Once-rebellious Polish-born teen traded Doc Martens for Islam and wed a Muslim activist
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
SONYA FATAH
TORONTO — Joanne Sijka met Mubin Shaikh at York Memorial Collegiate Institute in west Toronto when she was in Grade 9. He was in Grade 11.
It was her Doc Martens boots that caught his attention, he says. Their circles overlapped: The Polish-born girl and the Canadian-born boy were introduced through friends. But it was not until after high school that they got to know each other.
She has now been married for eight years to Mr. Shaikh, a Muslimactivist who served CSIS and the RCMP as a key informant inside an alleged Toronto terror plot.
She was in a state of constant rebellion during high school, Ms. Sijka, 28, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail yesterday.
In 1995, she worked the concession stand at the Cineplex Odeon Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto.
“Joanne was this very slight, goth chick with long, dyed-black hair and wire-rimmed glasses,” said Dawn Calleja, who worked with Ms. Sijka that summer.
“She wouldn’t take crap from anyone — not her managers, customers or co-workers. She was very clever. . . .
“After her shift, she’d take off her purple bow tie and apron, and put back on her black clothes and huge black boots for the subway ride home.”
Ms. Calleja said Ms. Sijka shaved her head at least once. On that occasion, she got a dragon tattooed on the back of her skull.
Ms. Sijka’s journey toward Islam was not inspired by her husband.
Searching for answers, she first wanted to be a psychologist but found the discipline soulless, she said, and turned toward spirituality and Eastern religion.
One day she went to a bookstore and was drawn to a collection of poems by Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. “I read his poetry,” she said, “and I thought, ‘Okay, look, he’s talking about me.’ ”
Of her wild, partying days, Ms. Sijka said: “Everything was always empty. You know, I’ve had lots of fun. I lived life. But I was always empty. There was always something missing. I can’t say that now. . . . I know my God is always there.”
Mr. Shaikh and Ms. Sijka married in December of 1998, after she converted to Islam.
For their honeymoon they spent the last 10 days of Ramadan in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina and then went to Egypt, where Mr. Shaikh fondly remembers touring the pyramids on horseback.
Ms. Sijka’s relationship with her parents, which she said was more or less severed when she was a teenager, has changed in recent years.
“After I had my first child, I realized what it was like to be a mom.”
She called her mother and apologized for the earlier years. And, she said, she has never had a better relationship with her parents than she does today.
The couple now have three children, the eldest six years old. A fourth is on the way.
In September of 2005, Ms. Sijka accompanied her husband to support sharia, Islamic law, at a demonstration against the use of religious tribunals to settle family matters. She wore an abaya — a long outer garment that covers the body — with a veil. Only her eyes were visible.
She did not always cover herself, she said. After her marriage to Mr. Shaikh she covered her hair only in the presence of his father. She began covering her head for cultural rather than religious reasons.
She took to wearing the abaya and veil five years ago and said she believes it is an individual choice.
“There is no compulsion in religion.”
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again, a nutty convert.