Excerpt and Contributors: Love, Inshallah
,Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is a writer, community organizer and policy researcher based in Southern California. She founded South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), and is a contributing blogger at Sepia Mutiny.com where she writes about pop, music, politics, and anything tied to a Desi identity. Her writing has been featured on The Nation, Left Turn Magazine, Angry Asian Man, MTV Iggy, Taqwacore Webzine, Wiretap Magazine, Alternet, PopandPolitics and has been published in the books Mirror on America and Storming the Polls. She also has two self-published chapbooks of poetry, Secret Confessions andDiamond in the Rough. She is currently working on a memoir about her journey on finding purpose, love, poetry and familial revolutionary history.
“We had rendezvoused in New York City only four weeks earlier, at midnight on my thirtieth birthday. It had been a one-night make-out thing, with nothing defined the next morning. Though we’d never met in person before, we had felt as if we had known each other for years. I had interviewed Yusuf for an article on his band three years earlier, and we had struck up a deep online friendship that consisted of sharing lyrics and MP3s and having GChat conversations about life. For years, he had told me stories of his latest conquests over late-night IM sessions. I knew he wasn’t relationship material. He went through girls like candy, and I had no plans to be the flavor of the month.”
Huda Al-Marashi is an Iraqi-American at work on a memoir about the impact of her dual-identity on her marriage. Excerpts from this memoir are forthcoming in the anthologiesBecoming and In Her Place. Her poem, TV Terror, is a part of a touring exhibit commemorating the Mutanabbi Street Bombing in Baghdad. She holds a B.A. from Santa Clara University and a M.Ed. from Framingham State College. She is a 2012 Creative Workforce Fellow, and she lives in Ohio with her husband and three children.
“After dinner one evening, my mom, Zena, and I sat around the breakfast nook table with a stack of phyllo dough in front of each of us. We dug our spoons into a pan of sautéed spinach and feta cheese and then dropped their contents onto the center of a strip of pastry.
Bringing up the sides of the dough around a dollop of spinach, Zena said, “She’s only eighteen. You should’ve waited. She is beautiful, mashAllah. It’s nice for a girl to see how many suitors she can get.”
“I’m not trying to sell a sheep,” Mama answered. “What does it matter how many people come?”
“You know what I mean. It’s nice for a girl to feel wanted, and then her future in-laws will value her more when they know how many people came for her.”
“They already know what they’re getting. They’ve seen all kinds of girls. They know there is nobody like my Huddie.”
“Of course there’s nobody like her. That’s why I’m saying maybe you could’ve gotten everything: somebody with a good future, a good family, maybe sayyid.””
Insiya Ansari (pen name) is a writer who was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“My parents have always called themselves liberal Muslims. While I was growing up, they prayed namaz about as often as they drank beer and wine––neither was regular practice, nor occasioned only by a holiday––and they paid interest on our home. These behaviors countered conventional orthodoxy; some are considered haram. My parents weren’t the sort to pull the “because I said so” card, and for the most part, my brother and I didn’t push the limits. But bohemian and secular my parents were not. They were devout believers in the Qur’an’s historical narrative, and their cultural values were dictated by an Islamic worldview that was shared throughout our community, a closeknit Shiite minority sect. Within the extended community, news of a hellion child spread fast. I was not very newsworthy until, at eighteen, I met my first love.”
Molly Elian Carlson converted to Islam in 2005 and then converted to marriage in 2007 to the man of her dreams, literally. She was born in Minnesota, but has lived in many places including Cairo. She, her husband, and the Egyptian street cat she took in, moved back to Minnesota in 2009 and live there currently. She loves to read and to write, and hopes to one day publish that novel that has been sitting in the back of her head for years.
“I especially gave my wali, the Pakistani man who took the role of my father in Islam, a hard time about it. He would beg me, “Beta, does he have to speak Spanish? I mean, there are many good, non-Spanish brothers looking for wives. Think about them, please.”
But I was unrelenting. I was certain that the only man who would understand my desire to dance through my living room to cumbias and bachatas, partake of a Sunday-morning menudo with me, and laugh with me at the telenovelas I was secretly addicted to would be a Latino.”
Patricia MG Dunn received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College where she currently teaches creative writing. She was managing editor of Muslim Wakeup!, America’s most popular Muslim online magazine from 2003–2008. Her fiction has appeared in Global City Review, Salon.com, Women’s eNews, The Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, The Nation, and L.A. Weekly, among other publications. Her work is anthologized in Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies, Kent State University Press.
