The Face Behind the Veil

by Donna Gehrke-White

  “My family is at best neutral about my conversion to Islam. Although my daughter supported my decision to become a Muslim, she has shown minimal interest in my faith. My married son indicated his lack of interest. He and his wife share an appreciation for his Catholic upbringing and are raising their children in the Church. Interestingly, it is the opinions of my oldest son—who was brain injured sixteen years ago and remains markedly impaired—that have had the most impact on me. He is opposed to my covering my hair. At times I wonder if he would have been as forthright with his comments had the injury not transformed his life. Still, he is empathic and compassionate about certain personal or political events, even as he refers to us as ‘those Muslims.’ Seldom does he initiate a topic of conversation. But the occasional reference to my style of dress—typically loose American clothes worn with a headscarf and sometimes a hat—can reveal his own feelings about being different from mainstream America since his injury cut short his senior year of college.

  “My mother is most resistant to my adoption of Islam, although after a year or so, when it became obvious to her that the conversion was likely to stick, she remarked: ‘Islam isn’t a religion; it’s a way of life!’ I cheerfully acknowledged the correctness of her assumption.

  “Within the span of a few months I experienced multiple upheavals in my life—breast cancer, divorce, conversion to Islam, loss of a job, death of my stepfather, move to a small apartment, and the departure from my life (and my mother’s) of my closest brother. My art imagery changed, as I incorporated abstract shapes into even my written journals, where I replaced collages of photocopies and photographs with abstract images. They became surprisingly meaningful and eventually emerged as cohesive watercolor drawings. I named them ‘Chemo Journal Drawings’ and did one daily for sixty-five days of chemotherapy. They melded my religious experience with the first cancer trip.

  “Later, when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, I turned those same images into 3D clay wall pieces. Treatment for thyroid cancer seldom requires chemotherapy of the traditional sort but rather ingestion of a radioactive iodine tablet in the hospital. This treatment required a week-long period of starving the thyroid hormone, during which all my faculties slowed down. I drew images inspired by my experiences on small sheets of handmade paper.

  “The post-thyroidectomy journey was long. After nearly one year I began to move and speak as before. New pounds were finally shed. I continued my ceramic series and made tile pieces that incorporate Arabic Quranic verses along with their English translations.

  “Seattle Eid celebrations are often held at the Washington State Convention Center. After Eid al-Adha in 2004, in full holiday mode I parked my car outside the hospital where a Muslim sister lay bedridden. Because I was in a holiday frame of mind, I mistakenly thought it was Sunday, and I was grateful that I didn’t need to find quarters for the meter. I returned to find two tickets flapping on my windshield. But I have learned from Islam that nothing is lost: From those tickets I created some art pieces that I used as examples for classes I taught to cancer patients.

  “Islam places a strong weight on the value of the married state, for men as well as for women. It is considered, in effect, half the religion. I’ve come to see that to live with another requires constant adjustment of one’s attitudes, thoughts, feelings, and actions, something often lacking when one is single. Personally, I have refrained from seeking another husband until I spot the broken link in my chain of illnesses and accidents.

  “Ancient cultural (as distinguished from religious) practices among Muslims demand total separation of genders in all venues outside the home, and often promote female seclusion within the home. Many contemporary American Muslims, both men and women, are attempting to remove those cultural biases in practices here in the United States. Barriers, nevertheless, do remain, such as those which prevent women from seeing (as opposed to hearing through a speaker or watching over television) the Imam.

  “As a result, Seattle Sisters’ Caucus was conceived by me and similarly concerned local Muslim women for education and action. We acknowledge the wisdom of the Islamic admonition to speak truth to power. We recognize that our energies must be used wisely so we don’t burn out or spin our wheels.

  “As we educate ourselves, with the goal of realizing a holy and refreshing mosque experience, we will, with God’s blessing, move on the Path, with both men and women sharing a voice.”

