For five years, then, she was on her own raising her two girls by herself without any child support.
The father of her younger daughter, then age seven, suddenly reappeared, demanding custody. This occurred just after Samirah had become a Muslim and agreed to an arranged marriage that her “guardian”—an older man at the mosque—had set up for her. Samirah married her current husband after seeing only a picture of him, but, ironically, this marriage, of a kind that seems so outdated to many Americans, has worked out the best for her.
“I have a wonderful and caring husband. I have truly been blessed with that. He is also a revert. We don’t say ‘convert’ as we believe everyone is born Muslim. My husband and I just happened to be raised in a Christian household.”
However, the judge in her child custody case didn’t agree. He made note of her arranged marriage when he gave custody of her younger daughter to her ex-husband. It was, Samirah says, “a nasty custody battle in which my religion played, it seemed, a major role. I have a seven-year-old stepdaughter. The same judge gave residential custody of her to my husband. The judge wasn’t aware my husband was a Muslim when he appeared in court.”
Through all this, Samirah says her faith stands strong. Like many other Converts, she enjoys wearing what she considers the full Muslimah apparel: She covers herself when in public from head to toe, even wearing gloves.
“I enjoy studying other religions plus learning my own,” she adds. “I am also an owner of an e-group for Muslim women. I channel my trials into knowledge to keep me strong.” She also makes hijab pins in her spare time.
She used to be a supervisor at a McDonald’s, but she no longer works outside the home. She concentrates on taking care of her husband and stepdaughter. The life of her immediate family is warm, but many of those in her extended family have broken away because of her faith. Her mother, for one, told her not to call until she was a Christian again. “She thought I was brainwashed,” Samirah says.
Sadly, that means she doesn’t have contact with her older daughter because she elected to stay with her grandmother and be raised a Christian.
“Except for one sister, my family has disowned me for accepting Islam. They want nothing to do with the ‘terrorist.’”
Yet, Samirah can’t see how she can live without her faith. Islam has strengthened her too much to give it up, despite the sacrifices she’s made to practice it. She tries to deal with these crises with patience and faith. Eventually, she feels, she will be rewarded.
“Allah tells us, ‘Who are you to think you will not be tested when you say you believe?’ I truly believe my reward will come in time for my patience. I love this thought and I love how Islam has changed me for the better.”
20
EMMA: A NEW BABY AND A NEW ISLAMIC LIFE
EMMA AL-AGHBHARY was sixteen when she began an online romance. It didn’t start out that way—just two students chatting online. But as she e-mailed the young college student, she discovered they were a lot alike, both valuing family and education.
But they were also different. He was from Yemen and a Muslim. She was a sixth generation New Zealander who hadn’t grown up with much of any religion. Her family was spiritual but not into organized religion.
They decided their love would overcome any differences and so they married. Now, at twenty, Emma is expecting their first child while her husband finishes his degree at a university near Chicago and works to support his young family. She is also a devout Muslim.
“I have worn the hijab, including modest clothing and abaya [the outer garment that is long and loose] since the beginning of 2002,” she says. “People’s reactions have not been bad in Chicago. In New Zealand many people don’t quite know how to react—some make rude remarks or gestures. My family had and still has a bit of trouble understanding and accepting it but they are getting used to it as time goes by.
“Here in America,” she adds, “people usually mind their own business. Some people stare at times but most don’t. Muslims are more visible here. There is a big Muslim community in Chicago and you can’t go for long without seeing other Muslims. People in this city treat us like anybody else.”
Emma is grateful that she found Islam at an early age and that it keeps her on the right path. “Islam,” she says, “gives you direction, meaning, and understanding of yourself, the world around you and the world you will go to after this life.”
She likes to study Islam by reading books and browsing websites. She regularly reads the Quran and Hadith (a collection of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) so she can gain as much knowledge as she can. “I think it’s important for every Muslim to read the Quran regularly. There are study groups here in Chicago but I don’t attend because my husband and I prefer that I stay at home.
“However, I plan to go to some sort of study group once the baby arrives so that my child and I can have the support and company of other Muslims.”
Emma grew up on the north island of New Zealand. She is the middle of three girls who remain close to each other and to their mother. The sisters are grateful to their mother for providing a strong family despite much hardship.
“We come from a broken home and never had a stable male figure in our lives,” Emma says.
When she met her husband online, she realized that he was a different sort of young man. He was five years older than her and serious about his religion. Emma became curious: She too began studying Islam, and discovered it was what she had been searching for. In retrospect, she feels she was always religious—she just wasn’t exposed to any faith growing up.
“I had been searching for the right religion since I was very young. Whether that had something to do with being from a broken home, I’m really not sure. But for me, really, it was the truth, clarity, and actual simplicity that made me stand up and say, ‘There is something different and something special about Islam,’ and that’s what really attracted me to Islam.”
Her soon-to-be husband had been living in the United States since he was nineteen. Emma moved to the United States to be with him when she was seventeen and right out of high school.
