A Saint or a Sinner?
Standing Alone in Mecca is all about a woman's life and experience - about her reawakening, writes Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta.
A month ago or so, I wrote about a woman leading a mixed congregation prayer in a mosque. It has also been my privilege to join two Internet groups relating to progressive Muslims and Sufism. I have to admit that it is amazing and very educational to be in the company of such people, whose passion for righting wrongs just leaps off the screen.
This is not to say that they are only talkers, each and every one of the participants are activists, carrying out tasks, leading marches, writing scintillating prose and generally fighting for their rights and views relating to anti-imperialism to affirmative action to women's rights. In particular, an American Muslim woman, Asra Nomani, referred me to a controversial book and it moved me. I figured, a book review would be too boring, so I decided to jot down some thoughts that I had and some points which crystallised from a heated discussion with my sister.
It was the Saturday of the FA Cup Final and the book "Standing Alone in Mecca" had thumped on the doormat in the morning. I was, as you would appreciate, a bit occupied with the game when my little princess decided to help daddy by opening up his mail. Thankfully, I spotted her attempts to masticate the thick envelope and rescued it from her, absentmindedly opened up the envelope, took the book out and gave the envelope back to my little princess, who immediately tried to cram it all into her mouth. After dealing with the fallout from THAT priceless piece of incompetent daddy behaviour, I settled back on the settee with the book in hand. Very soon, I got engrossed in the book, so much that I actually started reading it instead of sitting there with my eyes on stalks on the TV. Just goes to show how engaging and interesting I found the book to be.
Simply put, the book is about Asra's life and experience, what she terms her religious reawakening, precipitated by a series of life changing events, her being caught between three cultures (the Indian, the Muslim and the immigrant American culture), her short-lived marriage, her boyfriend's abandonment when she finds herself pregnant, the foul murder of her friend, Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan, the birth of her child and life as a single unwed mother. She begins a search for her Muslim identity, surrounded by censorious opprobrium of orthodox and traditional people, goes to do the Hajj (pilgrimage) in Saudi Arabia, and comes back with more questions and what she terms as a deeper understanding of her own faith. Then she embarks on another mission to fight for women's rights within Islam in America. A very bald statement of facts, which does not really explain the feeling of joy, and identification that I felt while reading the book. It is not a book about a heroine. It is not a book written where the good get the plaudits and the bad suffer. It is about an ordinary woman, who has been transplanted from India to USA, facing the tensions between traditional cultures, how she sees her religion, and the cacophony of the individualistic/capitalistic culture of USA.
I saw the book in two sections. The first section was related to her search for God, as well as trying to make peace with what she was, her background, her actions, her experiences, her family, her society, her religion, and her country. It is brutal in its honesty. It may sound insincere to many people, simply because, in my opinion, that level of honesty is extremely uncommon or perhaps they see it as insincere to not feel any remorse about what Islam defines as a grave sin (pre-marital sex), but even trying to find a justification for it. Given the sheer amount of cynicism prevalent in the world and the extreme rarity of self-discovery books, I am not surprised at the stones thrown at her. The funny thing is, she believes that she has gone through the fire already, and people's judgements on her personal behaviour, or her search will simply make her stronger. Still, I have to admit that her search for God is strangely, akin to what I feel as well, confused, sometimes very close to Him, sometimes very cynical and unable to slough off the scientist/westernised/secular/atheist cloak. The feeling of love for the eternal being, the search in and comparison with other religions, the impact of a warm, freshly born child in your arms, yes, it definitely makes sense to me.
That said; let's see some issues, which have been raised. Some issues with the accuracy of her Arabic translations, but since I do not know Arabic, I will let other people who are more qualified address that issue. Some problems with some of her historical facts such as the fact that Prophet Mohammed had four daughters who survived infancy instead of only one, or that Aisha was the daughter of Umar and not Abu Bakr or the Caliph succession after the the Prophet's death. A suggestion would be to really get historical facts right as they can cause people to diverge from the main overall message of the book. There are lots of criticisms of her personal behaviour. Having a child out of wedlock seems to be the biggest issue for some people. An unwed mother seems to be the worst of the lot for many people. Who can forget the British disease of blaming everything from global warming to loss of morals to single mothers?. The fact that no blame seems to be attached to the loser who left her hanging seems to have escaped them.
However, the biggest criticism seems to be associated with the fact that she had pre-marital sex and is seen as advocating it (with her point 8 of the bill of rights for Muslim women in the bedroom) which contrasts with Sura 4:24 where sex is banned for everybody who is not married. So far so good as I believe all sects and schools of Islam say that pre- or extra-marital sex is illegal. This is sometimes viewed as a contentious issue, because it is commonly accepted that any pre- or extra-marital sex is forbidden, but then the Shia branch of Islam has the concept of temporary marriage, "mutah" (which means pleasure). Needless to say, the Sunni side totally disagrees with this type of marriage and calls it forbidden. But the Sunni side has the "misyar" marriage, which is also not agreed upon by all sects. The viewpoint against them is, marriage is for life and not temporary or limited. Be that as it may, both "mutah" as well as "misyar" are in the end-effect some form of marriage. As for who is right, there are very many scholars who can talk about the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. Then again, when a luminary of the stature of Tariq Ramadan can ask for recalibration and banning of Hudood punishments, there is definitely hope that some element of modernisation and ihtihad are accepted or even applied.
The fact that she does not talk about affirmative action, the Israeli Palestinian issue, the Iraq War, the fate of the green horned eagle, capitalism, reuniting Gondwanaland, childcare in Sweden, minimum wages and the like seems also to be an issue. Well, to each his own, I say, you fight for what you believe in. She at least walks the walk instead of just talking the talk.