  22

  FATIMA REBORN: FROM PARTYGOER TO MUSLIM MATRON

  IN INDIANAPOLIS, there was a twenty-something party girl who hit the bars in miniskirts. She loved going to clubs, dancing and flaunting her looks. She was the blond, blue-eyed beauty who relentlessly kept up her appearance, working out to tone her tummy, never missing her weekly appointment at the nail salon, and always searching for the latest mascara or lipstick. She had her bikinis, too.

  Now, in Chicago, she wears long, flowing—and shapeless—gowns, her blond tresses completely hidden under a scarf. (She once even considered covering her face with a veil, but her husband told her she was going too far.)

  She’s now Fatima Az Zahra, a young Muslim matron still wanting to be attractive to her husband. But that’s all. Sexy is fine—at home with her husband. After all, sex is a gift from God. But she’s not interested in looking good for other men. She now believes in the Muslim woman’s code of modesty.

  Fatima legally took her new name (she got the legal forms from the Internet and filed a civil action in Indiana courts. Total cost: $300) because she was so impressed by Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and the perfect wife and mother. Her new last name also reflects her love of Fatima: Az Zahra is Arabic for “very brightly shining.”

  “Fatima was resplendent,” she says, “a wonderful human being. I don’t think there will ever be as unselfish and kind a person as she was. She was such a good daughter, a good mother—she is my role model. It makes me feel great that I carry her name.”

  The new Fatima was born in Ohio but later her family moved to Indianapolis, which she still considers her hometown. Her mom was a teenager whose boyfriend felt he couldn’t be part of the new family. Fatima never really knew her real father, but after a while her mother met and married a kindly man who adopted the girl. Today she is close to both. She is proud of her mother who went back to school and became a registered nurse who now works with cancer patients in Tennessee. Her mom is also special in another way: She had her youngest children when she was in her forties. Fatima’s little brothers are twenty-five and twenty-seven years younger than she.

  As a child, Fatima didn’t understand Christianity even though her grandmother dutifully took her to church. Fatima dreaded the long services, which included the minister’s long-winded sermons. Fatima found them incomprehensible and boring. She colored pictures in the pew instead of praying. And she knew that this wasn’t the faith for her.

  “I don’t think you should have any mistrust or doubt about your religion and I had those my whole life with Christianity,” she says. “It’s just a label. I mean, what is Christianity, anyway? How can God have a son who is also the Lord? Isn’t God our Lord? So that means His son and He are one? These are some of the things I was confused about. When I was young, I would ask my grandma about it. She would actually tell me, ‘You just have to believe it, that’s all. There isn’t an explanation, you just have to believe it.’ So I never accepted it.”

  Still, she knew something was missing in her life. In her twenties, though, she seemed to have it all, including an active social life. But she was spiritually adrift.

  At age twenty-four she discovered Islam. Her first time inside a mosque was almost comical: An older colleague from work, an Arab American, invited her. She went trustingly. “I was very naive,” she now says. She pinned on a hijab to enter the mosque. He brought her to the Imam who asked her to repeat Arabic words. No big deal, she thought. But it turned out she was repeating the vows to conversion. Her co-worker wanted her for his wife. “He should have
explained things to me.” But he didn’t, and subsequently, Fatima ignored him at work. Then he turned on her, and treated her meanly. She feels bad that his feelings evidently were hurt, but she maintains he never explained his intentions.

  However, that first trip to the mosque did whet her interest in Islam. She began researching the religion.

  “As I was reading the book What Islam Is All About, by Yahya Em-erick, questions that I had all of my life were suddenly answered—just like that. This one book about Islam contained all the answers. After this, I knew Islam was the truth and I should follow it.”

  Since then, she adds, “I am so much more spiritual, it’s unbelievable. I am definitely kinder and much, much better inside and out. I have morals and values that I never possessed when I wasn’t a Muslim. Now, as a Muslim, I will not miss one of my five daily prayers. Never.”

