Proof

There are three of us, and a fourth orange chair-plus-desk sits empty to our left. It’s life at the bottom of a well this next hour; we’re looking out at a modest mostly-if-not-totally Muslim audience. We’re here to tell our stories: the tall, white redheaded brother, the punkish hijabi in a ripped jean skirt and All-Stars, the blue-eyed first grade teacher in black abaya.

I never know what I’m going to say at these things. How many times have I told “my story”? Dozens? More than a hundred? It’s always slightly different. I don’t know why. Every time I omit something else, or leave out what feels like a whole pile of important details – and have some new thing that is central to the story. Today it turns out to be the story of Islam coming and finding me, and taking hold of my heart, and dragging me, kicking and screaming (partying and piercing?) into the world of Islam. I hear myself telling it as though it’s one unified string of events and nothing else belongs in the narrative. But you can’t lay out your life at the feet of strangers in a 15-minute span. A heart can’t fit in that space.

I’m the middle person in the panel. It goes like this: The Scientist (The Rational Surveyor of Tradition), The Reluctant Believer (The Dancer), The Born-Believer. So the ginger-haired boy who inspected every religious tradition for truth and Truth precedes me. I speak next, the free spirit who lived in the same house as a Muslim for almost a decade before she noticed that she belonged to the same religion, who would get drunk and declare that she needed God (though of course I omit this) and declare things along the lines of, “I will never become Muslim if Muslims can’t have dogs,” and ask things like, “But can I still dance?” I finish, disturbed by how moved I always become when I describe the choice I felt I was making when I became Muslim (in one hand, the world; in the other, a relationship with God….), make the sign of the horns and tell them, “Never look back, right?” They laugh. I’m glad they do. It puts my feet back on the ground.

Rock hard, Mozlems. Rock. Hard.

And then there is the girl after me. In a quiet voice, she describes a shy child who imagined sleeping in the hand of God and said the shahada for the first time at fifteen, stirring pasta sauce alone in a midwestern kitchen.

And that’s it: three converts. Three stories. Three souls in three safety nets, still swinging above the spikes of a purposeless existence, praying the net holds. And as we’re swinging in our orange chairs, before the enraptured faces of those born into a safer web built by generations of their forbears, I realize that we’re a proof of the very thing we hold dearest.

Because here we are: male and female, gregarious and introverted, tall and short; punk and put-together, bearded and hijabed, intuitive and intellectual. We are dancers and musicians and engineers; we are religion majors and science geeks; we are married and single; we are wild and we are tame; we are gentle and we are rough; we are soft and we are loud. And all three of us walked some winding road to here: in this classroom, at this university, in these chairs – the embracers of this religion, this Islam, this precious hot coal burning into our palms all the time that we will not let go. We’re all three here. For three different reasons, with a multitude of different struggles.

All three of us say the same thing: the story we’ve just told? It’s only the beginning.

Safe journeys, ye travelers!

Hot hipster lovin’

Saturday morning in a Somerville cafe: in stroll the hipsters. They come for the open doors, the walls covered in art, the outdoor patio and killer fritattas…who knows why they come? Maybe they just happen to be the people living within a stone’s throw of The Biscuit, our favorite closes-too-early-because-of-course-I-forgot-I-live-in-Boston spot. Anyway, in they stroll in their unwashed-hair, unmatching-in-a-surprisingly-fetching-way splendor.

Raise your hand if you don't want to be one of the people in this picture...didn't think so.

I’m, well, ungracefully trying not to stare at these gum-chewing dislays of companionable affection and discipline myself into reading a novel that I am not enjoying one bit. People-watching proves to be the far more compelling pastime (why do I end up feeling like every time I read a novel translated into English it’s full of unnecessarily exhibitionistic excalamations of premature emotion?), and Snow gets ignored, sitting closed by my cooling coffee.

The most charmingly in love couple takes the table next to me (!) before they place their orders. The man is sitting opposite me, and as his girl stands next to him (to better see the menu), he sort of absentmindedly lets one hand travel up and down the inside of the thigh closest to him. She seems not to notice – absorbed instead by the sandwich selections. Embarrassed to be intruding on such an intimate moment, I avert my gaze, yet again, back to my disappointing literature.

Later on, these two chat about some common project on their (shared?) overgrown Mac. He leans over as if to kiss her cheek – doesn’t – whispers something in her ear, and BAM. They disappear.

I start to think about this. At work, we’ve just finished a house meeting campaign, which basically means that we’ve gone around and asked hundreds of people who are part of the Boston Muslim community what issues they’re facing. These were both among the top issues:

1. getting married (as in, we’re having trouble doing it)

2. staying married (as in, we’re having trouble doing it)

And looking at my idealized fantasy of hipster love, I’m wondering if a little of this ain’t what we’re missing:

Matching, hugging, absorbing L-O-V-E.

Now one could argue that this is, for a lot of reasons, not the appropriate model for Muslim relationships. I’m going to ignore that whole side of it for now, hoping you’ll forgive me – as I explore What the Hipsters Have and We Don’t.

Speaking with some of my (not that much older) married friends, these are prominent commentaries on marriage (slash advice):

1. People think that married people don’t get lonely. Married people are often really lonely.

2. Dishes. Every day. Be prepared to do them. And be prepared that he won’t.

3. You should be picky, because this is the man you’re going to obey for the rest of your life.

Fantastic! Where do I sign up?

And then I’m looking around me at all the marriageable people, and I’m thinking, No freaking wonder we’re still single. I mean, here we are, for better or worse, completely immersed in a culture that not only prizes romantic love very highly, but displays it prominently – both in person and in the media. I don’t need Disney to form a warped, idealistic picture of romance – I have the thigh-touching, whispering, disappearing hipsters next to me. So we’re trapped – maybe not unpleasantly – in a world in love, surrounded by a bunch of married Muslims who are either not in love with each other, or who don’t show us that they’re in love with each other because they consider it to be inappropriate.

I’m not asking for people to start making out with each other outside of Eid prayers or anything. That would be kind of gross. But, like, a little something? Like holding hands with each other, maybe, or the occasional smile from across the room as though you share a private joke? That would be nice. That would make the rest of us maybe find marriage a more attractive state – not some sort of elaborately disguised prison.

The conventional wisdom goes: romantic love does not last; therefore, it’s an illogical and doomed reason to get married. Better to marry for the sake of common values and a synchornicity in thinking about gender roles within marriage and how Islam should be practiced/Muslim kids should be raised – 10 years later you’ll thank us.

I would counter with, “What about the Obamas?”…But I’ll admit that they are the exception and not the rule. So this may very well be sage advice. Nevertheless, I’m not positive that it’s responding – or suitable – to our cultural milieu. It may very well be unwise, but Muslim kids grow up watching their peers fall in love again and again – Muslims see people around them in love all the time. The common cultural narrative goes like this: boy meets girl in some sort of meet-cute, they exchange some pleasant witticisms and then numbers – or maybe they friend each other on Facebook first (baby steps), then they agree under some pretense to meet for coffee (perhaps they happen to be reading the same book, which one of them only read because the other was reading it…), they flirt, they walk to some other destination (someone’s class? The bus stop? He walks her home?), navigate the awkward first goodbye (are we kissing or hugging?) but not before making plans to see each other again. They meet a second time – in the evening, so as to make looking hot and kissing more plausible, have a surprisingly wonderful time, and end the night with a kiss – which, if it’s sublime (and why wouldn’t it be?), will initiate a love affair that may or may not involve thigh-touching at the local cafe, much to the Muslim next door’s chagrin – and, if everyone’s amenable and things go well, could very well end in marriage, kids, and a plot at the local community garden.

