Sunday, April 8, 2012

Cruisin' for an "Honour" Bruisin'

There women are. From the Winnipeg Free Press:
IN the aftermath of the Shafia trial here in Canada and more recently the murder of Shaima Alawadi in San Diego, the image of Muslim women in the media is too often one that is associated with narratives of suppression, repression and violence.

Enter Love, InshAllah, which admirably aims to lambaste these one-dimensional stereotypes in one fell swoop.

Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women is a collection of short, real-life accounts of the love stories of 24 different American Muslim women. Edited by San Francisco-based writers Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, the book gives several Muslim women writers the space to tell their own stories, on subjects that are rarely given much public coverage in Muslim communities: love, romance and, yes (gasp), even sex.

The overarching theme of these stories is, of course, the often conflicting pulls of religion and sexuality and how these Muslim women struggle to reconcile the two, particularly in the case where their partner is not Muslim. And yet what ties many of these women together is their own personal commitment to Islam.

Whilst some of these stories, such as The Opening, Punch-Drunk Love and Wild Wind, have little to separate them from the average teenage romance novel ("I liked the sharp angle of his cheekbones. I thought to myself, He's cute"), it could ironically be the apparent "normalcy" of these same love stories that may be the biggest shock to non-Muslim readers. Who knew Muslims could flirt?...
Flirting in a burqa: pretty neat trick. ("In one fell swoop"--hey, I think I know that song: "If you wanna know if he loves you so/It's in his kick..." Or something like that.)

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