“Unfortunately, I had to return to New Zealand for a year while he got himself in a more stable position to be able to support a family.” He has now been in the Chicago area for about six years and Emma for a year. She is a young housewife. Her husband prefers that she stay at home.
“But I do have my own goals, hobbies, and ideas. I am working on my poetry with the hope of publishing a book. I’m soon to be published in an anthology of writings by Muslim women and I have had a story published in a book in New Zealand. I also have my own website, which keeps me busy.”
For now, her main focus and top priority is her family: “Being the best wife I can be and preparing to be a mum.”
She and her husband had their daughter Henna after enduring a year of infertility. She is glad they are Muslim because she believes the faith will help her nurture her baby and it will help her teach her future children—she plans on having several—about why they are here on Earth, their purpose in life, and who created them.
“Our children will have a purpose and values and morals and they won’t have to search and won’t go through the questioning of who they are, where they belong, and why they are here,” Emma says, before adding, “I am somewhat concerned about bringing my child up in America. I have many concerns about possible discrimination. I plan to home-school my children so that hopefully I can keep them from becoming confused or tempted by un-Islamic things.”
She plans to stay at home with their future children, “as long as nothing happens that forces me to work to provide for my family. I like to say I’m a stay-at-home wife soon to be promoted! For me the greatest achievement I could ever have is raising good, strong, and pious children. My husband and I both believe in the traditional roles of men and women and that it is best for us and our family that I am at home.”
Islam supports that idea of family coming first. The Quran decr
ees that men are to take care of the family financially, to provide food, clothing, and shelter, and are encouraged to help out around the house when and if they can. A woman’s responsibilities are to take care of the family, to feed them and to take care of them and the house. Women are allowed to work, and if they do, that money is theirs. However, she places her duties to home and family first.
Because of the emphasis on women overseeing their home and family, Emma feels an obligation to protect them. That’s one of the reasons she is thinking of home schooling. She is suspicious about American pop culture.
“There are many, many things that go against our Islamic beliefs and morals,” she says, “to the point that I don’t want to send my child out into schools where the influence of non-Muslim teachers and/or other children can be in many ways stronger than the Islamic influence at home. Home schooling will give us the chance to teach the children not only reading, writing, math, and other studies, but the morals we hold as important and as fundamental, and about Allah, prayer, and fasting.”
She also likes the idea of time shared between mother and children. Home schooling, she believes, gives children an opportunity to nurture their talents and interests while they learn.
“School was never the best place for me,” Emma adds “I was very intelligent but the school environment wasn’t right for me. My mum tried to get the school to allow me to do correspondence studies, but because I wasn’t a ‘troubled child’ I wasn’t allowed.”
Now Emma feels secure, happy, and content knowing that her husband “is a good, religious man who respects and values our Islamic rights and responsibilities. I feel absolutely thankful that Allah has given my future child two parents who love each other very much, especially a father who loves and respects the mother.”
21
THE LESSONS OF CANCER-FIGHTING LESLIE
IN HER OWN WORDS, Leslie Sinclair tells of her journey to Islam:
“I was raised in a secular household; my father was Lutheran in name only, my mother an unbaptized secular. I remember attending a Lutheran church in Fairbanks (I was born in Alaska) as a kindergartner and being frightened by the booming, angry tone of the preacher. Thankfully, we never returned.
“My father read the Bible and occasionally burst into song, usually spirituals, but he was a rather formidable figure, and I don’t remember him teaching me how to live a Christian life.
“Although my mother’s parents were Christian Scientists, I was not aware that they espoused any formal belief; they never spoke about religion or taught me anything religious. My mother was scornful of most religion.
“Curiously, she took my two brothers and me to the church closest to our house after we moved to Edmonds, Washington, in 1952. She wanted us to go to Sunday school; I’m not sure why. The best part about Sunday school was the cinnamon toast and tea we three shared afterwards, while playing canasta with an elderly Alaskan family friend.
“Occasionally, my mother and another woman friend would get dressed up and go to church. As a child that puzzled me. I regularly attended Sunday school, and later was part of the Methodist Youth Fellowship in high school, I never gained much appreciation or knowledge about the merits of being Methodist.
“As secular Americans, my family gladly celebrated Christian holidays, such as Christmas. I don’t remember any prayer around those times, but I had a tender heart for Baby Jesus and a distant respect for religion.
“Years later, one of the attractions I felt toward my first husband was the fact that he was Catholic, something I assumed would prevent divorce. My parents’ divorce after a sometimes treacherous marriage had been both welcomed and met with fear. Many of my friends’ parents wouldn’t permit them to pal around with me anymore, once my mother became a divorcée. The apparent solidity of the Catholic Church and my future husband’s intact family was appealing. My mother had remarried and made it clear to her children that her new partner (whom I eventually loved as a parent) came first.