And…apart from the kissing, etc. pre-marriage, what’s wrong with this picture? Are we telling ourselves to want something we can’t want?

I feel like we might be approaching it like this: the married community (to the extent that such a thing exists) is telling the unmarried community, “This [i.e. romantic love] is what’s broken in your culture [self].” So we’re supposed to want to get married for very practical reasons: to have a family, to have religious support, to not sin. But I don’t think that’s why we really want to get married. We’d like to be swept off our feet by an experience that makes us feel like taking on responsibility and adulthood with this person will feel less of a burden, and maybe even fun – we want to lose sense of ourselves, to desire someone – hopefully for deep and shallow reasons, we’d like to come across a person who makes us feel like all this waiting we’ve done is insignificant, erased, by the pleasure of his/her company. We’d like our minds to be blown – and eventually think about a family, support each other, happily not-sin together.

It’s not that we’d like to marry someone with terrible character and a tendency to shirk responsibility. It’s that we don’t want it to be just that. Who wants to end up in Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins?

Practical? Very. Hot for each other? ...I rather think not.

Now, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy? There’s a better model. The beauty of this fictional match is that neither partner compromised on the ideal character of their imagined beloved – they both dreamed of marrying refined, interesting people of superb character. Perhaps Elizabeth imagined herself with someone a tad more outgoing, and Mr. Darcy imagined himself with someone a tad more rich – but these things are not the glue that holds people together. They loved and respected each other, and with good reason. And no surprise, happy ending there.

I like this much better. Much.

Why should we be trying to fit ourselves into a box that…doesn’t fit? If we want to love our spouses, I mean – isn’t that okay – isn’t it desirable? It only needs to be tempered with some sort of reasonable wisdom or reason – of course it’s possible to lust after, or even to be infatuated with, a person who is all kinds of wrong for you. Of course. It happens all the time. But that is very different than feeling deeply in love with a person you respect and admire, and therefore want to spend your every day with. Maybe he doesn’t rake leaves, and maybe she’s not so on top of the dishes, or the laundry, or whatever. But I’d so much rather do without a few of the teeny little chore expectations I had and have someone I actually like spending time with. Isn’t that what marriage is? Time? I’d so much rather enjoy it.

So I think it’s hot hipster lovin’ or bust. This unhot transactional nonsense has got to go, dig? Can’t nobody defenestrate that but us, one lovemonkey marriage at a time. Ready?

Because properly married people should stand like this. Really it's indecent not to.

Becoming

I apologize for not having written. If you’ve held out for this long, you’re a real trooper of a reader, and I appreciate it.

I’ve spent the last month and change digesting. So much was happening all the time, and in a way I felt incapacitated in terms of writing. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure what to say or how to put it. I was afraid of revealing too much of myself (a shocking declaration for a blogger such as myself, I know). I had to just sit for a minute or a month, and see what came out at the end. It was the culmination of a much larger, much longer process. And I will say this, and hope that it is enough, and not too much:

This year has been fascinating for me. So much has changed, and in so many ways I have come into myself and grown into my Islam. But it’s been a mixed bag. Part of that growing has been a broadening, and much of what I have encountered – thoughts, feelings, deeds – I thought I had left behind forever when I came to Islam. But eventually we are who we are. It may come under the heading of one religion, one philosophy, one world view that is coherent; but embracing something so comprehensive does not mean that we embody that idea fully. As much as we’d all like it to be different, this is, if nothing else, a process.

Maybe I was a better Muslim a year ago, or two years ago. It’s hard to say. When you take pieces of yourself – memories, ideas, longings, tendencies – and pack them away in a far, cobweby corner of your identity, is that goodness? So many of the things or ideas I embraced were not whole, were not wholly mine. I was not myself. The intoxication of a whole new way of being – a chance to reinvent myself at 23! It was all that mattered, and maybe I took that chance too much, maybe I went too far.

When I was contemplating returning to the States from Egypt, I thought it would be more difficult than it turned out to be. I thought that I had become someone different: a postmodern ascetic, taking refuge in an urban desert from the social high of a colder, more verdant city. But I came back and went out every weekend again, and loved people again, and loved them more. I hadn’t changed at all. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

If I had to name this year, if it had to be one thing, it would be me falling into myself. I’ve unpacked everything that I tucked away in shame or zeal, and I’m in the process of going through it all: this I want to keep, this I can do without. But at last I am doing the real work of being a Muslim, I think. I feel that I went on a very long, two-year vacation, and now I’ve come back to my apartment, my storage space, and I’m going through all of the boxes. I’m deciding which ones deserve to come along for the long haul, and which can go to the recycling. I thought that I had already done this work, but it was the illusion of an escapist. The real deal doesn’t happen overnight. It’s never been that way, and it never will be. People change slowly; we may successfully reinvent ourselves, but it happens in slow, sedimentary time, not in the lightening mood that accompanies that first, inescapable “aha.”

And so for the first time in a long time I feel authentic. I feel Muslim, I feel deeply that this is who I am, and I also feel that I haven’t cut off any proverbial limbs in order to feel that. It’s not an either/or anymore. I’m tempted to call it “healthy” or “wholesome” but I think I might be dipping a toe into a pool that is a little too new-agey for me. I’ll stick with authentic. But that means that I’m stuck with myself, and I’m not so sure how I feel about that. I want to crawl back under the covers and come back out after my spirit has successfully slain my self. Can’t somebody else take care of this unruly thing that is my personality?

If sin is a fable, then so am I. I’m taking me, with a massive dose of tawba. God alone knows what the right choice is.

Sage advice

The more concerned members of my family, who would like to see me happy and settled, and have a less intimate knowledge of the Moslems, occasionally pipe up to give me some love advice. This being:

Dear Liz,

If you want to marry a pious Muslim, stop yapping about your male childhood friends hugging you on your blog. Also, never ever ever mention that you have “a past.” Also never talk about your screw-ups. The pious Muslim men won’t have it and will think you’re some sort of libertine. And maybe you are. Regardless, bottle it up and shut up about it. The Christians accept you for who you are, because, you know, we’re very reasonable people, but you know how small-minded Muslims are. So please do yourself a favor, and become someone you’re not. Or at least pretend to be someone else. Until after the wedding. Then, good luck living up to the lie! Protestantism is always here for you, should you ever tire of the charade.

Love always,

your loving family

Needless to say, I haven’t taken their advice. Why? Well, I’ve tried. Boy did I try. I tried to be what I imagined everyone would want, and I tried to ignore the pieces of me that you might not expect. I tried to ignore the fact that I’m a convert, and American, and that the culture I grew up with is very different from the subculture in which I now find myself. I tried. And it kind of backfired.

