Several weeks ago I read the new book, Love, Insha'allah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Among my reasons for reading it were interest in comparing my personal experience with those of the various writers, wanting to read and possibly review a book with relevance to my Muslim American label, and curiosity. I was a little reluctant to read it at first, though, because I am not a Jane Austen kind of girl, and I also felt a little guilt at reading something that would probably include admissions of Muslim women doing things they are not supposed to do from a religious standpoint.
Why I feel guilt at that but not at watching a standard American movie which might be full of various 'sins' points to the dichotomy of my identity. On one side, I am an American woman raised in a fairly moral household by American standards but not necessarily by the strictest Muslim standards. I grew up not finding any harm in wearing shorts on hot days, expecting dating as part of the process of finding a spouse, and finding friendships between boys and girls to be normal and natural. But then I became Muslim and encountered rulings of taqlid defining or suggesting those 'normal' things of my childhood and culture to be abnormal and harmful. And I've largely done my best to adhere to those rulings, considering to pick and choose among them as suits me as arrogance at the least. Yet, admittedly there were a few rules I just tried and failed to meet so many times that I went marja hunting for a more lenient stance on those few issues so I could at least come closer. How bad is it that I did that? So here I am today teaching in a public school in which teenagers wear shorts and date and not finding that particularly troublesome - for them. But for me and for Muslims, I have a different set of standards. Those standards are clearly marred by this dichotomy of identity, perhaps evidenced in the fact that I have no desire to live in a "Muslim" country. My opinion influenced by the examples of the immigrant Muslims I've encountered and my experiences performing the hajj, I believe I would feel alien and repressed in a Muslim country rather than at home and freed. And yet, I still hold on to this ideal of Islam inside me that it is a liberating deen if only people would do it right.
So here's the progression from my internal dichotomy to the dichotomy of "Islam" and "Muslim" that Muslims have employed to explain away the so many bad things in this world done by humans to humans, some of whom adopt the title of Muslim who by one's estimation fail to live up to its ideal. So we judge the acts of other Muslims and say they're not behaving according to the deen, and try to defend the deen. That gets old really fast, and it doesn't seem very effective, anyway. I'm tired of comparing reality to ideal and being let down. But somehow we feel compelled to do it when attacked and challenged because we have this label "Muslim" and also this label "American." And then there's the label "woman" and the label "Shia" on top that makes it all amount to so much baggage and I just want to dump it all. But honestly how do you dump a label? And what replaces it?
In reading the book, I found nothing particularly unexpected in any of the stories - they could've been the stories of any woman except for a few pecularities or specificities associated with Muslims such as practices of arranged marriage, cultural traditions, polygamy, religious contexts, and so on. Was I bothered that some women would probably be judged as particularly "irreligious" in their romantic behaviors? Yeah, some. Maybe a non-Muslim will be surprised to find out how 'normal' Muslim women are, and maybe some Muslims will be surprised by that, too. I have felt some minor relief that my own experiences and feelings, which include some pretty highly negative ones, in terms of the focus of the anthology, were validated in the experiences and feelings of other women.
But what followed in the succeeding weeks after reading the book did surprise me. I have realized that I am angry, or rather I have admitted to myself that I am angry. I don't like admitting this, because for a Muslim woman to be angry (and even for an American woman to be) is just not okay. It is taken as a sign of weakness, of harshness women aren't supposed to have, and of deficiency in faith or patience. I'm the calm, rational person who holds the peace. But I'm not at peace. It is hard to write this without getting choked up, and I'm not supposed to be like that.
I'm angry about the difference between Islam the ideal and the reality, particularly for women, and my patience or tolerance is tested. My first instinct is to consider myself the problem. There is something wrong with me in that I have never felt comfortable going to the masjid because of cultural issues, political issues, gender separation and inequity issues, identity issues, fake smiles or passive aggressive hostility, racism, and so on. I told myself I'm supposed to just get over it, ignore it, and try for the best. I'm at fault for not trying harder to 'fit in' and get involved in the communities. I need to adjust myself because either things are the way they are because religiously they're supposed to be in some situations, or they are just the inevitabilities of minority cultures trying to continue in a new land. It's not as bad as my anxiety makes it out to be. It's mostly in my head.
I'm angry about my negative experiences with marriage. I'm angry at myself for being stupid enough to fall for lines and promises because sincere practicing Muslims were supposed to be better. I'm angry for being so naive. I'm angry for my mistakes and for being used and for people just not being able to work things out and come together the way they're supposed to. I feel cheated and feel I don't have access to a large part of the American or human dream that many people do, and that I have walls I can't break down from these experiences that prevent me from truly moving on. I don't want to fully move on. I'm pretty happy being single and childless, but that's not supposed to be okay. It is supposed to be wrong and failure to be single and childless at age 37, and that's not just a Muslim thing. My worth as a Muslim woman is less because I'm alone. I don't fit in neatly anywhere because I'm not tied to a man who does.
I'm mad at about 80% of what I hear in the news, and mad at myself for reading/watching it, and ticked at myself for not solving all the problems I learn about and not even wanting to try to do something about most of it because it is just too much. I'm mad about bureaucracy and policies that don't make sense at work, in government, and everywhere I turn. I'm mad about gas and food prices and health insurance. I'm dismayed by the overabundance of racism, misogyny and politically-motivated leadership in the Ummah. And how far astray I must be to even dare suggest that any religious leaders could have these faults - it must be my American-Muslim dichotomy rearing its ugly head and misguiding me away from true piety. Can I live with that or do I need to fight myself harder to get back in line?
Part of me in admitting this anger is trying to say to myself, hey, why is it always your fault? Maybe things out there are really just that wrong and I have a right to be angry. But maybe not. And in the end, the fault is only part of the issue. The problems are there however we place the blame. Yet, I've been just fine all this time and those problems have always been there, so why do I have to make an issue of them? And what does it matter if nothing will change anyway - so really shouldn't I just find some way to let it all go? Or, letting it all go is a cop-out because that is just me saying I don't want to fight for what is right because it is too hard, or maybe I'm not right about what's right in the first place. I don't know how to process this anger - because I'm not supposed to have it in the first place and who have I ever seen process it properly anyway?
How did all this come from reading the book? The women telling their stories were daringly frank and honest. I had an opportunity to contribute to that anthology but I didn't because I can't tell my story - I'm too ashamed and it is too hard to say to anyone, and in a few cases when I did say anything it was thrown in my face. I learned. How can they be so open and honest and I can't? Is it a bad thing or a good thing to say that stuff when it is messy, ugly, sometimes involving wrong? I don't know the answer to these questions, but somehow their honesty led me to admit this anger, to be honest about it with myself. It is what it is. I am what I am. I am messy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment