“I don’t know who you’re imitating, but it needs work,” I say.
“I’ll do art in my spare time,” Dua says. “I don’t want to be one of those kids forced to live at home until I’m thirty.”
I laugh. “Can you imagine?”
“The sooner I can save up my own money and have a safety net, the better—and art school sure won’t get me there. I’m going to Georgia Tech, I’m becoming an ob-gyn, I’m not getting married and moving out until I’m at least twenty-seven—”
“Why twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-five is too young. Thirty is way too old. Twenty-seven is Goldilocks. I’m not getting married until I have my own money. Plus, I’ll be done with school and won’t have some farting loser distracting me from my studies.”
That cracks me up. “You wait until graduation to marry the farting loser?”
“Exactly. And when I’m thirty, I’ll start having kids—hopefully three, maybe four. The whole biological clock thing is a patriarchal myth to entrap women, you know.”
“You’ve got everything figured out.”
She shrugs. “It takes hard work. A little bit of luck.”
“And a lot of realism,” I point out.
“School, homework, family, sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.”
“Yup.”
After Dua pulls out her computer, we plop onto her bed and watch funny YouTube videos. She shows me clips of a famous Muslim YouTuber, and we cry from laughter watching him prank his parents into believing he’s drunk.
An hour later, my mom calls me to say she’s outside. I load one last video for Dua to watch after I leave—a Kacey Musgraves song—and stop by the living room to thank Dua’s mom for having me over. She’s in the center of the room, white abaya flowing over her hair and body, hands up to the side of her face and facing the brick fireplace. The mantel is covered with family photos and a bevy of candles and fresh flowers. It looks similar to our own spring-friendly decorations at home, but our flowers are fake and our house has a tiny bar cart in front of the fireplace, not a basket for prayer rugs. Otherwise: same, same.
I decide to leave unannounced, to give Dua’s mom privacy.
As I shut the door behind me, she kneels on her mat, prostrating herself, her lips moving in a prayer echoing with silence.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Okay, so, I’ve got a new one for you,” Shamsah says to the girls.
The group is at Leila’s house the following Sunday, meeting for another study session. While we wait for Samira to arrive, everybody’s chatting in the living room and mainlining the cookies that Fatima baked for us.
Shamsah continues. “Would you rather never see another human being, or be surrounded by annoying people twenty-four seven?” Seems like a game they play frequently.
“Never?” Leila asks.
“Never.”
“Annoying people for the win,” Fatima says. “I’d get too lonely.”
“I mean, I’m already surrounded by annoying people twenty-four seven,” Dua cracks. “So solitude sounds pretty fantastic.”
“That’s sad.” Leila frowns. “Like—never seeing another person? Think about that. Never.”
“You don’t have to keep repeating it, Lei,” Dua says.
I nod. “Leila’s right. I couldn’t do it. You need people.”
“Maybe you need people. I need more alone time in the bathroom.” Dua pops another cookie into her mouth.
“Same, same,” Shamsah says.
The doorbell rings, and Leila gets up to let Samira in. After a few more minutes of small talk, we begin the readings.
Following my prayer session at Dua’s house, I’ve decided I need to properly memorize the prayers. I also ordered a long white abaya and a prayer rug, using the credit card number Mom gave me for emergencies.
I mean, this obviously qualifies.
Mom is being supersupportive, as per usual. When the prayer items arrived, she sent me a text saying, I received your things. They’re in your closet xoxo.
Toward the end of class, during questions, Leila tentatively raises her hand.
“I’m having an inner struggle,” she confesses, tucking her feet underneath herself on the chair. “I’ve been constantly missing prayers. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to pray, even though it takes five seconds.”
Samira nods. “Can you think of any explanation?”
Leila shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. “I know every time you don’t pray it counts as a sin. But I don’t know why. I’m just not doing them.”
“But you are still praying a little,” Fatima says, looking worried. “Right?”