We all have our struggles, and I’m not saying that this (i.e. Islam) is supposed to be a piece of cake. It’s not. Talk to any convert. Forget that, actually – talk to anyone. What you’ll hear from almost everyone, in one way or another, is this: I wouldn’t have it any other way. But sometimes it’s so difficult I fear I’m about to bust something.

We’re all Muslim because we choose to be. Lord knows that the easier and infinitely more convenient thing to do in this society is give it up – give up the prayer, fasting, your beard, covering your hair, no gambling, no drinking, no dating, no sex. We don’t do those things because it’s fun. We do them because we’re committed to something greater than ourselves, because we want to travel towards and not away from God throughout the course of our lives, because we believe that within struggle lies growth. Like, you can’t become patient if you get everything you want the second that you want it. You’ve gotta wait sometimes. Like that.

Thing is, I do all that stuff (minus growing a beard, of course). By most people’s standards, I’m considered very conservative – even by my own family (see very disconcerting advice above). But my family, and occasionally the Muslims around me, keep warning me (between telling me that I’m CRAZY conservative like those loony fundos) that I’m too liberal. Too liberal for the hardcore fundos out there – and we all know that that’s precisely what all of the practicing Muslims are – but not what you might call a “progressive” Muslim.

Which leaves me……where?

Eeny meeny miney, community?

The bizarre thing (I find) is that some converts are able to cast off their “past lives” with total disregard. It’s like the first twenty/thirty/forty/whatever years of their lives disappear into the ether and they’re the first ones to forget about it. And I’m sitting there….wondering how. It’s not that I’m stuck in my past – it’s not that I romanticize it (Ah, the days I used to do haram things! If only I could go back!). It’s that I want to be able to admit that it’s there, and develop naturally, and without cultural amnesia. Is that so much to ask?

Sometimes I’m asking this of the community, and sometimes I’m asking it of individuals. I was at the local mosque last night, and there was a scene that recalled my early days in Islam all too well:

There was a girl laying on the floor waiting for prayer. Two women sat on either side of her. She was bright-eyed and asking a lot of questions: What do I say after the adhan? What do I do when _____ happens?

An Egyptian woman was answering her inquiries. Every sentence she spoke to this newbie began with one of two words: do or say. And I’m listening to her and thinking: You’re teaching this girl like you have a Ph.D. in prayer and you’re mispronouncing your “tha”. It’s atheem, not azeem.

Now there’s nothing wrong with this unloading of advice per se. It’s all kindly meant, and most converts (myself included) do arrive at the mosque with roughly a billion questions every other day. But still. Don’t cram it down her throat like that. Write it down. One thing at a time. Leave her wanting more, not feeling dizzy with information she can’t hope to remember – and doesn’t understand.

Here’s what I want: I want someone to say to her: Hi, salaam alaykum, welcome to the community.

How are you?

Anything I can help you out with?

How are things going for you? How is your faith? How is your family? How are your friends?

Can I grab you some tea?

So here’s what I did: I introduced myself. I said welcome into the fold, gave her my number, took hers, prayed maghrib next to her, and told her that I had to leave to give a friend a ride, but that she should never hesitate to call me at three in the morning. I told her that I’ve been Muslim for two and a half years. And sometimes it’s rough. And I get it.

The trouble is that with all of our fussing over the newbies learning all the “right” things (most of which, mind you, are not required by the religion), we teach them a thousand things a minute, tell them what to do and what not to do, and then wonder why they get overwhelmed, or why they haven’t been to the mosque in a while. There’s no real effort to get to know them. It’s not like, hey let’s go grab coffee and chat cuz we’re sisters now, it’s like, perfect yourself perfect yourself perfect yourself. Yesterday! There is no subtlety in dealing with the converts. NONE.

Maybe the right answer lies somewhere in between my way of dealing with this girl and the other woman’s. I’m not sure, honestly – I’m figuring this out as I go. But what I want is to not be imposed upon by another culture. I want to be Muslim, but not Egyptian. Or Pakistani. Or Turkish. Because I’m none of those things. I want to be Muslim and white, and for that to be my  identity. I’m Irish and Polish. I’ll be teaching my kids to pray and making them golumpkis for dinner, thankyouverymuch. I’ll teach them thikr, hopefully pronounced correctly (God willing), and read Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson with them – and Al-Ghazali. Because they will own all those things, and they should be able to. They should be proud of that. Not all of the ideas, art, and culture borne out of the Anglo-Saxons is bad. It is not all to be rejected. It is to be refined.

To be honest, I stayed away from Islam for a long time because I thought: square peg, round hole. Because I was a dancer, and a singer, and a theater chick – where was I going to put all that stuff? Three years later, I’m discovering that I can put them in a blog, in speaking, in poetry readings. But it took that long. And you know what? I hate to say it. It’s the community’s fault. We’re all so obsessed with the deen beauty contest that we forget that people grow, and it takes time to come into your own, and that’s okay.

So that’s why I put it here, I guess. It’s half declaration of identity-independence, and half prayer. I want to be able to say: I have a story, and not have everyone balk at it. Because you know what? If you can’t handle someone with a story, then you can’t handle converts. The fact that people come into this religion is purely the mercy of God – because the Muslims certainly don’t make it very easy for them. The Muslims make it so hard to be Muslim that converts’ family members tell them to hush up. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as extreme?

And maybe they’re right. Maybe I am making it harder for myself. Maybe some really great, really conservative guy who would otherwise be interested in me is reading this and thinking: never mind. You know what? So be it. Even if I didn’t have a blog, this is still who I am. And it’s not going to go away, no matter how much I don’t talk about it. And when I do find the guy for me, God willing, I want him to accept me for who I am – past, flaws, virtues, talents, quirks, all of it. What’s the point, otherwise? If you have to become someone else to be loved, then you’re not really being loved – someone else, some other identity that you’ve put on, like an outfit – that’s what is being loved. And nobody wants that, including me. I want to be loved, or bust. No masks, no pretending. And I’ll wait as long as it takes.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I’m finding people who love me just as I am, and still help me to be better – but don’t try to make me into someone else entirely. And it’s more cheering than I can possibly say. We buoy each other up, we laugh together, we protect each other, we encourage each other – but never absolutely, never with an iron fist. And isn’t that the way of our beloved Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him? Who was gentler? Who loved people more? Who accepted people more? Did he (pbbuh) teach the Muslims their religion in one day? Did he (pbbuh) ask Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him) to become a different man, once he came to Islam? No. The Prophet (pbbuh) asked Umar to use his talents and his personality in the service of the religion. And that was all. If that was all we were asked by the community – love what you love, be who you are, and when you can, do those things in the service of your Lord and this community – my goodness, what a relief that would be.

What my family asserts, or sees, about the community, isn’t wrong. They see us all “starched up into seeming piety” (Mansfield Park, I can’t help myself) and wonder how authentic it is, and see – quite rightly – that there’s no room for WASPs/WASMs (read: White Anglo-Saxon Muslims). My family doesn’t want to deal with all of the cultural/social/emotional confusion and pain my brother and I went through – and who can blame them? Are we really all that welcoming, if we ask everyone to be instantly different from the moment they convert? Where is our patience with people? Where is our love for each other?

