What a year it has been!

It’ll probably go down in the history of my life as one of the most life-changing and challenging ones yet.

Given the unseemly and unfavorable circumstances, however, I’m doing pretty okay. Alhamdulillah. But before I say anymore, I want to first point out why I am about to write (and divulge) what I’m about to write.

When I started off on my blogging and writing journey back in the year 2006, I checked my intention and asked myself: why am I doing this? What is the purpose of this writing that I am about to start doing?

And more importantly, what do I expect to achieve by it, in this world and the next?

Then there were some other minor issues related to it, such as: should I use my real name as my byline, or an alias (pseudonym)? Should I write on safe, general, “feel good” topics only? Or should I touch upon controversial and contentious issues?

And lastly, should I share details of my personal life online, or not? If yes, why? And to what extent?

I made the decision and commenced. My writing went through many phases. It made me gain new contacts and fans, and lose past contacts and friends.

The Hands that ‘Rock the Boat’

I don’t know how it happened, but eventually I started to inch towards topics related to marriage in Islam. This was not my intention at the start. But it gradually happened.

As it is, my marriage went through a very rough patch in the years 2006-2007. But it survived.

Then there is the very real, very serious issue in our local culture, for which (it is no secret that) I don’t have much patience, nor respect – and that is the way how any girl or woman is expected to force herself to be like, once she enters the realm of marriage.

Whether a girl or woman in South Asia is a Muslim, Zoroastrian (‘Parsi’), Christian, Hindu, Aga Khani, or from any other religion, it makes no difference. When it comes to marriage in this geographical region of the world, the societal expectations from her as soon as she becomes a wife, are more or less the same:

For her in-laws, culturally, she is nothing more than a ‘paaon ki jooti’ (a shoe worn on their foot). A servile slave. If she makes herself fit the bill, she is in. If not, she is out, ready to be replaced by one of the many scores of other “chappals” (slippers) out there readily available in the market (with the added ‘fringe benefit’ of a truckload of jahaiz in tow).

When I started writing and homeschooling, many of my former female friends and contacts who were also married, began to wish they were in my position: living independently in a (dingy little) apartment with their husband and children, homeschooling the latter, and enjoying an autonomous married life that was ‘free’ from the interference and control of their in-laws.

Many would ask me probing questions about how I had been able to ‘achieve’ this feat: to live independently like this without facing any “problems” from my in-laws.

Many (rightly) guessed that there was something I was hiding from the world.

They were right. I was. 🙂

But I kept mum in order to maintain the social respect of the immediate families on both sides, and to ‘make lemonade’ from the “lemons” that I’d been handed out by my fate.

Soon, many of my friends and contacts would appeal to me in private that they also wanted to move out from their in-laws’ house and start homeschooling their children, the way I was.

They looked at me wishfully and wondered how they, too, could do it. I’d seen how nice their in-laws were to them, and how these women were in the dark about my particular situation, so I didn’t encourage them to move out.

Instead, I advised them to stay put and appreciate their married life the way it was, even if some privacy was lacking. I would encourage them to request their in-laws to facilitate their moving into a semi-detached or nearby house portion, for getting more privacy.

I eventually distanced myself from them socially, in order to not increase their desire to live an autonomous married life like me. You see, every time they’d meet me, especially once my first book got published, the topic of discussion would return to the challenges of living under the same roof with in-laws and how much they, too, wanted to move out. They also wanted to pursue homeschooling like me, which is very difficult to do in a joint family setup.

Because I knew that they didn’t know the reality of my particular situation, I did not encourage them.

Never did I expect that my writing would take off so much, and so quickly. Eventually, unwittingly, a little surprised, I began to realize that I was beginning to make enemies. Around the year 2014, I began to receive extreme hate from very close quarters.

And at first I didn’t know why.

But I continued to write, because remember what I’d said about my intentions at the start of my writing journey? The purpose I had outlined in my heart, in private, with my rabb, Allah?

My intention had been to not just spread the knowledge of Islam through my writing. But it had also been to do my bit in bringing about a positive change in the Muslims around the globe, through my words.

The Price of Integrity

The thing with me is, and anyone who has known me since my childhood would vouch for this, I cannot bring myself to deliberately speak falsehood. Even if it is for a good cause.