Nour Gamal (pen name) is a global nomad raised across the eastern US and the Arabian Gulf. After failing to realize the Egyptian-American dream of becoming an engineer or a doctor, she earned a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and an LLM in Human Rights Law instead. She is employed as a part-time freelance translator and a full-time bleeding heart and lives with her farangi husband and their four adorable computers in the UK. (Comic portrait by Jonathan Hill.)
“My parents are observant Muslims who would take us to the mosque in central Jersey every Sunday for religion and Arabic classes. Starting when I was very young, they drilled into me that dating is haram and that interactions with the opposite sex are to be undertaken with that in mind. But they were pretty accepting of my having boys as good friends. I came to understand that my interactions with boys (and, later, young men) would not be criticized as long as they took place within the context of friendship. And boys didn’t really find me attractive as more than a friend until I was sixteen, anyway. Though I had many crushes, I only ever behaved towards them in a manner that could be explained away as something one friend would do for another friend. If I gave a crush a Valentine’s card, he would get the same one that all my other friends got. If I gave him a mix tape–that early 1990s symbol of devotion—I would be sure to qualify the gift by claiming that I’d made the tape for myself and just thought he might like to check out the songs. If one of my girlfriends happened to ask me if I thought my secret crush (they were always secret, as I was never outwardly boycrazy) was cute, I’d respond nonchalantly, “Oh, him? Um, I guess he’s alright. We’re just such good friends that I can’t think of him that way.”
Asiila Imani converted to Islam over 30 years ago, following the Jafari madhab for the last twenty. She has a B.A in Communications and Sociology. She is a strong proponent of polygyny, viewing it as extended family ideally for the benefit of women. She writes about and counsels women on this topic. Asiila is a doula and home birth midwife. She homeschooled her sons, now 27 and 15, and teaches language arts to other homeschooled children. She is currently studying the healing arts of homeopathy and reflexology.
“Even though I had heard that polygyny always ended in broken hearts, mayhem, and dismemberment, the idea of sharing a husband had never bothered me. I had never understood why women fought so much over men. If a man loved two women, the women could either leave or share him. I believed women should be confident enough in themselves that they wouldn’t need to be the sole object of a man’s affections. I knew there were men who loved and supported two families with equal devotion. To me, husband sharing sounded like the perfect blend of being married and single at the same time. I would have a loving partner to care for me, and time alone to care for myself. In every holy book I’d read, God was clear that love, unlike money, is infinite; it’s a metaphysical commodity that grows when shared. In short, polygyny seemed not an unholy aberration, but a sacrosanct communion between a family and God.
I realized that most other women did not share my philosophy, and I had already decided that I’d never marry a man whose wife did not agree with having a co-wife. Ali said his wife, Hajar, was an exception. He said she was fully aware of our relationship and supported it openly. Learning that eased my worries some, but I still had to hear it from Hajar herself.”
Lena Hassan (pen name) has been happily married to her husband for sixteen years thanks to God and the veil of cyberspace. They have three children, and currently live in Damascus, Syria, though the Internet allows her to keep a perpetual foot in her home country of America. Lena has worked as a software engineer, served as an administrative volunteer for an Islamic school in the US, homeschooled her children, and edited an online literary journal. She is an aspiring fiction writer and recently published her first short story in a national magazine.
“Over time, our mosque ceased being an exclusively Arab enclave, and more and more American-born Muslims discovered it as a convenient place to pray between classes, hold study circles, or even take a nap. These young men and women were less eager to use partitions to divide the community. Interacting with the young brothers wasn’t quite so awkward as it was with the immigrant men. Still, I never went out of my way to talk to them. I did run into them in class, show up silently for the mixed-gender study circle we held at the mosque, and return the salaams they offered me. Then I’d come home and make flippant remarks to my mother about marrying a convert or a Pakistani American.
But none of them was a real possibility. Maybe these men were too close to me in age, more like kid brothers than romance prospects. Or maybe I took my mother’s consternation more seriously than I cared to admit. I knew the type of man my parents expected me to marry: the Arab kind, silhouetted mysteriously against the thin partition of those early years at our mosque.