What I’m hoping is that we’re moving towards a happier balance. I think we are. My brother changed his name when he came to Islam, but by the time I followed seven years later, he advised me not to (resulting in something I like to call “Lizzy pride.” I love that someone with my name introduces herself in hijab. I have such a WASP name, and I’m so Muslim. Surprise!). The struggles of the converts in the 70s, 80s, and 90s were much greater than ours. So there’s hope, I think – for the girl in the mosque yesterday, and for me. There’s hope that I can admit that I struggle, and I can sound off on my insights into the community that are inevitably through the lens of my past (both Muslim and before), and that yes, when I see the guys I’ve known since third grade and love like brothers (and who know me better than some of my family) hug me, I don’t shove them off rudely, screaming, For shame! I don’t touch boys anymore. It’s called chastity, you lecher. And that despite all that, I have friends – and hopefully, God willing, I’ll have a best-friend-roommate-husband who will love me because/despite it all.

And then I will say: I told you so. Until then, here’s my line:

It’ll all turn out all right in the end.

How will it, you say?

I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Between obscurity and notoriety

I once had a conversation with someone who didn’t write a book because he wasn’t sure that his intentions were pure.

Wow, I thought. Not me. Fear of renown has not scared me off anything – but perhaps it ought to.

Sincerity is something, perhaps oddly, perhaps normally, that I find elusive. I don’t know how to put my finger on it. And the lack of knowing plagues me. I’m trudging ahead, doing what I do, feeling as I feel, without much self-editing. I wonder if it’s time to take a step back and check myself.

Usually, when faced with the dilemma of my own sincerity, I simply pray for it. I’m not sure how much more I can manage. I even cringe away from uttering things like “Oh Lord, you know that I did such and such for Your sake alone” even when I am alone in prayer. I am afraid of myself, and afraid of the One Who created me and knows me better than I know myself. What if I have told myself a pretty and convenient lie? What if I told myself that, for instance, I started this blog for the sake of God alone, and what if, underlying that, even stronger than that, a love of praise and desire for recognition drove me to it? How would I know? Not knowing, I am inclined to think that baser things drive my actions – hoping, all the while, that I am wrong, and if not, that God will forgive me and improve me. And who am I to say what I meant by this or that? The more important something is to me, the more various my attractions to it. I feel that to to identify one driving force for something so important, so personal, and so inevitable as my writing would be to deny the complexity of my humanity. Right now, anyway. I am not so good, I am not so pure, and I am afraid of such self-assured declarations.

Do we totally understand our own selves?

Something may remain painfully unclear to a person for months or years that is plain as day to his peers and family. Alcoholics deny their alcoholism. Cumpulsive gamblers tell themselves, “I can stop whenever I want.” Am I any different – are any of us any different? If I understood the most inner, deepest motivations I have for all of my actions, and could identify them immediately, wouldn’t it be easier to rid my heart of its imperfections? Isn’t part of the insidiousness of sin that we sometimes don’t know it’s there?

The Qur’an calls those who deny belief, even while they hold it somewhere deep in their beings, “blind”. With honesty, and admission of that belief, there comes sight. “The likeness of the two parties is as the blind and the deaf and the seeing and the hearing: are they equal in condition? Will you not then mind?” [11:24] But I am more inclined to think that this phenomenon happens in gradations. Among the believers, the seers and hearers, some are undeniably better people and more committed to their faith. So I shy away from stark dichotomies. Is it right to think that because I see with the eyes of a believer, my spiritual sight is 20/20? I feel as though I am still waking up to the world, and things are revealed to me slowly, as I grow. With time, I am learning to polish the glasses of belief, and things that were vague in the distance a year ago become clear, and yet more things remain farther, beyond my reach, but between me and the horizon. I see myself for what I am through experience as it unfolds; it was not all done with a thunderclap the moment I became honest with myself and sighed, Yes, I am a Muslim.

So am I sincere? Am I sincere in all the ways I should be, in writing, in waking up in the morning, in the friendly exchanges I have with my fellow Muslims and my fellow Americans? I don’t think so. But I’m not sure if that is reason enough to stop.

I was raised in the theater – as a dancer, then as a singer, then as an actor. Then as a writer and director. I haven’t been involved in theatrical projects per se since graduating, but I believe that it would be foolish – just plain stupid – for me to say that the exhibitionism that drove my involvement in those things from the age of three does not now play a part in what I do, or attempt to do, publicly. The sound of applause was familiar to me from an early age – the smiling faces, the admiration, the feeling that I am real because these people see me. Or: I have done something, because they have witnessed it. I did not imagine my life. Did those feelings of comfort die two and a half years ago, because I began along a spiritual path? No. Surely not. And this is not my theory; I know it. If I write something and receive a compliment, when I blush and smile at it, it is twofold: I’m enjoying the praise, and censuring myself for basking in it.

Part of the reason, I believe, that I became a Muslim, was a recognition that all of the applause was transitory, illusory, and ultimately meaningless. The older performers I knew behaved, with some very notable exceptions, like overgrown, grayed toddlers. Unable to stop themselves, they threw embarrassing, diva-esque tantrums, and then recovered themselves as if nothing had happened. The rest of us, who were younger, less acknowledged, and only partially infected by the same need for attention, were left to feel ashamed for them. I dreaded becoming that – so I sought a forum for my heart that was richer than the stage.

Still, fleeing from something does not equal being freed from it.

Jane Austen asserts something very simple and very remarkable that I believe we learned to ignore by the time I showed up in the 1980’s (and perhaps long before that, too). In Mansfield Park, when Henry Crawford proposes to Fanny, and she refuses him, she explains herself by saying, “I do not trust him. Like many charming people, his enjoyment lies chiefly in the admiration of others. His sole interest is in being loved; not in loving.”

The problem with rushing to praise is that she is a fickle lover. Sometimes the truth will gain you some of people’s love; sometimes it will gain you hatred, insult, and pain. Perhaps living in a democracy, we’ve been trained out of the idea that truth is not arrived at by consensus. Truth is sometimes unpopular. Lest we forget it, the struggles of our dear and beloved Prophet (may the peace and blessings of God be upon him) remind us – so too the persecution of Galileo – or more recently, those valiant champions of the Civil Rights movement: Martin Luther King, Jr. and our blessed brother Malcolm X, may God have mercy on him.

The danger of love of praise is that we will pander. That with time, and addiction to admiration, we will begin to edit out those things we may have been previously committed to, but may not be popular with the masses. We water down whatever it is we wanted to convey, and excuse the adulteration in the name of wider dissemination, or slow introduction, or any other number of things. It is a very dangerous temptation, it is a very slippery slope, and it faces everyone with something to say and some sort of public face. The tide of popularity carries our souls away with it – poor Britney is the saddest testament to this. What she began trying to do, and what she has actually done – it would take a true cynic, I believe, to deny that the aim and the reality have parted ways for that poor woman.

And yet, despite all the danger that lies in making any part of one’s self public, we seemed to be called to act. It does not take a rocket scientist to look at the world and see that the forces of good, righteousness and truth aren’t exactly running the show. And who will speak out for justice? Who will stand for something other than profit, or sex, or the profit of sex?