Also, I tend to value integrity and honesty over my personal benefit and success. This means, simply, that if being honest or doing the right thing involves losing out on something that is precious or valuable to me, I’ll still do it.

And this habit of mine, has cost me many a thing in my life. It is painful to let go of something valuable or nice when you decide to do the right thing, or for telling the truth, or for standing up for justice.

But I still do it.

Okay, so for those who missed the memo, earlier this year, I “came out” discreetly about the trial that has been plaguing my marriage since it’s second year: my husband’s mental illness, and it’s associated repercussions.

You may read it in full at the link above (warning: long story) if you have the time.

His mental and physical health hasn’t been doing so good since he passed age 50. However, up till now, I’d not just kept quiet about my personal struggles on the marriage front, but also sacrificed immensely of my own health, safety, security, and social life, in order to become my husband’s “crutch” in life.

But some time during 2017-2020, I began to burn out and crumble within, as I struggled to keep our house running smoothly, with all of its overlapping aspects: marriage, mental & physical health, homeschooling, earning money, saving, budgeting, and spending it, and most of all, keeping the fortress of our home protected from people whose intentions towards us weren’t so good.

Like I said, I’d made many enemies along the way. And they desired to see our home and marriage broken up. They also wanted me to keep quiet about things that only spineless sell-outs and cowards keep quiet about.

Secondly, as I have already shared in the above link, the death of my father-in-law brought out a hitherto dark side in my husband’s immediate family that was alarming, to say the least.

After what happened to him, in January 2021, I once again had the option to keep quiet about it, just like I’d done about my husband’s mental condition, or to speak out and take a stand.

You see, when someone is able to easily get away with doing something that is very wrong, and the people around them who witness it also choose to remain quiet about it, and perhaps even to cover it up, this only emboldens and allows the evil-doer to do the same wrong thing again.

This time, I couldn’t remain quiet. I’d been contemplating about “coming out” about my husband’s mental condition for years.

And the death of my father-in-law gave me the go-ahead to do it.

This time, my conscience just wouldn’t let me remain quiet.

Textual admonishments in private

In Islam, we are advised to praise other Muslims for their good deeds in public, and to admonish or advise them about their sins, in private.

That is what I decided to do: admonish my husband’s immediate family members in private.

As I’ve mentioned previously here on my blog, I have been on the receiving end of corrective “advice” sent to me online by anonymous people as well. Some of it wasn’t very nicely worded. Some was downright mean. But I still took it seriously. I didn’t hit “delete”. Instead, I weighed its credibility objectively.

I used technological means to send private texts to my immediate in-laws that admonished and warned them sternly for the major wrongs that they had done in the past, and were still doing, such as blatant lying and hypocrisy. As is their habit, this only resulted in online blocks and subsequent cover-ups, proceeding forth as if nothing had happened.

I realized that my written words were falling on deaf ears, as had been the case when I used to talk to them, years ago, in person and on the phone. Anything, and I do mean anything, which I said in response to their invasive, disrespectful, and offensive harassment (persistent questions and arguments about my personal choices: such as observing pardah, homeschooling, eschewing the joint family system, endorsing Islamic banking vs. conventional banking, the beautiful name that I had given to my third child, among other things) — would fall on deaf ears.

They’d just continue arguing with me in a very “jaahil”, stubborn, spineless, and harassing manner.

Please bear in mind that this was done only by my husband’s immediate family members. His siblings’ spouses, children, and his extended family members were, for the most part, respectful towards me.

This ongoing and defiant harassment was one of the primary reasons I stopped talking to all of them completely, in the year 2015. Those of them who weren’t offensive outright, were tacit and willing agents and allies of the ones who were. Such as the other 2 daughters-in-law.

On the home front, between 2018 and 2021, as the situation grew more dire due to my husband’s deteriorating mental health, and our security situation (vandals broke into our home in broad daylight, but ran off when they realized we were inside), I became increasingly burnt out, and traumatized. My husband, Irfan Hassan, on the other hand, went about his daily workaholic office routine as if nothing much had happened or changed. That was because I was taking all the mental stress for him.

