Saturday, March 1st, 2008
By Mona Eltahawy
When I first moved from Egypt to the US in the summer of 2000, my then-husband – an American from whom I am now divorced – offered to drive me to the neighborhood mosque. He had looked it up so that he could take me there when I arrived in Seattle.
As we approached the mosque, I saw a man coming out who looked as if he’d been lifted from Saudi Arabia, where I lived for many years as a young adult. He was wearing a turban and a white robe and had a huge beard. He represented the most conservative elements of my religion and I wanted nothing to do with him or the mosque. I told my husband to keep driving.
I vowed there and then that I would not join any Muslim community in the US but would find my own way as a Muslim in my new home. I maintained that vow during my time in Seattle.
After I signed my divorce papers, I was offered a job in New York City. I’d been to NYC several times before and always loved it – its energy, the crowds, the non-stop pace, and even the noise. I’m from Cairo, Egypt, one of the largest and most crowded cities in the world and for me, NYC is Cairo right here in the US!
I didn’t want to get on a plane and start a new life six hours later so I decided to drive from Seattle to NYC. I took 18 days to drive across the country, stopping at places I wanted to visit and in cities where I had arranged to meet an old friend and two new ones. My road trip began on Nov. 1, 2002, just over a year after the terrible attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
It was a time of increasing suspicion of Muslims and all things Islamic. Getting into my car and driving alone through the US was my way of introducing my fear of those suspicions to the paranoia of Americans.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but my road trip was also taking me to a community I had been determined not to find in Seattle.
They say it’s not about the journey but the destination but it was about both for me. While the journey was indeed my quest to find my own way in my new home country, the destination was of utmost importance not just because NYC is still my home city but because it also turned out to be the home of a community of Muslims I never thought I’d find.
Looking back, I see a pattern I never noticed before. I see now that my arrival at each of the cities I’ve lived in during my life has heralded a new stage in my faith.
I became a feminist in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia when I realized that the Islam we practiced at home was so different from the Islam outside of my home and which so often discriminated against women and denied them their rights. I became a liberal Muslim in Jerusalem where I lived in 1998 and where my ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors reminded me of the ultra-conservative Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Seeing the impact that such orthodoxy has on religion, again particularly on women, I was able to start a journey towards liberal Islam that my road trip to NYC completed.
Soon after I arrived in NYC on Nov. 18, 2002, I came across the liberal Muslim website www.MuslimWakeUp.com and made friends with the founder of the site, Ahmed Nassef, and Patricia Dunn, the site’s current managing editor.
Through them and the website, I discovered a community of like-minded liberal and progressive Muslims which I happily joined. For the first time in my life, I felt comfortable sharing my ideas and values as a liberal Muslim.
I’m so glad I drove past that mosque in Seattle and all the way to NYC.
First published on QuicktoListen.org
Comments (5)
Frank said:
Our “paranoia” was and is justified, don’t you think? How many threats from Islamic terrorists have been thwarted since 9/11? Answer: nobody knows. Now we find some yahoo with ricin in Las Vegas… don’t know if he is a terrorist or not “officially”, but what other use is there for ricin but to kill a bunch of people?
Its a relatively new sprichtword that the defenders of this nation have to be absolutely perfect. If they make one mistake… let a backpack nuke in, or some yahoo with ricin, smallpox, some nerve agent, a non-nuclear EMP generator, or something nobody ever thought of before, people will die, maybe a lot of people. Terrorists whatever their ideology, only have to get lucky once.
I don’t consider it paranoid to be suspicious of foreigners. I don’t worry that I might be paranoid, but rather I worry that I might not be paranoid enough. I have a year’s supply of food stored. I wonder if it is enough. I have a shotgun and a case of ammunition. I wonder if I have the right kind and enough ammunition to withstand a siege, to kill enough animals for food when my stored food runs out. I figure that if I am paranoid enough, me and my family just might live through the coming cataclysmic events to see what happens afterward.
I won’t get into the flaws of liberalism as an ideology… then again, why not? Maybe I will just a little. I don’t think the poor, the black, and the stupid need the “help” of government handouts. It does nothing but make them lazy and dependent upon the Big Brother, which is a recipe for disaster when the shrinking supply of largess in the tax payers’ tits dries up. Blacks, for example, in this country were making great strides right up until the 1960’s when welfare was introduced to make them immoral, lazy, and poorly-educated as side benefits. Now half the men are in prison leaving children fatherless and women without husbands. I know liberals like this state of affairs because it empowers them, but it IS NOT a valid ideology or a good recipe for continued existence of a stable society.
Now disrupting the brand of Islam practiced in the Magic Kingdom (I just love that phrase!), is an absolute necessity. I wonder, is the Islam that you, Mona, practice, even Islam? Is there a branch of Islam that throws out some of the Koran? If that is the case, how can you say that you are still Muslim?
You don’t have to be Muslim to believe in God. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to be Christian, Jewish, or anything with a label, for that matter in order to believe in God. Jews and Christians worship the same God as Muslims do, the God of Abraham.
Belief in God, though is not enough.
Enough preaching, though. Its a personal journey of the spirit much like the physical journey you took across the US. I am envious. I once had a chance to do that as well, but instead had to go get my sister out of jail. Ah, the joys of family responsibility!
March 2nd, 2008, 4:39 am
Carmen said:
Like you, I was (am) quite wary of my local Muslim community. They too represent nothing of the Islam I grew up with and know. For a while I thought there was something wrong with Islam that I practiced. When I discovered MWU I realized that there are like-minded Muslims out there. I haven’t physically connected with them, but to know that they exist (even in the online world) makes me feel like I’m not alone.
March 2nd, 2008, 7:53 am
Mona Eltahawy said:
Carmen
You are most certainly not alone. There are many Progressive Muslim Meetups across the country as well. There might be one near where you live. Let me know and I can put you in touch with the person who runs the New York chapter.
March 3rd, 2008, 9:29 pm
Mona Eltahawy said:
Frank
There isn’t one Islam and there isn’t one way to be a Muslim. Of that I am absolutely convinced.
I most certainly still call myself a Muslim.
You end your comment most intriguely! You must tell us more in your next comment!
March 3rd, 2008, 9:40 pm
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