Leila N. Khan (pen name) lives and works in Northern California. She enjoys Italian films, classical music, and spending time in her kitchen. Her favorite places in the world are Strasbourg, Dubrovnik, and Maui.
“I felt frantic as I thought about my sister’s “perfect” situation. She had met her fiancé at her local mosque’s youth group. He was Pakistani, a practicing Muslim, and fluent in Urdu. Check, check, and check. And he was an engineer. Yet another check. My Pakistani, Muslim, Urdu-speaking parents were thrilled. The only wrinkle was me, the unmarried older sister. My parents initially contemplated holding off on my sister’s wedding until someone could be found for me, but, given my track record of refusing suitors, they decided to move forward with her wedding.
“You know I’d like to go to the wedding with you,” he said. My stomach sank. My parents were devout, practicing Muslims. My entire extended family was. How could I show up with my Italian, Catholic boyfriend to a wedding full of Pakistanis and religious ritual? How would he react to the significant number of women who wore head scarves and the few who were covered in the chador? How would they respond to him? Luca’s appearance at this wedding would be uncomfortable for everyone.”
Yasmine M. Khan was born in Berkeley, CA, and has lived all over Northern California and in Barazai, Pakistan. She is a writer and photographer whose favorite things include gelato, highfives, and practicing terrible cartwheels with Lemon. She dreams not-so-secretly of traveling the world, learning how to swim, and making the perfect homemade strawberry shortcake. Her professional background lies in cultural competency training and fund development for nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher education. Yasmine studied Human Development at the University of California at Davis, and Educational Leadership at Mills College. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“Slowly, we connected over Facebook comments, emails every few days, and intermittent text messaging. Many of our conversations were about books, sharing recommendations and discussing novels we had both read. One night in late January, as we wound down a Gmail Chat conversation, he said, “I have a book of Allama Iqbal’s poems in English. I can send it to you, if you want it. Let me know, and I’ll drop it in the mail.”
I paused for a few minutes—sharing one’s address is still such an intimate thing, even in this digital day and age—but then sent him my mailing address, along with a note, only half joking, “I’m trusting that you’re not some scary stalker.”
The book arrived a few days later. I had to acknowledge receipt of the gift, so I gulped, picked up the telephone, and called Yasser for the first time. I reached him as he was picking up his daughter and her friends from school. While he and I spoke, I could hear little-girl voices chattering in the background, and the sound made me smile, even as it rattled me. What the hell am I getting myself into? Still, our conversation flowed lightly and easily. I laughed often and did not feel at all awkward. When I hung up and squinted at my phone, I was shocked to find the call had lasted an entire hour.”
Sharon (Safiyyah) Jihad Levine is a Muslim prison chaplain and is on the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Prison Chaplains Association in the USA. Safiyyah is a freelance writer, and has been published in magazines, journals, anthologies, and online venues. She is currently working on writing a series of booklets for the benefit of incarcerated Muslims, and enjoys indoor and outdoor gardening, photography, digital art, and jewelry making. She is also a principal and teacher at the Sunbury Islamic Center weekend school and is dedicated to masjid interfaith activities. She blogs at Shaalom to Salaam.
It’s a question that Piers Morgan, British host of CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, is famous for asking each of his guests. The first few times I heard Piers ask this question, it forced me to look deep inside to seek the answer for myself. How many times have I been “properly” in love?
Well, let’s see … as with all things in my life, there’s a pre-Shahadah answer, and a post-Shahadah answer.
Pre-Shahadah? Discounting flings, flirtations, marriages, tricks, shack-ups, crushes, Sugar Daddys, affairs, and all other kinds of “relationships” that masqueraded as love, looking back, I’d have to narrow down being properly in love to twice.
The first time was with David, a man who by all accounts was “above me,” a man who out-classed me in every way – socially, economically, educationally … but, it was the early 1970s, and we were left-over hippies. So, our differences didn’t interfere with our love. But in the end, addiction equalized us, and it eventually leveled us.
The second time I was properly in love, pre-Shahadah, was with Jorge, a chisel-cut featured Latino who could have been a model for a men’s magazine. He was gorgeous. So what was the problem with him? For starters, no American citizenship, and he was gay. That didn’t stop us from getting married though. I loved him so much, even though I knew I could never “have” him. I was desperate, and had low self-esteem. I was willing to have any part of him he was able and willing to give me. Him? He loved me, too – like a sister and a friend. We used each other to fulfill our individual needs. In the end, addiction likewise equalized us. Me? I got sober. Him? He died from complications of AIDS.