Even though I still kept quiet about my troubles, …. socially, I was becoming increasingly withdrawn.

Police investigations. Arrests. A couple of years earlier, I had had a teen-aged young man who had misbehaved with me on the street of my (trashy Zamzama) neighborhood sent to jail lockup for a night and beaten up, after I used an app to complain about his behavior to the police. I had received police protection at my door for a few days after that.

This incident emboldened me to fight back (even publicly) against those who were continuing to harass, oppress, or be unjust to me.

I decided that I would now take a stand on the personal front too.

And yet, all of this (can you believe it?) I kept mum about from everyone, in order to not have my parents lose sleep or to worry about me.

My husband’s mental condition weakens and emasculates him, so he is unable to protect me or my children from those who have ill intentions towards us.

Be they robbers or his toxic immediate family members.

“Irfan, just let her go!”

Now for the clincher.

Since I have slowly started to reveal my personal struggles to the world, my husband’s mother and siblings are — 100% in line with the unjust cultural marriage practices that prevail in our geographical region — pressurizing him to divorce me.

But he is refusing to do it. Because he doesn’t want to.

Surprise surprise, love actually prevails? Lol.

This has been going on since July this year. His siblings, with his sister Vajeeha Inam née Hasan as the primary forerunner and commander of this Ibleesi army, keep asking him WHY he doesn’t divorce me.

Nevertheless, like I said, they are on a roll since my father-in-law’s death, and are persisting. They perhaps are not aware of what a great sin it is to force a man to divorce his wife when she doesn’t deserve it, and when he doesn’t want to. This applies even more so if he is mentally challenged like my husband is, and if his wife is blameless. Such a forced divorce does take place, however, especially in the Hanafi madhab (as the innumerable trashy dramas of Pakistan only too well depict, time and again). By the way, us Pakistanis are very apt at forcing our sons and brothers to divorce their wives. It is a disgustingly rampant cultural norm and sin.

An old shoe (پاؤں کی جوتی) has become worn out and broken? Just discard it and buy a new one, brother.

It’s a culturally widespread sin. Just one of the many injustices that are meted out to married women in our geographical region, as I said at the start.

Even Irfan was taken aback by seeing their “true faces”, as he calls it, but still blames me for forcing him to resign from his dead-end job and for “wasting” his provident fund on relocating to another city of Pakistan.

Yup, my children and I are sick of Karachi and it’s vibe, and want to move out from here to another city, permanently.

His lipoma tumor

Irfan had a non-malignant lipoma burgeoning inside his neck/chin region, detected and diagnosed since 2017. The doctor advised surgery after the ultrasound. Pictures are attached here as proof, since my in-laws are calling the bluff on everything I claim, say or write about his health, now.

As usual, when I made him contact his parents about this lipoma (his father was alive then), to ask them to coerce him to take a few days off from his job in order to have it surgically removed, it received an indifferent, cold response from them.

They proceeded to ignore this issue as if it didn’t exist at all (cue their family’s twisted attitude towards diseases & healthcare that I’ve already blogged about in my “coming out” post).

He kept saying he’ll have it removed one day. But he didn’t. His beard conveniently hid this grotesque growth that was inside his neck from everyone. It kept growing until its slimy tentacles began to reach his chin (he would even ask me and the children to feel it under his skin…… eww. Gross).

Only when I forced him to resign from his job in July 2022, did this workaholic man finally have the time to get the surgery done during his notice period. And that also he did only because he wanted to have his employer, AlBaraka Bank, reimburse the cost of the surgery (cue the attitude towards healthcare that I mentioned), even though he had enough money to easily pay for it himself.

So yes, even though he now claims otherwise, had I not forced him to resign from his job, that disgusting, parasitic lipoma lump would still be protruding, this time from his chin, by now. And he’d be ignoring it like he had been for 5 years.

Something was definitely off with him. He hadn’t taken any office leave in years. Each year, when he’d be forced under SBP regulations to take his days off (mandatory leave), he’d still go off to his office every day, in plain clothes, from morning to evening.

