Koran and his own language of the country where Sadia had been born. Sadia, Abdul and Mo all spoke English but the factory where Mo worked used their country's language. Many of the female employees couldn't work elsewhere because they didn't know enough (or any) English and their husbands didn't want them to learn it because they might be exposed to revolutionary ideas about a woman's role.
All of us, including Rebecca, knew that Mo had a large suitcase under his bed full of female Muslim dress that he had acquired from work and wanted to persuade us to wear. If only he had brought home some material instead of made-up garments Anne and I could have made some clothes. We often do. Today's dress for the two of us started another argument with Mo.
It was a hot summer day. Anne and I, together with Rebecca and her sister Mary, were going to the local ice-skating rink. The two of us were in the kitchen eating bacon butties which we liked and horrified Mo. He didn't like seeing bacon in the fridge. Sometimes Sadia would make bacon butties for us and her husband. That upset Mo even more as he considered Sadia was polluting herself with the bacon.
Mary and I we wearing our self-made skating skirts. They were short, flared and stitched to matching panties. No matter how fast we twirled, or even if we fell over, would we show anything except those panties worn over our normal ones. Above the skirts we were wearing tight white ribbed sleeveless sweaters which emphasised our breasts. Rebecca and Mary would be dressed similarly, and Abdul would join us on the ice rink in about an hour.
Mo walked into the kitchen. His face turned white as he saw the bacon butties. I stood up to make him a cup of coffee. He saw what I was wearing.
"Carol! You can't go out like that. You're indecent!" He protested.
I twirled to flare my skirt.
"Why not, Mo? No one could possibly see anything," I retorted.
"But your legs are bare..."
"So what? They often are on a day as hot as today."
"And your boobs!"
"So what, Mo. Anne and I know we have nice boobs so why not? So have Rebecca and Mary. They'll be here soon and we're all going skating to meet Abdul. Why don't you come too?"
"I can't skate and..."