Post-Shahadah, I’ve been properly in love once. Once. Despite the fact that I’ve been married as a Muslim three times (you’ll have to read Love InshAllah for details!). One time properly in love. To my current husband, Habeeb.
My love for Habeeb has been different from any kind of love I ever thought I had. It’s also different from any love I was ever told I had. Like the time one of my “loves” professed his undying love for me while asking for forgiveness after punching me in the face and putting me through the living room bay window. Like the love my uncle whispered in my ear while he was putting his hands where they didn’t belong. Is it any wonder that love was a source of confusion for me?
The love I have now is based on love for Allah t’ala. Because Habeeb and I have love for the sake of Him, we get the benefits from our marriage that Allah t’ala describes in the Qur’an:
“And among His Signs is this, that He created for you wives from among yourselves, that you may find repose in them, and He has put between you affection and mercy. Verily, in that are indeed signs for a people who reflect.” (الروم سورة, Qur’an, 30:21, Muhsin Khan)
I do reflect. Often. Writing for Love InshAllah has helped me put everything in perspective. I feel so grateful to Allah t’ala for a second chance with my Habeeb and for the opportunity to know what “proper” love is. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but every experience along the way has been worth it.
J. Samia Mair is the author of two children’s books, Amira’s Totally Chocolate World, andThe Perfect Gift. She is a Staff Writer for SISTERS Magazine and has published in magazines, books, anthologies, scientific journals, and elsewhere. Prior to her current writing, she was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where her research focused on reducing violence and protecting the health of vulnerable populations. She also practiced law for over eight years, including several years in the Appeals Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. She lives in the United States with her husband and two daughters, whom she homeschools.
Mike and I were about to become engaged, and I vaguely remembered reading that a Muslim woman could not marry a non-Muslim man. Mike had no intention of converting. He was a lapsed Catholic to whom Catholic school had not been kind. We held similar spiritual beliefs, but whereas I felt organized religion was unnecessary, it scared him. I did not want to face the possibility of having to choose between love and religion. I had found my Prince Charming and was far happier than I had ever imagined I could be. And I had finally found the spiritual home that had eluded me my entire life. That these elements of my life could be at odds was devastating.Before I finished the translation [of the Quran], I decided to speak to an imam about my concerns. I searched through the telephone book and made an appointment with an imam at the largest masjid in the city. The meeting was scheduled for Thursday, January 11, 2001. I will never forget that date.”
Melody Moezzi is an Iranian-American writer, speaker, author, attorney and activist. Her first book, War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims, earned her a 2007 Georgia Author of the Year Award. Melody is also a United Nations Global Expert with the UN Alliance of Civilizations and a member of the British Council’s Our Shared Future Opinion Leaders Network. She is a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered and a blogger for theHuffington Post and Ms. Magazine. Her writings have appeared in publications around the world, including The Washington Post, the Guardian, The Christian Science Monitor,CNN.com, Al Arabiya, and the Gulf Times. She is also a regular blogger and columnist forBipolar Magazine. Her new book, Haldol & Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life, is now
“When I first called Matthew from Montana, I must have sounded crazy, and in many ways, I was. I had seen God in everything there–the people I met, the lakes I swam in, the glaciers I slid down, the wildflowers I couldn’t pick, even the bears and moose that terrified me–and I had fallen in love with Him. It helped that I was reading the Qur’an and beginning to pray regularly, but what really brought me closer to God was this love and gratitude for creating a place like this for us humans to play in, however briefly. And just as northwestern Montana was in many ways the place that brought me to God, Matthew was the person.”
Nijla Baseema Mu’min is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a 2007 graduate of UC Berkeley, and also attended Howard University’s MFA Film Program. She was the recipient of the 2009 Paul Robeson Award for Best Feature Screenplay. At UC Berkeley, she served as a Student Teacher in June Jordan’s Poetry for the People Program. Her writing has appeared in the Berkeley Poetry Review, Poets For Living Waters, the Diverse Voices Quarterly, Kweli Journal and Mythium: Journal of Contemporary Literature, and the Girlchild Press Anthology, Woman’s Work: The Short Stories. She is an MFA student in Writing and Film Directing at the California Institute of the Arts.