Socially, like his immediate family, he is an ace at maintaining the perfect, polite appearance and demeanor under all circumstances. As his wife and children who were at home with him everyday, however, we knew the truth. He was clearly on a downward spiral of a mental health crisis. And my silence was only adding fuel to the fire, because I refused to discuss our personal family problems with anyone. So this emboldened him to do as he wished, which included being abusive and, at times, very mean towards us at home, behind closed doors.

Understandably, I was slowly crumbling, and beginning to experience health issues, myself. Such as recurring migraine headaches and dehydration related to heat exhaustion (hyperthermia) for 9-10 months a year.

The silver lining? Despite this ongoing turmoil in my personal life, I still managed to publish two new books, one per year.

You can see both of them by clicking or tapping here and here.

Nothing like a good, hard squeeze to make the ripe citron exude the purest pulp and juice, eh? 🙂

Wryly said.

Finally……. I am free

I cannot express in words what a great relief it is for me to let this burden off my chest. It has been weighing me down for years: be the good wife, the perfect confidante. Servile. Obedient. Keeping every secret. Helping him in every way to succeed in life. Never leaving her husband’s home without his permission. Raising her children upon Islam. Always doing what he wishes. Sacrificing herself as a wife and mother. Tolerating all abuse and harassment from his family with sealed lips.

Finally, today, I feel so much lighter and finally “free”.

My family members’ reaction to my current situation has been the one that is typical for most Pakistani parents of married women. You can guess. They are mostly just quiet, not saying anything to me about what I should do. They of course have an extremely low opinion (which is justified 150%) about my husband, his conniving mother, his manipulative sister, and his family in general. But they are leaving my decision up to me.

I respect the fact that they are mostly just silent and, this time round, letting me decide what I feel is best for my future (clarification dated 2025: my parents and only sibling had been in on the deplorable scheme to separate me from Irfan from the very start of this conspiracy i.e. since the second half of the year 2023. Although, in front of me and my children, my parents and only sibling were pretending to be uninvolved/unawares, and keeping creepily quiet about everything, they had been in cahoots with Irfan’s mother and siblings since 2023, and had instigated the latter to force Irfan to let me go; to separate from me, dump me and my children at their house, and then abandon us indefinitely).

But there is one thing that everyone in my biological family, including my children, agree on: I was scammed and shortchanged in my marriage. I was also socially degraded. They all agree that I deserve(d) better. And my immediate in-laws’ recent deplorable home-wrecking behavior has only proved this to be very true.

Attached herewith as a link is my husband’s brief resume: Brief CV of Irfan Hassan.

And this is the link is to his more detailed resume or CV: Detailed CV of Irfan Hassan.

If anyone can help him to find a job, it will definitely help his situation (and, possibly, ours).

Currently, the situation is this: since July 2023, he has been thrown out of his parents’ house because of his refusal to divorce me, primarily on the instigation of his sister, Vajeeha Inam (née Vajeeha Hasan), who was at the forefront in uniting her mother and 3 brothers in perpetrating this jaahil action. She was visiting for Eid ul Adha then (what a ‘blessed’ Eid for their family!).

He is living alone in a room in a PECHS guest house since July 2023, being financially supported by his single (divorced) younger brother, Arsalan Hasan, who lives in San José, California, USA, and is an employee of Eurofins MET Laboratories.

By the way, Arsalan Hasan has also had the same miserable life that Irfan once had (before marriage). Since he was old enough to be kicked out of his parents’ house — Arsalan Hasan has been living alone in a rented, one-bedroom apartment; harboring extremely misogynist, sexist, and chauvinistic views about women (and ergo being divorced), and serving just one purpose in life — being his immediate family’s “US-dollar ATM machine”.

With the passage of each month, because Irfan is mentally weak, and now separated from me and his children (who used to shield him from his toxic family), he is becoming more and more derailed, and succumbing more to their manipulation.

The fortress is crumbling.

To my haters

Have fun gloating on this one. Feel free to hand me your good deeds on a platter by maligning my honor and laughing at me and my current situation amid your sorry little, “cackling” gossipy circles.

Vultures.

Years ago, when I wrote those articles (that eventually became books) on marriage, it was the real deal. I was not pretending to be in some marital Utopia. My first published book even mentions the “lows” of marriage, which I’m currently “traversing”.