As afraid as I am of myself, I get lost in feeling a crushing love for all the world, and a responsibility…to try…to do something. Something. Something not toting the line of meaninglessness, of greed, of celebrity-obsessed ingratiation. Something that supports the idea that there is more to the world than accumulating as much of it as possible, more even than doing no harm, more even than helping one’s fellow.

Someone asked me recently why I write. Glory be to God, I thought, why do I write, indeed? I was overwhelmed with my own self-ignorance, my lack of certainty in my intentions, and also with my love of my family and friends, my feeling for their hearts, and my desire to bestow upon them whatever I may have that is good. I write because I must. I write because I am obsessed with the memory of myself three years ago, and what scared me, and what inspired me, and I write to that girl: I write to console her. I write because

‘This is my letter to the World/That never wrote to Me –’

Because I need something, because I myself, feeling misunderstood, want to at least be able to say that I made an effort to be understood – whether or not it works is up to God. I write because I did not understand Muslims, and now I do. I write in the belief that I’m part of a group of people at least attempting to bridge the gap between Muslims and Americans – or attempting to expose the assumption that there is some contradiction between those identities is false. Because when I’m talking to someone, trying to say, “I’m American, I’m a patriot,” and they’re very busy telling me, “You’re Muslim, you’re different, you’re making life difficult for yourself, you crazy! You gave up your White Card,” I drive home feeling despondent, and only working against that tide will soothe me.

I write because I love reading, and want to read something I can relate to. I write because I meet wonderful people, and love them, and feel I’ve been blessed with this most beautiful faith, and on the off chance that it is something that will touch someone else’s heart in the way it has touched mine, I want to say to those people: It’s scary as all hell, but it does turn out okay. I write to remind myself of things I’ve forgotten. I write for the friends who encourage me. I write because my heart is bursting with love for God, and I can’t keep it in anymore.

I don’t know if I would be better off if I was more guarded, or more private. But I’ve never been secretive about much – either before or after becoming Muslim. I suppose it’s my personality – which doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing – so I can’t, won’t, and don’t defend my own sincerity. That’s not what this is about. I pray for it – I ask you to pray for it, especially if you’ve found something here that you feel has benefited you. God alone knows my heart, and putting it – and this, and all I do – in His hands is the most I can manage right now. It may be that I change my mind later, and that would be alright.

In the end, I’m hoping that there is something in here worth saying. I’m hoping there’s a point. I’m hoping that the best of what I have to offer comes out, and that this isn’t, deep down in the cockles of my heart, an attempt for popularity. How sad I would be, if that were the case. How disappointed I would be in myself.

We take refuge in God from sharing with Him anything in our worship knowing of it, and we ask His forgiveness for what we share with Him without being aware of it.

May God protect my heart, and yours, and grant us freedom from wanting that which can bring no gain. May we all have the best of intentions in all of our actions, and may He reward us according to that which is most noble in our hearts. May He correct, in His mercy, what is wrong with us, and help us to guide each other in love. Amen.

Pinch

I dreamt that I went to Easter at Grandma’s, and didn’t poke anyone with the pins on my hijab as I hugged them. Nobody said “Oops, you got me right in the eye,” and nobody cackled too loud in response. I didn’t blush.

I went to Easter, and my grandfather said he would go see the doctor, and didn’t smoke any cigarettes, and wasn’t out of breath.

Nobody told me she had a dream that I wasn’t wearing my scarf, and how wonderful it was to see my hair. Nobody told me that wearing the hijab is like going to a Muslim country wearing a giant gold cross. Nobody said that it is cultural and not religious, and nobody said it didn’t matter. Nobody told me that I’d never get hired again if I didn’t take it off. Nobody told me nicely, in so many words, that I make everyone uncomfortable. Nobody said it was “food for thought”.

Nobody told me I think too hard about prejudice.

Nobody sold guns for a living. Nobody said they don’t believe in global warming.

Nobody told me what a shame it was that I didn’t go to medical school. They didn’t ask me why I had switched fields. They thought it made sense that I want to be a writer, and encouraged me.

When I gave someone a page from my novel, he said he liked it, and wanted to read more.

When I said that I had been hired to write for a magazine, they asked, “which one?” and asked for a reminder email. When I told them I had a blog, they asked for the address.

My fifteen-year-old cousin didn’t say that she never wants to get married. In response, I didn’t think: You haven’t lived alone in the world.

I didn’t serve pork.

I enjoyed playing dice games as much as everyone else, and didn’t wonder if it constituted gambling. I wanted to win and felt bonded by mutual enjoyment to the family members sitting around the table. When I looked around, I felt we shared more than a certain similarity about the forehead, eyebrows and lips. I looked down at the penny with which I played our game and thought we were a true manifestation of the hope stamped there: E pluribus unum.

When we left, no one avoided my head so that I wouldn’t stab her with my pins, and I hadn’t checked to make sure the ends were tucked on the inside five times. I wasn’t obsessed by the idea that I had upset my only aunt who never gets upset by hopefully insisting that some Americans wouldn’t mind my working for them, and that I don’t necessarily alienate everyone. When I told her I came from two communities: WASP and Muslim, I felt at home in both. I was sorry to go. I felt connected.

I didn’t fear that I had offended anyone by trying to worship God. And the way I try didn’t scare anyone at all.

One thousand words

All students attending Harvard College between the years of 1941 and 1945 were given a very special assignment that, as far as I know, no other college has ever required of any other student at any other time.

One thousand words a day, on anything, to be turned into a box in the President’s office.

The box was dumped into an incinerator every day. The students doing the writing did not know this; in fact, no one even knew the purpose of the assignment until much later, when an alumnus asked.

The theory behind the assignment was that writing is not a gift, but a skill. And like so many other things, it must be honed, and improves with practice. The mind, with use, becomes supple, like a muscle that is stretched every day.

Turns out that these students contributed more to American literature than any other group in history. Bamn. How’s that for practice making perfect?

It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that we can’t excel in things that we do not do. And also that improvement comes with practice. And yet this is the only experiment of this kind that there is. I wonder why. Why don’t all colleges take up this practice, knowing what it can do? It’s amazing to me. No one read those pages. They were a secret. They didn’t get graded, commented on, and handed back. There was no critical element. And yet those pages, lost to us forever, of which there remains no evidence today, appear to have made all the difference.

It is not unlike prayer.

I’ve often been disheartened because I don’t always feel what I believe I’m supposed to during my prayers. I don’t concentrate as well as I feel I should. I don’t feel deeply the significance of every bow and prostration, despite the fact that I spend a lot of time outside of my prayer thinking about what makes these things profound. But maybe that’s not entirely the point. Maybe I’m not supposed to have arrived yet. Maybe I’m being prepared by practice – by a practice that, often, no one sees and there is no evidence of. When I pray the afternoon prayer by myself, I can hold up no proof later. It’s a secret between myself and God. But it is wrong to assume that there are no repercussions to a habit that, however imperfect, is consistent.

Non-Muslims are sometimes critical of the literalness of the prayer. Five times a day, at particular times, in a formulaic way. Seems as though it might go without being heartfelt. And what is a connection to God if not heartfelt? What is the point of a prayer that issues from adherence to a timetable, not from your toes?