Zahra Noorbakhsh is a writer, actor and stand-up comedian, whose one-woman shows All Atheists Are Muslim and Hijab and Hammerpants have appeared at the New York International Fringe Theater Festival, San Francisco Theater Festival, and Solo Performance Workshop Festival, with widespread critical acclaim. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley in Theatre & Performance Studies. Though she began as a stand-up comic, her love of storytelling drew her into the world of theater and ultimately the art of short story writing.
“Finally. My first year of high school was over, and summer was here. My mother was dropping me off to go to the movies with Jen, Kim, Laura, and Ryan. Wait. Oh, crap, I had forgotten about Ryan! There he was, walking with my girlfriends to the ticket booth. I knew that if my mom saw him, she would never trust me again and would confine me to the house for the rest of the summer.
My parents were so strict that I couldn’t go anywhere without their practically doing a background check on everyone who would be there. Regardless of how chaste the event was, they had to be sure there wouldn’t be any boys present to tempt me down the path of loose women. The thing is, I was a late bloomer and had absolutely no interest in dating—what I knew of it, anyway, based on Molly Ringwald’s characters in John Hughes films like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. Though I could barely admit that I “liked” guys, my days of blissful ignorance about the world of dating were about to be over.”
Chinyere Obimba is in her final year at Harvard Medical school, applying for residency in Family Medicine. She hopes to work with underserved populations, practice obstetrics and participate in intervention planning for health promotion programs. Among her role models she counts her parents, Enyichukwu and Khalilah, who continue to show her what love and marriage is all about. She considers her younger brother Chukwuemeka, who has autism, to be one of her life’s inspirations. When she’s not being a medical student, she enjoys dancing samba, listening to and singing Brazilian music and writing. She also aspires someday to be a wife, mother, and a proud owner of a talking bird.
“I was almost nineteen, a freshman, and barely Muslim when I met Sadiq. At least, I felt barely Muslim. After assimilating into the agnostic masses in high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I started practicing Islam again at the beginning of college. My foundation was the Islam I learned from my mother, a few of my aunts and uncles, and my grandparents, all of whom had converted to Islam years earlier, after being members of the Nation of Islam. As I learned more about my religion, I was attracted to its multicultural nature, as exemplified in the last sermon of the Prophet, peace be upon him. I fell in love with a faith that demanded that we transcend the limits of race and ethnicity.
I didn’t want to hide my faith any longer. I wanted to tell anyone who inquired that I was Muslim, but I was self-conscious about the fact that I did not have two Muslim parents and did not come from a “Muslim” culture. Even after I began rereading the Qur’an and started to resume the five daily prayers, I still didn’t feel Muslim enough in the company of the members of my college’s Muslim Student Association (MSA).”
Ify Okoye (pen name Tolu Adiba) is a second-generation Nigerian-American convert to Islam. She is also a nurse, blogger and activist living in the Washington D.C. area. Ify enjoys reading, traveling, and blogging at Ify Okoye and has been featured by CNN, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, USA Today, and The Daily Beast for her activism.
“I think the responsibility that we have as gay Americans to the extent that we can — and we ought to be really ambitious about the extent to which we can — we have to be out. That’s the thing that we owe the people who came before us who are the pioneers, and that’s the thing we owe the next generation of gay people in terms of clearing the way and making life easier for them. I think that there is a moral imperative to be out, and I think that if you’re not out, you have to come to an ethical understanding with yourself why you are not. And it shouldn’t be something that is excused lightly. I don’t think that people should be forced out of the closet, but I think that every gay person, sort of, ought to push themselves in that regard. Because it’s not just you. It’s for the community and it’s for the country.” – Rachel Maddow
My name is Ify and this is a part of my story. There is much more to me than this but it’s here none the less. I’ve been asked, “How do you know?” Really, just as you know yourself, it’s the same. You don’t need to try everything else to know what feels most real and authentic to you. No, I was not abused as a child and I feel very blessed and fortunate to have had such a loving and nourishing upbringing.
I lived in fear for many years, afraid of what my family, friends, fiancés, and social circle would say as I tried mightily to discern what God intended for me. I don’t claim to have any answers but what I do have is my faith in God, a loving family, and some sincere friends. I’ve come to understand that these connections are more dear to me than anything else.
Perpetually living in a state of anxiety and fear is an awfully heavy burden to carry alone and a diminished way of experiencing the world. I’ve learned that hiding the truth about an integral part of myself leads to dishonesty. And dishonesty is a poor foundation for building one’s faith or meaningful relationships. It is a quicksand-like foundation for beginning a marriage.