Marriage has always been about work. And even right now, I’m working on it.

I’m just not taking the coward’s, sell-out’s, slithery snake’s way out. So while you may choose to regularly vent out your frustrations by backbiting about your in-laws during your frequent trips to your “maika”, only to return to your “susraal” after putting on your “mask” again (viz. a poker face), to continue to tolerate their abuse in the name of “patience”, I’m writing all of this down here — for the enlightenment of all those girls who’ll be born in the future, and who might learn a lesson from my words.

The lesson that not every woman chooses to tolerate harassment and abuse, after a certain point.

Not every woman cowers away from taking a stand for truth and justice in front of her husband and in-laws, even if it means putting her marriage at risk.

And that there was a woman out there once, who was ready to sacrifice her home for the sake of stopping injustice and upholding moral integrity.

Also, if you’re fortunate to be married to a healthy, able man who fears Allah, takes good care of you, and has a family who also treats you well — be grateful to Allah for this tremendous blessing.

Because not every married woman is so fortunate, especially here in Pakistan and India etc (plus the MENA region).

Most of all, I’ve written this post today for the sake of my children, and their future. Because during the next ten years, they’ll be entering a marriageable age-range, and I want everyone out there to know what their parents’ marriage went through, and why the 3 of them don’t like, respect, nor get along with their father’s immediate family.

The truth is, Irfan’s immediate family doesn’t care about him much at all. His father did, but he is gone now. This is a fact.

In lieu of this, why would they care about his wife and children?

If he does end up doing as they are ordering him to do, they’ll eventually just dump him too, then completely marginalize him from their social lives (like they have always done), and move on as if nothing happened.

They’ll probably do worse to him than they did to his father, who was a much more confident and strong man (too bad that none of his 4 sons inherited his traits… they seem to be mere ‘puppets’ in the hands of their mother and sister).

Actually, this is what they had been doing to Irfan since he was old enough to live alone. He has been living alone in a ramshackle rented room since he was 18 years old. Marriage changed that. But now he is back to that state.

I think he will wither away over the coming months if he doesn’t get employed. I helped and supported him as much as I could, but being human, I eventually caved and burnt out.

I have to take care of myself and my own health too, as my children are still very young. Being a full time “crutch” for a mentally challenged man over the span of almost two decades has shaken me, and I’m now almost completely socially isolated,…. how long could I have continued like this?

Alhamdulillah that Allah guided me to unschool my children. Their support has proved to be most helpful for me. They grew up so fast.

If someone out there can help Irfan find a job as soon as possible, that will help his situation.

As of now, my children and I have resolved to “never forget” this rough patch in our lives.

NEVER, EVER.

Because if, by Allah’s will and decree, our home and marriage somehow survives this latest attack by the army of Shaitan (the “Hasan Family Homewrecking Brigade”), it’ll only make us (my children and I) come closer together.

And by the grace of Allah, the 4 of us will become stronger and more united than ever!

Insha’Allah.

***

No matter how notorious, evil and dangerous a human being might be, one fine day, he (or she) just dies …. or disappears from this earth.

 

 

Hania Inam McGill is the niece of Irfan Hassan. She is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam McGill is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) LinkedIn
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) McGill Consulting Association
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) with her grandmother Noorun Nehar
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) on TikTok
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) GEMS
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) McGill networking event
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) McGill dinner
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) on Instagram
Hania Inam at McGill MCA event
Hania Inam McGill is the niece of Irfan Hassan. She is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam McGill is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) LinkedIn
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) McGill Consulting Association
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) with her grandmother Noorun Nehar
Hania Inam McGill is the niece of Irfan Hassan. She is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam McGill is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) LinkedIn
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) McGill Consulting Association
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) with her grandmother Noorun Nehar
Hania Inam McGill is the niece of Irfan Hassan. She is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam McGill is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) LinkedIn
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) with her grandmother Noorun Nehar
he is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam McGill is the daughter of homeless Irfan Hassan’s younger sister Vajeeha Hassan (a.k.a Vajeeha Inam), who tried to get Sadaf Farooqi divorced.
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) LinkedIn
Hania Inam (daughter of Vajeeha Inam) with her grandmother Noorun Nehar