Valid questions – but I believe there is significance to the fact that Islam asks of us this simple, regular routine. Anyone can perform the prayer; the movements can be altered for the sick, handicapped or injured. It is ground zero, step one. Islam would not have succeeded as such a widespread religion if it asked something extraordinary from the get-go. It doesn’t. It does not ask major contributions to the field of American literature. It asks for one thousand words a day, on anything, that will be thrown into the incinerator.

I derive great hope from the idea that prayer, like writing, is a skill that improves with practice, because I do feel dissatisfied with my prayer, my character, and my heart. I wish for these things to improve, but so often get lost in the how. Maybe the answer was right in front of me the whole time. God tells us: pray, and your prayer will improve. Call on Me, and your call will improve. Bow to Me, and your bow will improve. Until finally, we feel these things as we ought. When we say, Allahu Akbar, God is Greatest, eventually, we will feel in our hearts that He is Greatest. The tremor of this truth will ping along every cell in our bodies, because we have told it to ourselves so many times. It is like language immersion. You go around thinking everything is meaningless until one day you recognize one word. One meaning. And then another word. And eventually everything takes on meaning. God is organizing our lives for us so that our religion will take on real meaning; it is not something we declare, and then leave to atrophy. It is something we stretch, and polish, and build on. We’re not graded on day one. It doesn’t matter where we start; it matters where we end up. Here is the way to get where you want to go: prostration, five times a day.

I don’t mean to say that these rewards will come with only adherence to the letter on our part. If we pray our prayers, but regard the practice as meaningless and routine, without end and without purpose, we can’t hope to reap the same rewards of a person praying with the intention to improve. I can write “the” one thousand times on a sheet of paper every day, but if at the end of four years I am not a better writer, well, what did I think would happen? Spiritless participation will never be the same as sincere striving. But even so, even so. When we are working on sincerity itself – there is hope, there is a system, and there is wisdom at work behind it that we cannot hope to grasp. Perhaps it is enough to have faith that God’s wisdom is in every prayer, even when we feel ourselves lacking. That there is meaningful experience accumulating, even if we lose track of our own progress. The blessings we accumulate may visit us much later in life, or even after death – just because we don’t see immediate benefits to something small does not mean that there is not something magnificent at work.

Glory be to God, Who made it mandatory! May we improve by the system He has so wisely laid out, and become a generation of great contributors to faith and life.

I stand corrected.

The only thing I could think of, as is often the case with me, was a line from one of my favorite movies:

“Your words shamed me.”

[note: I admit additional shame for another reason entirely. Brazen Jane Austen fan that I am, I do not know, off the top of my head, if the line is taken unadulterated from her prose, or if it was reworded for the script. For shame, you say. I know.]

Someone has corrected me, and I believe it is of some note. A few posts ago, I was talking about fantasy, and the remarkable ability to see through a religious fantasy as it is envisioned. The remarkable part being that it requires no one else’s permission. That once a heart desires the spiritual life, it is, in many ways, already living it. No bars stand between the sincere heart and God.

This person was very right in pointing out that a relationship with the Divine requires the permission of the Divine.

As I understand it, there is some debate in Christian theology on free will. It is a problem. In other words, God gave humans free will – but knows what we will choose. So….isn’t that, like, not free will? Isn’t that predestination?

I am very fond of the Islamic approach to this problem, which I find very straightforward and not at all logically problematic. Basically, we are taught that God made us, and knows what we will choose, but that our choices are very real to us in the time that we make them. Parents often know their children well enough to predict their choices; a Creator’s knowledge of His creation is infinitely greater. It gives me a sense of comfort, actually – that God is, in a sense with me in my choices, in that He knows what I am faced with, knows my heart, knows what is hard for me, and, ultimately, knows what I will choose. It also gives me a source of help in difficulty. I pray: Oh God, You made me, and You know this is hard for me, and You know best why it it hard for me. Grant me success in this, and give me the wisdom and steadfastness to choose, and stick by, the right thing.

When I chose Islam, nothing stood between me and that choice. It’s not like being admitted into your dream graduate program, in that you can try and fail. Of course, in extreme cases, there may be practical bars to declaring faith. One may feel afraid; one’s family may forbid one, in all the ways it is able, to change faiths. But Allah knows what is in the breasts. [3:154] Whatever your state is with God, it is between you and Him, and that is all. No one can take it from you. Faith, like love, is really one of the great secrets of the heart. We can look for its outward manifestations, but as to its strength and sincerity, we can never know what truly lies in the breast of another. God knows best.

So when I say that we have complete autonomy in faith, this isn’t exactly what I mean. I mean that our hearts, created with love, compassion, and infinite wisdom, belong also to their Creator, and that it must be so, and that He guides us according to that wisdom. That it is always there. The hint is ever-present, that there is more to all this, that we might feel more satisfaction in beholding a cloud, or the full moon in a clear sky. That we might say, Subhan’Allah, Glory be to God, instead of, Wow, pretty moon. And that saying it will make a difference to our hearts. That we will be free, that the ability to say that, and the knowledge to say it, will be the dearest thing in all the world, and the things that harm us thereafter will be mere pinpricks in comparison to the pain of separation from The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful. I believe that nudge is there. It is all the other noise that gets in the way, convincing us that we are dreaming, or that our own importance is all that matters in a void of meaning. That what we can see and point to is all that is there. Pretty moon.

One of my favorite prayers begins, “Oh God, Oh Changer of the hearts…” When my heart began to desire God, and began, as a consequence, to desire Islam…I was making the choice: am I really going to do this? But even that was gently guided by The Compeller, unbeknownst to me. Even the longing was put there in mercy. How could I claim that my heart is independent? It is like that pot of tea over there insisting it is the master of its own fate.

I like to think that I don’t belong completely to myself. I feel safe, cared for, less lonely. I love thinking that God made me for a purpose, and that it is to worship Him, and that my sincerest, dearest desire is perfectly in line with what I was intended for. Of course I bungle it all the time. I feel this way when I sit and reflect, or when I pray. But in my day-to-day life, my mistakes are much the same as they ever were, and I make and remake the intention to improve myself, even as I make excuses for my sins and tell myself, This is the last time. May God forgive and guide me!

The thing about turning to God, I think, is that it can be done by the hardest heart, by the darkest sinner, at any time. He always hears that call. As long as we are breathing, the chance to begin completely anew is there. It is unlike any other relationship, because there is no limit to God’s forgiveness. And this is also what I mean. Going to your lover requires his welcome, his trust, his open arms; misuse these, and you may find yourself alone. Lovers hold each other accountable. Even a kind person, abused enough, will eventually respond to overtures of sincerity with: I can’t. But not if God is The Beloved. He is independent of need, unlike any other kind of love object, so He is limitless in His ability to hear us say: I’m sorry. Take me back.

Hope redux

I’ve been listening to a song that goes:

Stitch in your knitted brow
And you don’t know how
You’re gonna get it out
Crushed under heavy chest
Trying to catch your breath
But it always beats you by a step, all right now

Making the best of it
Playing the hand you get
You’re not alone in this

There’s hope for the hopeless
There’s hope for the hopeless
There’s hope

I hate to be trite and stupid and blog about song lyrics. It’s difficult for me to express why exactly this song is important to me…

There are few songs, to be perfectly honest, that I don’t interpret in the light of romantic love. It’s entirely possible, and even likely, that the lyrics to this song were written with that sort of love in mind. But to me, this song is a narrative of the most important event in my life.

I haven’t touched much on exactly how my conversion happened. I think now is the time to do a bit of that.

You see, I was the hopeless. I wasn’t particularly unhappy. I wasn’t depressed – far from it. I was, in every way, a very typical 23-year-old girl. I fit perfectly into the social fabric of my college. In the context of parties, I had a wild and daring reputation. I could always be counted on for a good time. I had wonderful friends, and I loved them. I had the best boyfriend in any of my friends’ memories. They were all jealous of my good relationship fortune. Seriously. And I was set up to attend pretty much any med school I wanted. The future was bright. My life was ahead of me.

You’re wondering why I was hopeless. Like I said, it wasn’t depression. I just had an overwhelming sense of having missed the point, and that is the only real name I can give to it. I was a secular humanist. Not really a classical or strict one; I believed in God, but rejected organized religion on principle. It caused wars. Each tradition claimed superiority over all others. That tendency seemed a bit arbitrary, or petty to me. And I saw pretty much every religion that could claim any serious commitment to morals/spiritual refinement as an explicit and insidious attempt to batter the sex instinct out of humanity. Which was simply something that I could not condone. I thought religious people were provincial. Inexperienced. Limited. In my noncommittal theism, I fancied myself enlightened. And liberated from the petty dogma of religion.

But this turned out to be a front. I had over-thought the problem. I was thinking, nitpicking, as my education had raised me to do. And in doing so I left out the most important part of the equation. Faith gives life to the heart – as love does. Both romantic love and faith are really acts of love, and of the heart. I had never been a cold person. I had a rich love-life, taking my boyfriend, family and friends into account. Many people to love, to spend time with, to soften me.

But I missed God. I longed for God as a lover does the beloved. For a few months I felt sort of lovelorn. I would read brief passages from the Qur’an as though they were love letters. I would smooth the printed page with my fingertips, as though it were personal. It was between God and me. Nothing else mattered. The fact that it was a holy book didn’t matter. The fact that billions of people have read it didn’t matter. I felt that it was only for me. God sent me a letter, and I wasn’t sure how to answer.

I could not accept Islam. I could not accept Islam for the same reason that I could not accept other things: it was limited, socially truncated, subjugating to women. But I could not argue with the Muslims I met. The fact was that they all had a relationship with God, and I didn’t have one to speak of. I had the impetus, but not the means. They had means.

In effect, Islam was my forbidden fruit. It was something palpable, something I could see in the Muslims I knew. Their peace, their salaam, was unmistakable. Sure, I thought it was an antiquated, arbitrary, agrarian-based tradition to rise every day before dawn for prayers…but that, and so many other traditions that seemed so senseless and backwards to me, gave them a light to live by. A light I lacked. I was going from step A to step B to step C because the steps presented themselves in that order. But there was no goal. I didn’t know what lay at the top of the staircase.

What I had wanted out of life ended by about forty, by my calculation. I wanted the right job – and I would be an M.D. before I was thirty. Check. I wanted to find, love and marry the right man, preferably sooner rather than later, and I thought I had found him. Check. I wanted kids. I would spend my thirties having children. Check. And then – when I thought about it, what then? My body would start to age. My daughters would surpass me in beauty. I wouldn’t feel the hunger of discovery in each of the areas of my life that I felt now, because they would be settled and familiar by then: family, love, career. All that would be left would be to enjoy what I could in the time I had left. And that was all. I wouldn’t be the wild girl at parties anymore; I’d be a mother. There wouldn’t be any keggers in my fifties – at least, I hoped not. All of the things it felt good to do as a teenager and twentysomething – rather, all of the rules/social conventions/laws that it felt good to break – would have lost their novelty by then. What was the point? Have kids, and then make the best you can of a marriage and wait to die? Seriously?

Even if the point was to do as much good as I was able to do – and this was a goal of mine – what would it leave? A good act is always satisfying in and of itself – I won’t deny that adopting my cat, or watching my niece for the day, or giving in charity come with innate rewards. But even these are temporary. And the effects of these acts are temporary. These things, done for their own sake, do not escape the cyclical and finite nature of life. Charity, development, justice – they are good things to work for, but their legacies (which I do not mean to diminish) are, in the end, worldly. I can touch the lives of as many people as I want, in as positive and giving a way as I can, but even those who outlive me will see their ends. And my legacy will be over. I will be over. There will be nothing left to show that I once existed. There is no way to tie oneself to something lasting and permanent by these means alone.

I didn’t see these conclusions as morbid. We’re all going to die; that’s just life. We’re all careening towards six billion uncertain ends, and we’re all struggling to make the best of our lives in the meantime. It’s foolish to ignore one’s mortality in youth. People die young. I realized this too. I wanted more. I was hungry for more. I wanted more than what I saw in my future: expensive cars, lots of sparkly diamonds, the most perfectly attentive and loving husband, a socially responsible career, lovely children. It wasn’t enough. It would end. I knew it. It was a painful awareness. There had to be more than the merry-go-round of life – the getting on, making the best of it as long as it ran, and then making an exit- and whatever more was, I wanted it. I wanted to devote myself to something permanent. Something greater, something bigger. I wanted a reason – for everything.

Once, when I was a child, I fought with a member of my family – my father, I think. I said something to him that, upon further reflection, lying in bed, I could not forgive myself for. This was my first experience of real remorse, and it came hard. I remember looking out at the street lamp from my bedroom window, and weeping, and feeling that I was lost. That it was over. I could never forgive myself.

Something happened. Something transcendent and amazing. Before I could console myself, I was consoled. And I stopped crying. It came from outside myself as surely as if my mother had come in the door in her white cotton nightgown and rocked me in her arms. I was forgiven. And then suddenly it was easy to forgive myself. This experience determined my understanding of God until I was 23. God had forgiven me.

I sensed in my heart that it was this moment – the importance of this moment – that could pull my life’s attention and give it meaning. I knew that only traveling towards this All-Forgiving One would satisfy my trajectory in any real way. Other hungers had their places and would be satisfied. But my thirst, my love, my traveling towards God could never be quenched, or trumped, or completed. This was why I admired the Muslims in my life so much. I may not have understood why they did what they did – I may have even disapproved. But they knew where they were going, and I was traveling without a map. Without a compass. Without a concept of the cardinal directions.

I try to think about why I’ve been blessed with this. With faith. I feel truly undeserving. I look around at other people in my life – good people. I don’t mean that in a bland, not-doing-harm way. I mean people who are devoted to the action of good. I know these people. They are trying to make the world a better place – often more than I am. And I talk to them about Islam sometimes, and they’re not interested. Which amazes me. Like really dumbfounds me. An early Muslim once said that if those who did not believe in God knew what happiness the Muslims held in their hearts, they would take up arms against them in an effort to win it – as though it were booty. Hearing this always makes me smile, because I’ve been in both states. If I had known what I was missing before coming to Islam, I would have tackled the nearest Muslim in the middle of the street and begged him or her to teach me what I needed to know in order to enter the religion. But that was it – before I was here, I didn’t know where here was. I didn’t know what sweetness faith held. How could I want something I didn’t know existed? They say faith has a fragrance – and those who feel attracted to Islam by meeting Muslims catch a faint whiff of it in their interactions. This was my experience. I smelled something lovely – I wanted to taste it. I have – I do. And now, now that I know, I taste, I see, I hear, I love, I feel what Islam is…if anyone took it from me (which, thank God, they can’t), I would take up a sword to get it back. Thank God there’s not a limited quantity. Whoever wants is welcome – and that is God’s bounty.

I can think of one instance that would explain why I came to Islam. One.

At times, Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of God be upon him) would put something God had said in his own words. One of the things God tells us in this way is, “Whoever comes with a good deed will be given ten times its worth or more so, and whoever comes with an evil deed will be recompensed its worth or I will forgive it. Whoever draws near to Me a handspan, I will come to him the extent of a forearm. Whoever draws near to Me the length of a forearm, I will come to him the length of two outstretched arms. Whoever comes to Me walking, I will come to him at speed. And whoever comes to Me with the Earth’s weight in sin without associating anything with Me, I will come to him with forgiveness of equal measure.” [Sahîh Muslim]

I came an inch towards God, and was rewarded with something more precious than anything else in the world. I remember it well. I shared a bottle of wine with a friend. I drank most of it. I’m a small person; I was fairly drunk. Intoxication can bring forward our basest desires – it often did mine – but this time, I was stripped of the inhibition I usually felt in talking about faith. I admitted that I wanted a relationship with God. I wanted to pray in a community. I didn’t feel at home in church. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be close to God, but was hopeless that I could effect this change in my life. I said it all aloud, to a friend who couldn’t relate. I cried. And that was it.

Islam came from the ether and pierced my heart clean through. I didn’t go searching for it. Converts often take a deliberate survey of some of the world’s religions before settling on Islam, but that was not me. I did nothing else. It entered my heart slowly, unnoticed (I would have fought the impulse, I think, otherwise). It got to the point where a Muslim friend of mine sat me down and said, “Liz, look – I think you’re Muslim.” And I was. I took my formal shahada within twenty-four hours. [literally, shahada means witness, but it is also the name of the statement one utters to formally enter the religion: I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.]

And so God rewards the sincere. And I was sincere only for a moment – and an intoxicated one at that. That was all it took – and the world was new.

So there’s hope for the hopeless, after all. God is waiting to give us what we truly want – but out of forbearance, will not force it upon us. If we want, if we confess the desire – if we ask, He is waiting to bless us.

Yours always, with awkwardness.

I’ve been thinking about my Atonement post, and I think I’ve hit on something.

People often wonder with wide wonderment why Muslims court in the awkward and roundabout way that we do. I won’t deny it. It’s a bit strange; it has always seemed so to me. Please allow me to elaborate.

“I know, I hate that line…..for real, though, can I text you sometime?”

This is how white people do it: they walk up to each other and say things like, “Hey, baby, what’s your sign?” And then they both wink at each other, signaling that this is a horribly overused line. And then, with a little chuckle, one of them says, “Seriously. I’m guessing you’re a Leo.” They have coffee or lunch or dinner, they go out a few times, leisurely explore each other’s state of dental hygiene, they grope and caress and tackle and tickle. They meet each other’s friends and go out bowling, and then have the post-friend-meeting analysis: “So. Tell me what you thought of her. Seriously. I really like this girl.” They fight and make up, they make each other dinner, see what the other one prefers to wear to bed and learn how to make each other’s favorite breakfasts. They spend Saturdays together on the couch, at the museum, in the park. They vacation together in Peru. They experience together every known thing under the sun, they cohabitate for long periods of time, they wait for it all to be settled, and then one morning one of them turns to the other with a bright sparkly expensive thing in one hand and says, “Baby, I know your sign, my friends dig you, and you always take out the trash when it’s your turn. Nobody makes better pancakes, and you know how I love that little freckle on your nose there. Let’s get hitched.” Then, and only then, does my tribe marry.

Hooray! Bliss.

Now for the Muslims:

“This totally isn’t awkward….at….all.”

Muslim boy meets girl, and nervously looks at his feet. She plays with her skirt and they exchange salaams. Boy and girl continue to stare at their toes while they discuss every potential issue under the sun….in a fairly dry manner. Things like who will get up at three with the imaginary baby come up, things like how to deal with in-laws no one has met yet, things like childcare, how the household income is shared and/or split and spent, where the couple will live, what their best and worst qualities are. It’s all out there, a big, giant, verbal pop-quiz. We quiz each other’s friends: “Is he really that nice? Or just when he’s come round courting…?” We meet each other’s families and extended families, and ask each other how we like to spend our time, what we do on a lazy three-day weekend, and how clean we like the kitchen to be. Anything is on the table for deliberation, and most of it gets carted out for examination at one point or another. We ask each other what we do on weekends but we don’t spend weekends together. We ask each other about favorite dishes, but we don’t share them. We make extra effort to not bond. It’s extremely frustrating, trying, and befuddling. All this….and we don’t even hold hands yet. Not yet. Then, finally, boy says to girl (or visa-versa), “So, um, sister….I think you’re the one for me. Are you diggin’ it like I’m diggin’ it? And is your family diggin’ me too?” And the sister says, “Uh, yeah, brother, my family is a fan. And I guess I’m sorta into you. Let’s do it.” And they get all married and then it’s like,

Gee, what could be cuter than that?

You’re thinking what I’m thinking. Why be crazy? Why do we make it so backwards and hard? Well, I’m sure there are a lot of explanations out there, but something occurred to me, as I said, thinking about Atonement. Part of the beauty and security of Robbie and Cecelia’s love is that they have known each other and loved each other in a sort of pseudo-sibling way for their entire lives. Not much is at stake when they finally declare their romantic love; neither one will walk out the door and leave the other high, dry, and not knowing whether to call. It’s safe…because the foundations are already built. They know each other. They respect each other. They admire each other. Now all they have to do is fall for each other, and it is accomplished over the course of one sweltering midsummer day. Voila! Love blossoms, roots itself, grows. A novel is born.

So I think this is why we’re crazy. Despite appearances, it’s not a masochistic or puritanical endeavor. It’s because, well, when somebody cooks killer pancakes, maybe that distracts a little from the fact that she wants five dogs and you want five kids. Because humans are beings of extremes…and while we can be extremely rational, in love, we’re mostly extremely not. So the Muslim wisdom has mostly been to take the fun out of the before-the-wedding part, and make the after-the-wedding part pretty awesome, pretty safe, and purdy dern loving. There’s a lot, obviously, that goes into choosing one’s spouse…a person’s nature, manner, habits, desires, and background all play a part in the decision. And I guess we Muslims figure that if someone can pass muster without all of the distracting (and hey, let’s face it, lovely) day-to-day romance and affection, then adding those last two ingredients will only make a good thing double platinum.

It ain’t a bad hypothesis, now that I think about it.