FEBRUARY 24 — The number three has a lot of significance in Islam.
For example, each washing in the pre-prayers ablution is preferably repeated three times. In the prayers, or solat, most of the remembrance of God during each movement are recited in repeat, three times.
The talaq, or repudiation that is one of the ways to initiate divorce, is pronounced three times before the divorce becomes final.
There are many rituals done in repeat in the religion. And odd numbers are a common occurrence.
There are five pillars of Islam. One of them, that solat, is performed five times a day.
In another one of those pillars, Muslims circumambulate the Kaaba seven times while performing the Haj pilgrimage.
Allah has 99 names. And so on.
Some have also tried to explain this significance of odd numbers, with a particularly amusing interpretation of the hadith claiming that God himself “loves odd numbers”.
Of course, odd numbers and the number three itself is not unique to Islam. Take the Trinity, for example.
Hanna Alkaf’s debut young adult historical fiction The Weight of Our Sky, launched last weekend, does not try to answer any of these.
But it does have in its protagonist Melati, a girl who just cannot stop counting in threes for fear that a djinn will kill her mother in countless horrifying and brutal ways.
The story is set during the bloody May 13 race riots here back in 1969 — an era when treatment and care for mental illness was lacking, and a paralysing stigma haunts those who fear they are losing their sanity.
In modern times, Melati would be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In those days, you blamed it on djinns. And many still do.
The novel explains why Melati fell under the “spell” of threes, but in a recent interview, Hanna told me it was partly because she liked the musicality of the count.
One/two/three. One/two/three.
The triple meter can even be found in the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds — both song and band feature prominently the novel.
But in contemporary modern pop music, unlike in classical or the waltz, the triple meter is much harder to find.
In recent times, you can hear it in Ariana Grande’s 7 Rings which borrowed the melody of My Favourite Things from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. And then there is the triplet rap flow that made a resurgence in hip-hop by the likes of Migos.
For me, the count of threes ties in perfectly with the novel’s interesting exploration of the intersection between mental illness and faith.
Melati, a Muslim, fell into OCD around the same time she lost her faith, not in a higher power initially, but in life, because of a devastating death in the family.
And yet, faith could not save her. It could be argued that faith was what ruined her.
A careless proposal by a relative, although not through her own fault (see above on mental illness during those times), led to a downward spiral of failed religious healings.
The scene with the ustaz, or religious teacher, is a familiar read even in today’s news. How one could pretend to know the unknowable in return for power, if not riches. And sometimes, the stories sickeningly end with sexual assault and abuse against trusting patients.
“He’s not in my toes. He’s in my chest, and stomach, and mostly in my head,” goes one of Melati’s thoughts, in one of the most stinging rebuke of traditional healers.
Melati would later abandon even her prayers.
With no medical option, her slow rehabilitation would only come from pulling out her inner strength. By being kind, by doing good. By feeling joy, and love. And music, the only thing that can calm her inner turmoil and dread.
It was only then she found her way to return to her faith, her prayer mat.
If the portrayal of OCD in the novel unnerves you, it would be best to then read Hanna’s non-fiction Gila: A Journey Through Moods & Madness, that was written before the novel and paved the way for it.
In Gila, one can find helpful resources for oneself or a loved one on how to handle mental illnesses. The book sheds light on mental illness and gives the kind of hope that Melati could never dream of finding then.
Ultimately, Hanna argued to me that faith is still a pivotal element in treating mental illness here, if only because it plays such an influential and embedded role in the lives of Malaysians. To utterly discard it would only be detrimental to the patients, she suggested.
“We’re a society that is surrounded by faith all the time, in all sorts of different forms. There are psychiatrists I’ve spoken to who said psychiatry has to adapt and work within the confines of faith, so the two things can go hand in hand,” she said.
If anything, faith may take different forms and that may be something to take away from the novel. From submission to a higher power, to the healing nature of medicine, or simply the transcendental melodies of The Beatles.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