“I pray at sunset usually every day, and when I wake up, I’ll pray, but I’m missing those other two or three—sometimes I’m just like, ugh, I’ll do it later.”
Fatima furrows her brow. “Maybe you don’t want to make wudu. It could be that,” she says helpfully.
Leila nods. “Yeah, maybe. Sometimes I won’t make wudu and I’ll think: ‘God, please forgive me.’”
Everybody nods. “Been there,” Shamsah says, laughing.
“I worry I’m lazy,” Leila whispers.
I expect Samira to provide an explanation, but she simply nods. “It’s good for you to be asking yourself these questions.” She says this warmly, without judgment. “Keep at it. Check in with yourself every day. It’s more important for you to do the prayers and mean them than say them with no intention or connection. With no faith.”
Dua and I exchange a look, and I’m reminded of what she said about the importance of intention.
“And you, Allie? How has your week gone?” Samira asks.
“I prayed for the first time! Well, not the first time, but the first time in a long time. Like, in almost a decade. Dua helped.”
Dua nods. “She rocked it.”
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to like praying so much. When I’m done, my head feels clear and my anxiety is just, like, gone,” I say. “And I prayed at home a few times and started reading more of the Qur’an, too. I’ve got a ton of homework, so it’s kind of hard to keep up, but I’m doing my best.”
“That’s all Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, can ask of you. To do your best,” Samira says, smiling warmly. She picks up her notes, about to launch into this week’s lecture.
I clear my throat, gathering courage. “Actually, I’ve been struggling with something, too,” I say. “Can I ask a question?”
“Go for it,” Samira says. “We’re all ears.”
My hands go clammy. “Okay,” I say. “So I was researching the hajj pilgrimage, and I went down the rabbit hole about going to Mecca, getting the visas, things like that. And I came across the official Ministry of Hajj page, and it talks about how women can’t go on the pilgrimage without a man. I think it was called a marhaba.”
“A mahram,” Samira says, smiling. “Marhaba means hello.”
“Oops. Right, a mahram. And if you’re older than forty—”
“Forty-five.”
I cringe at my mistakes. “Sorry. Um, if you’re older than forty-five, then you can come without a man, but you still have to be with an organized group and have a notarized letter from your husband, son, or brother giving you permission to travel?”
I pause, looking around the room, gauging their reactions. Everybody’s face is open and encouraging. I tuck my hands under my thighs, as much to warm them as to steady them, forcing myself to plow forward.
“And I read this, and I’m like … is this for real? A grown woman might need to get permission from her son? And it’s confusing, because Islam is so feminist—I know it is, and it’s irritating when people say it isn’t. But then things like that … it’s hard to stand behind that and say it’s okay. You know?” I hold my breath, terrified about how my question will be received. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.
Samira pauses, weighing her words.
“Great question. That particular tradition is established by hadith. I’d be
lying if I said it’s not frustrating. Although, side note: The Ministry of Hajj is run by the government of Saudi Arabia. Salafis are not exactly the world’s foremost experts on women’s rights—at least, not to Western eyes.”
“Okay, right,” I say.
“Look, you can still be a faithful, devoted Muslim and acknowledge that we live in a patriarchy,” Samira says. “According to the Qur’an, men and women are equal. And, of course, the women in the Prophet’s life had extraordinary rights. The equality of women is not up for debate where the Qur’an itself is concerned. It’s the way traditions have evolved and been interpreted that’s the problem.”
“It’s like what we studied recently,” Dua says. “‘You have rights over your women, and your women have rights over you.’” She’s quoting the Qur’an. “Right?”
“Right,” Samira says.
Dua relaxes against a couch cushion, smiling. “I freaking love that quote.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
Samira picks up her notes, as if we’re about to move on, but then sets them down again. “You know, before the Prophet, daughters were killed at birth—all the time. Can you imagine? His teachings were the dawn of equality and respect for women around the world—absolutely revolutionary at the time. Way more than any woman in Europe had back then. People don’t know the history, so they laugh when you say Islam is feminist, but women keep their own last names; they were the first in the world to have property rights, the first to initiate divorce. His blessed wife Khadijah was the first convert. Think about that. The first Muslim after Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a woman.”