  As a convert, she knew she wanted to wear the traditional Muslim women’s apparel. (She has noticed that converts like her can be more excited about obeying Islamic traditions than those born to it.) But it took courage to do so. None of the hundreds of employees at the Indianapolis HMO where she worked wore the veil. She forced herself to, and found that donning a hijab was not as hard as she thought. She was especially touched that her boss, a devout Jewish man, never said a word to her about her new attire and let her say her daily prayers privately in the conference room.

  “You’d think we would have clashed,” she says. “I think he respected me. I was very lucky. I certainly respected him for his beliefs.”

  She was not as lucky with her mother, at least at first. Her mother couldn’t understand why she had to become a Muslim. There were, Fatima says, “screaming matches.”

  “After two years she saw that I wasn’t changing my mind and she got a little hot under the collar. She told me that I was going to Hell because I didn’t believe that Jesus was the son of God.”

  Then 9/11 happened. It was life-changing for her mother. She told friends and co-workers that those terrorists couldn’t really be Muslims because her daughter was Muslim and they did not have her daughter’s giving heart. They did not study the Quran like her.

  Fatima is now proud that her mom supports her and brags about her. She also considers herself blessed that she fell in love with a Muslim man—Islam forbids Muslim women from marrying out of their faith.

  Her husband was born a Muslim in Lebanon. He came to the United States as a fifteen year old after civil war broke out in Lebanon during the 1980s. It was a time of anarchy and violence. His brother was spirited away like so many other young Lebanese men and tortured, but his father managed to find him and have him released. He then sent his sons to the United States to ensure their safety.

  When first in America, her husband had to go back to high school even though he had gotten his diploma in Lebanon. But he was eager to conform with American rules and so he did, finishing high school in a year. Then he went to work while attending college at night.

  Fatima is glad that her husband is devout and as interested in Islam as she is. It makes it easier that they pray together and keep Islamic traditions, she says. “It’s true what they say: The family that prays together, stays together.”

  Her husband helps her learn the Quran from his years of studying it in school in Lebanon. “In the Middle East they are forced to learn the Quran,” she says. “They know a lot about it when they come to America.” But many Muslim immigrants lose touch with their religion as they don’t live near a mosque. In Fatima’s opinion, “America doesn’t cater to Muslim people.”

  But, then, that is to be expected in what is a predominantly Christian nation, Fatima says, and Muslims must make their own communities—and she is proud to say one is thriving in Chicago, where they now live.

  Her friends in Chicago are an even mix of those born to the faith and converts like herself. “Chicago is absolutely the best place for Muslim people,” she says. “I love Chicago for its diversity and beauty. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I love the Muslim community here and all it has to offer us here.”

  But as a new Muslim, Fatima reports that she has had moments when she realized she had to tone down her enthusiasm for Islam. One such time was when she was considering wearing a veil over most of her face—everything but her eyes. Other friends had been discussing the pros and cons of such a veil. Her husband’s reaction: “Getting a little extreme?” her husband gently chided her. Fatima saw his point.

  The “extreme” veil stayed off.

  Then, she says, “I went through the stage I wanted to get rid of TV and radio,” thinking this would make them better Muslims. Her husband convinced her otherwise.

  “You can’t do that,” he told her. “There are no extremes in our religion. We are commanded to be moderate—no extremism. You are not being good by doing this. The Quran says you are not to make the religion hard. Islam should be easy to follow. Don’t make it a hardship.”

  The television and radio stayed.

  And Fatima says she learned to take a path of moderation.

  Islam, she adds, is a faith that keeps her spiritually grounded in her everyday life. She seeks God in prayer five times a day, no matter if she’s in a car or her living room.

  “I have come to love all the prayers. They are not cumbersome and shouldn’t be looked at that way. Praying keeps you out of trouble—if you are thinking of God five times a day you won’t go wrong.”

  23

  JUWAYRIAH’S JOURNEY

  JUWAYRIAH, WHO DOESN’T WANT to state her full name because she wants to speak frankly, offers the following advice: Love Islam—but beware of some of the brothers. She wants to make it clear from the start that what she says doesn’t apply to all Muslim men in the United States.

  “Indeed,” Juwayriah says, “there are many who fear Allah and the Last Day, thereby doing right by their wives and families. However, there are some brothers who may try to take advantage of trusting and innocent women coming into the faith who may not fully know Islam.

  “Islam gives many rights to women, especially wives,” she adds, “but new ‘reverts’ [converts to Islam] may not be aware of them. And some brothers may take advantage of this lack of knowledge, especially when the sister is American and the brother is not.”

  For example, she knows of numerous cases of immigrant men in the United States who marry American women to obtain green cards, then leaving or divorcing their wives once a green card is acquired. These men might already have a wife and children back in their homeland, she says, and are only waiting to get a green card in order to bring them to the States. A couple of her friends have married immigrants, and discovered that the men were using them.

  Such immigrant Muslims may also be tempted by opportunities for romantic involvement—even casual sex—in the United States that is unavailable in their native country. Dating is not permitted in Islam but some may try to do that anyway with American-born women, even those who have converted to Islam.

  “A brother cannot come at a sister from his own country like they do us American sisters,” Juwayriah says. “In the Middle East, women have fathers and brothers to protect them. Here in the United States, unless a sister is close to the masjid, other sisters, and her Imam, she can be caught unaware. Many American sisters do not have Muslim families and as such they are vulnerable. And it is not only the foreign brothers.”

  Juwayriah has been a Muslim since 1998 and has been married three times—all to African American brothers. “It just seems like a lot of Muslims bring their cultural baggage into Islam,” she says. “And that is the biggest part of the problem. Islam is supposed to be for all people and for all time. Cultural bias and racism have no place in Islam.”

  Juwayriah was practicing Judaism when she married a Muslim. She is grateful that he introduced her to Islam. She “reverted” to Islam during this marriage. She read a lot of the Islamic books in her husband’s extensive collection and began to learn about the rights of women in Islam. What she lear
ned was not exactly what he had told her. Differences surfaced, and friction escalated into domestic violence. When she tried to get the Imam to help them, her husband divorced her. She was devastated. She knew his violence was not right, but she had thought that they could work out their differences and have a good, peaceful marriage. She hoped for a reconciliation because Islam, like other religions, promotes marriage.

  “We are taught in Islam that of all permissible things, Allah hates divorce the most. It shakes His throne,” she says.

  Juwayriah found herself in deep financial difficulty that eventually forced her into bankruptcy. She also became physically ill. She had been off her menstrual periods for close to a year when she started bleeding. Doctors feared she might have uterine cancer and conducted exploratory surgery, but it turned out that her emotions were causing internal havoc. “There was no cancer, Alhamdulillah [a Quranic phrase that means “All praise to Allah”],” she says.

  Juwayriah and her first husband were eventually able to talk and forgive each other. This helped them both to move on.

  “We did this because in Islam we cannot hurt each other,” she says. “Not only do we need Allah’s forgiveness for our sins, but we also need the forgiveness of the person we hurt.”

  Soon after, she was approached for marriage by another Muslim brother. Juwayriah was attracted to him for what seemed to be his deep faith, his commitment to Islam.

  “At first, he was asking me to be a second wife. Well, actually, it was his wife who approached me for marriage to him,” Juwayriah says.

  Although Islam permits Muslim men to have up to four wives, Juwayriah knew that this man’s finances could not support two families, and she declined their offer. However, he called her almost a year later and told her that his wife had left him, and that he was alone with his two children. Juwayriah then agreed to marry him. After three weeks of marriage, he let his first wife move back. Juwayriah found out from her co-wife that she had not left, but was thrown out by their husband!