“When I married, I signed the contract to raise our future children as Catholics. After a year I took instruction classes to become a knowledgeable non-Catholic mother raising Catholic children. I believed in honoring my promises, even if I made them without much knowledge.
“My world knew only Christians and seculars; it never occurred to me to investigate any other religion.
“After my husband and I became parents we continued to worship at Mass and to observe the practices and restrictions of the church. We seldom read the Bible, but we took pleasure in our children’s Catholic education. We celebrated all holidays in the church, belonged to and worked with our church organizations, and eventually led an engaged couples’ class. We became Marriage Encounter Team Leaders and later we received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
“I was baptized into the Catholic Church when I was twenty-one. Religion brought stability to my life; it was a structure that I appreciated, and I believe that it benefited my family. We taught our values to our children. I believe this was a good thing and that it helped keep our children away from addiction and greed.
“My journey to Islam likely began with my journey away from Christianity. A Mother’s Day church scene is burned into my memory, after which I was never the same Catholic. My daughter was part of a small chorus of sixth-graders who sang the beautiful song ‘Simple Gifts’ while facing a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Try as I might, I watched them sing to a statue and I could not call it anything but idolatry. This was a watershed moment for me.
“My departure from Catholicism was not instantaneous, but was furthered along a couple of years later when I returned to college, despite tremendous emotional experiences at campus Masses. The end of my marriage compelled me to examine my commitment to Catholicism. Shortly afterward, my oldest son suffered a traumatic brain injury. Clearly, I thought, if I am still a Christian I will act like one through this crisis. The shock was so profound I was unable to pray; I let friends, community and family do this for me.
“Throughout this nightmarish time, I continued graduate school. (I am an artist. I was in the studio on weekends, and in the hospital room during week days.) I had no religion, but considered myself a person of faith. During grad school and after receiving my M.F.A., I was increasingly aware of a huge void in my life, although I felt a gentle pull on my heart. This I interpreted as the Holy Being.
“On the first evening of Desert Storm a fellow grad student who was not a Muslim strode into our cavernous studio. He loudly proclaimed: ‘This is going to be a different war; they are not like us. They believe they are going to die for God; for them it’s a holy war!’ Astounding! I thought. This prompted the selection of my next book: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I began reading it while on the plane to Texas to visit my son at a brain-injury rehabilitation facility, and could scarcely put it down. I was intrigued by the historical solidarity of religious people, and was startled by the intensity of this American man’s conversion to what I thought of as a religion of desert dwellers. My ninth-grade social studies’ textbook had introduced this strange group of believers as Mohammadans (that’s how the book spelled it), adherents of Mohammadanism. Although I gained a significant measure of respect for practitioners of the religion, I have to say I never considered Islam as a potential spiritual home for me.
“Nevertheless, the spiritual pull continued throughout the many and repeated crises that occurred around my son’s medical and rehabilitation needs.
“Then I met and married an immigrant Muslim. I qualified as a Christian still, according to his Imam. Once again, my new husband’s religious affiliation was a strong attraction. Even so, I preferred observing him practice his faith rather than explore it myself.
“I visited a few Christian churches, affirming each time my aversion to praying through anyone, even a figure as holy as Jesus. Yet, when my second marriage was in danger, I did turn to a Pentecostal church and even accepted a new Bible when I became a member. But I didn’t make a serious attempt to feed
my spiritual hunger there.
“I did realize, though, that the foundation of the marriage was my husband’s religious practice, as wacky as that sounds. But the close bonds he maintained with other Muslim men, so attractive to me before our marriage, eventually divided us. I had expected our marriage to take priority and that he would be at everything, from weekend breakfasts to extended family gatherings. I thought he would oversee our financial accounts. Instead he preferred spending his time with other immigrants, leaving the household responsibilities up to me. I ended up filing for divorce.
“He chose to handle the idea of divorce by telling the judge at the first hearing that he didn’t want to separate.
“During this time, I came upon a copy of the Quran. I found it surprisingly simple and its truths easily comprehensible. My day job had ended when I sprained my ankle. Crutches and the bulky oversized splint caused me to trip in my own living room. That brought on a full foot-and-calf plaster cast, and as a result of limited mobility, I had lots of time for reading. I searched for books on Islam at the public library. I divided by reading time between the Bible, the Quran, and other religious books, as well as those about Muslims, prayer, and artwork.
“A blanket of certainty settled around me and I realized that one day soon I would make my declaration of faith as a Muslim. I shared that insight with a few family members and close friends. My grown daughter gave me her endorsement; she too had left the Catholic Church.
“But my men friends, both Christian and non-religious, were furious about my decision. I knew that I was soon to lose them, as Muslim women do not tend to retain individual friendships with men not their husbands. But I didn’t waver in my desire to live an Islamic life, although, frankly, I wasn’t sure what that was. When I made the decision to become Muslim, I thought of myself as refining my practice of submission to the one and only God, not to a God who is part of a Holy Trinity.
The Face Behind the Veil Page 13