“Peace be upon him,” everybody says.
“Our world is patriarchal—across cultures, across religions. We live in a patriarchy right here in the US.” Samira raps her notes with a manicured fingernail. “Sexism in Muslim-majority countries resembles sexism here, too. So that frustrates me.”
Shamsah raises a hand. “Hi. Me too.”
Samira nods. “We’re blessed to practice this beautiful religion. Then again, many of our sisters have suffered under men in power for centuries. They reject any deviation from their own position, they bar women from interpreting religious texts, they inject their own traditions into the religion and call it dogma.” The passion in Samira’s voice excites me. It’s inspiring.
“Plenty of traditions that aren’t even in the Qur’an, you know?” Shamsah blurts. “Besides, how do we know every single hadith is real?”
“Are you on this again?” Leila says, looking irritated. “Come on.”
“You see it in Christianity occasionally,” Samira says. “It’s a religion of love, tolerance, and humility, right? But we’ve all met people who say they love Jesus in one breath and then are completely hateful to their neighbors in the next. We have a similar problem in Islam: interpreting religious texts in a manipulative way to suppress women.”
“And then,” Fatima says, “it’s those traditions everybody else jumps on and says, ‘Oh, Islam! It’s horrible! Why did your family choose that religion’?” She smooths down her hijab, as if unconsciously. She sighs. “Nobody wants to hear it’s not real Islam. It’s bad men in power.”
“Okay, everybody, hold up,” Leila says. “You’re doing that thing again. Can I say—it’s, like, critical not to paint all conservative men as bad?” She sounds frustrated. “Just because you’re a fundamentalist doesn’t mean you’re a terrorist. And individual men don’t equal government policies. Like, c’mon, not every man from Saudi Arabia is a misogynist monster. I feel like that gets ignored.”
Shamsah nods and looks at me. “This is something we debate a lot.”
Leila shakes her head. “And some debates go over more smoothly than others.”
I wonder what that means.
“No matter what any Muslim believes, no matter how loudly they proclaim it, they cannot definitively speak for Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala,” Samira says.
“Tafsir versus ta’wil,” Shamsah says. “Right? The literal meaning versus the mystical.”
“Sharia—the unchangeable principles—versus fiqh—the interpretation,” Fatima says.
I don’t know if they’re right or wrong, but I’m ridiculously impressed.
“Look, if our faith is to grow and thrive,” Samira says, “I don’t think you can ignore the outside world. And I don’t believe one type of Muslim is better than another. Are Sunnis better than Shias? Should we completely dismiss Sufism? We’re pilgrims on the same journey, with the same destination—it’s only the route that differs. Saudi Arabia and Iran don’t hold the monopoly on Islam. We’re two billion strong. But we’ve got to be allowed room to breathe in the West, too—not only by Westerners, but by Muslims ourselves.”
I’ve found myself in the middle of Muslim revolutionaries.
“But isn’t that … apostasy?” I ask tentatively.
SAT word. Ten points.
“I struggle with some of it,” Fatima confesses. “It’s lonely being a revert, and I didn’t come to Islam until later … but I still want to do it right. My mom doesn’t pray anymore, so this is the only place I can talk about most of this stuff. Some of it makes sense, but if I disagree with the rest … I just go back to the Qur’an and the hadith. No offense, girls.”
I look around the room, feeling emboldened. “You’re on the same page?”
Shamsah nods enthusiastically.
Leila shrugs.
Samira takes a deep breath. “It’s safe to say our conservative brothers and sisters would not appreciate us discussing Islam and reform in the same sentence. There are many in the ummah who would consider it the height of apostasy, yes. Shirk.”