Anger and sadness became my close companions even as I turned to God seeking and hoping for a way out, struggling to maintain my faith. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, as I joyfully immersed myself in strengthening my relationship with God and with my community through learning and volunteering. I found a fullness and contentment of faith while cultivating my defense mechanisms. It takes a lot of effort to consistently maintain a neutral facade as those around you confidently express the most ridiculous or hurtful opinions. Over the years, deep fissures appeared in this facade and I unconsciously used anger and sarcasm in an attempt to keep my anxiety at bay.
At one of the last Friday prayers I attended, the imam made an impassioned plea exhorting the congregation to sign their names to a petition to have a referendum ballot this year on the issue of gay marriage in the state. As a joke at the end of the sermon, the imam said, “We all know that God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve,” which received some chuckles from the audience. But I’d like to offer as a correction that God not only made Adam and Eve but he also made Steve and me. That some in our communities readily display an attitude of willful ignorance and harshness rather than gentleness and compassion on a wide array of issues can and does alienate the most vulnerable from their faith.
I try to listen attentively with all of my being to hear the whispers of the divine message in my life. I’ve been deeply inspired by people across faith traditions who in their negotiation of faith have found it within themselves to recognize and respect each person’s inherent dignity and to love for others what they love for themselves. Slowly, I’ve gained the courage to allow my family and some friends in to get to know me and have been surprised to find their hearts soft and open enough to continue to love and embrace me even if it’s not always easy.
I am not giving up on my faith.
Aida Rahim is an engineer by training, and a television crime show aficionado in practice. She currently lives in the middle of southwest Virginia. She wasn’t expecting to like this small town, but she wasn’t expecting to meet and get married to a small hairy Pakistani man in Malaysia either. She’s pretty sporty and can probably beat you in most racket sports. She’s also been getting excited about the barefoot running movement.
“After high school, I moved to England to continue my studies. Suddenly faced with the prospect of being a minority, both racially and religiously, I wanted an identity that I could hold on to and call my own. I decided that I would Be Muslim, instead of being Muslim merely by chance of birth. I would do this by following, to the letter, all the rules that I had learned in school in Malaysia. I thought that the more closely I adhered to those rules, the stronger my faith would be.
This was my religious conviction at twenty-four, when I met my first husband. By this time, I was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and enrolled in a PhD program. I had never been on a date before, and no boy or man had ever shown any interest in me. Perhaps I was too serious and conservative—I wore hijab, dressed in long, flowy clothes, and avoided unnecessary conversation with men. Perhaps I was too independent—I had lived on my own for the past ten years and had never needed to ask permission of anyone to do anything. Perhaps my standards were too high—I wanted a fellow rule-follower and someone physically and mentally smarter and stronger than I. Or perhaps the right man just had not come my way.”
Aisha Saeed was born and raised in South Florida. She writes YA and is represented by Taylor Martindale of Full Circle Literary. You can read more of her writing, follow along on Facebook, or Twitter. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and sons.
“Reading Pride and Prejudice and discussing it with my fellow students in high school English class, I was struck by their reflections on what they clearly perceived to be a bygone era. For me, whispers of available suitors, and lavish wedding parties where girls of marriageable age with carefully applied makeup and gold jewelry hoped to catch the eye of a potential suitor or his mother, were not a thing of the past, but the present I lived and breathed. It was how my parents expected I would find my future husband; it’s simply how it was done, though my own thoughts about the process were not quite as simple.
I disliked the whole arranged-marriage business. I minded the twenty questions about my education and cooking abilities. I was not interviewing for a corporate job; I was looking for a loving partner in an intimate relationship. An arranged marriage seemed an unlikely avenue to get me there.
My mother listened to my expressed disdain for the process, nodded as I told her I did not know if I wanted any part of it, and then promptly told all her closest friends to keep an eye out for a suitable husband for me.”