“You can’t pick and choose which parts to follow,” Leila argues. “To say Islam needs reform is literally missing the entire point. The beauty of the religion is that it transcends time: It’s the same, always, forever, perfect, done, khalas. You can’t reform Allah himself. It’s not possible.”
“There’s Reform Judaism. The Catholics have Vatican Two. Why can’t I want that as a Muslim? I’m a kafir just because I don’t want to pray in a separate room from my dad at the mosque? Just because I think women should be allowed to lead prayers, too? No way,” Shamsah says passionately. “That’s not Allah. That’s men being men.” I’ve never heard her speak so much as in the past twenty minutes.
“My mom and I told my stepdad about the women’s prayer room at the masjid,” Fatima says. “He couldn’t believe we have to watch it on this tiny little TV while they get to be in the room and see it up close. He’s never been in there, right? So he had no idea. He thought we were watching it live, like him. Lots of guys think there’s room for improvement.”
Dua sighs. “You don’t want to talk about stuff too much in public, because everybody is always so down on Islam. You’ve gotta put on a united front. If we’re not perfect, then people jump down our throats. Backwards! Regressive! That BS.”
“Total BS,” Shamsah says. “Other people get space to be complex and question and screw up and grow. Why not Muslims, too? Why is it all or nothing? It’s like, devout or terrorist, no in-between. It’s not fair.”
“All religions suffer from the same issue,” Samira says. “The message is divine, but the interpretation, practice, and enforcement is too human. We are too human. And we are flawed.”
She looks frustrated, and for a moment, I see her not as an older group leader but an irritated girl, just like us.
“You study history, you talk to our parents and grandparents, they’ll tell you the Middle East was a very different place before the Iranian Revolution,” she says. “Personally, I don’t believe the word of God or an error-free Qur’an has anything to do with men and their politics. But, of course, I don’t know. It is the height of arrogance to claim you know Allah’s mysterious heart or his plan.”
“Ameen to that,” Shamsah says. Sadness falls across her face.
I look at Leila, who still seems irritated. “What do you
think?” I say.
She shifts uncomfortably. “Honestly, I get that y’all have issues, but I don’t have a problem with it. ‘Islam’ literally means ‘submission to God.’ I love my faith, and I’m proud of it.”
“So do we, obviously,” Shamsah says.
“I know, but who are we to say it needs changing?” Leila says. “Like, being a secular Muslim—it’s an oxymoron. You always say plenty of Muslims don’t understand the Qur’an and are misinterpreting it, but they’d say the same thing about you. And we haven’t studied it the way the real scholars have. No offense, Samira—”
“None taken.”
“And I feel the way it’s written, men and women are equal,” Leila says. “You know it says men and women each have their place. We each have important responsibilities. Do I think it’s silly we’re separated by a rope or in different rooms at the masjid? Sure. But sometimes my dad will ask me to lead the prayer for the family at home, and he’ll pray behind me.”
“That’s cool,” I say.
“It is! And that’s why the whole reform thing bums me out. I mean, Saudi, Iran, Sudan, yeah, maybe they have some issues. But for the most part, I feel like it’s Islamophobia, like it’s, you know, centering the Western gaze. In the Qur’an, it says men, women, dogs, cats—they’re all equal in the eyes of God. We only have different duties, different things that have to get done. My dad doesn’t have power over my mom any more than she does over him. It’s about cooperation: shura,” Leila says. “Maybe I’m lucky because I come from a family where they’re equals. But at the end of the day, I think it’s about respecting each other. And I am a feminist. The Qur’an allows me room for that already.”
Samira smiles. “Well reasoned.”
My heart is bursting.
“I think it’s incredible this is a safe space,” I say shyly. “The fact you can be respectful to each other, even though you disagree on, like, sort of fundamental issues … it’s awesome.”
Fatima beams. “Agreed.”
“Like the Supreme Court,” Shamsah cracks. “We’ve got the textualists and the intentionalists. What it said at the time versus what it means now.”
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