Deonna Kelli Sayed is a coffee drinking, ghost hunting American Muslim of global proportions. She has lived and traveled throughout the Muslim world, and her work has appeared in lifestyle magazines such as Women This Month Bahrain and FACT Bahrain. In 2006, Deonna helped establish Elham, the premier grassroots creative arts group in the Persian Gulf. She is currently the editor of Ghostvillage.com and the author of Paranormal Obsession: America’s Fascination with Ghosts & Hauntings, Spooks & Spirits, which is a cultural studies discussion regarding the role of paranormal reality TV in a post 9/11 American society. Deonna’s writing examines the intersections of identity and culture. Visit her website http://www.deonnakellisayed.com
“Risking my emotional well-being to tell Sayed of my love was one of the most important decisions I ever made in my life. The lack of male attention I had gotten before Sayed had me convinced that I was a metaphysical mistake. Being overweight did not counteract that assumption. I felt that I was not good enough for thinness-obsessed American men, or, it appeared, for anybody else. After multiple experiences of not being accepted by someone I had feelings for, it was unthinkable that my affections for an accomplished, kind man would be reciprocated. But I had a decision to make: I could live in fear of rejection and the not-ever-knowing, or I could go ahead and get rejected and then move on.”
Suzanne Syeda Shah is a Muslim poet, writer, and human rights activist. She was born in Saudi Arabia to Bengali parents and immigrated with her family to Los Angeles, California when she was four years old. After completing her Bachelor’s Degree in Islam & Modernity at UC Berkeley, her passion for community service and the need to improve the healthcare system has now led her to pursue a career in medicine. She currently resides in California with her husband, Mika’il.
“Mika’il was a search result. Literally. When I came home from college the summer after Abbu died, Ammu still wouldn’t let me out of the house. I wasn’t ready to talk to men, but out of boredom I browsed MySpace all day, searching for black or Latino college-age Muslim men within a three-hundred-mile radius. I never looked for Bengalis, or any other desi. Ammu called me kali, which means “darkie,” and made me feel I had the wrong skin, the ugly skin. I didn’t want to marry into another family that looked down on my “kali-ness.”
Najva Sol is an Iranian-American writer, photographer, and multimedia artist. She received her BA in Creative Writing from The New School in NYC. Najva is co-founder of Lowbrow Society for the Arts, where she curates fabulous art extravaganzas. Her writing has been published in Look Look Magazine, AM New York, Bitch, and more. Her photos & performances have been featured in the National Queer Arts Festival (2010 + 2011), numerous galleries, Commonwealth Club, and The Nuyorican. Lowbrow Society has appeared in Nerve.com, New York Press, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and Time Out New York. When not making art, she is active in various non-profits that deal with some combination of art presenting, queer empowerment, and social justice.
“Alex tells me that he isn’t intimidated by my attraction to girls. He is far away and I am young, so I sleep with one and think it’s my first time. I forget to count all the childhood explorations. The girl has pink, mermaidlike hair, I have a curly purple mane, and we bond over Facebook. We are best friends the entire school year, living in the same dorm, sharing coffee at 5:00 am when projects are due, reading too much Chuck Palahniuk. Finally, sweetly tipsy, the last night of freshman year, we fall into bed together. It is easy and satisfying, like a chocolate bar from a vending machine. Ohhhh, I think to myself, this is what sex is like for most people. It’s cut short due to roommates and train schedules, but I want more. I want to sleep with a girl who isn’t just a friend.”
Angela Collins Telles lives in São Paulo, Brazil. Before her relocation, she served as the Director of a private Islamic School in Orange County. She has appeared on CNN, Inside Edition, The Today Show, Fox News, and Al Jazeera and been featured in People magazine. Angela and her husband Marcelo are proud parents of two sons, Gabriel and Ryan.
“It was 2:00 am. Somehow, four hours had passed like minutes while we shared our life experiences about places we had visited around the world, our families, our jobs, our likes and dislikes. I was entranced by this man who spoke four languages fluently, enjoyed international travel as much as I did, and took care of his whole family back in Brazil. He was attractive, well educated, and amused by my stories.
“I have to go.” I said. “I have a boat trip early tomorrow on one of the lakes here before I leave Bariloche tomorrow night.”
“Wait—I would like to be in touch with you. How can I reach you?”
I hesitated. He was not Muslim. I could never see him again.
In spite of my qualms, I handed him a tiny piece of ripped paper. “This is my cell number in Argentina. But remember, I can only receive calls on this phone, not make them.”
I told myself it was safe. The number would exist for only another twenty-four hours, and besides, he was returning to Brazil the next morning.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. Inexplicably, I had an immediate sense of loss, knowing that I would never see Marcelo again.”