Posts from — May 2010

Meet G. Willow Wilson. She’s an American. She lived in Egypt for a while. She converted to Islam. She fell in love with a local. She wrote a book about all of this called The Butterfly Mosque. You should read it.

After graduating from college in the summer of 2003, Wilson leaves for Cairo to work as a teacher in an English-language school. Thanks to a series of events beforehand, Wilson, who had been brought up as an atheist, knew one thing: that if she boarded that plane to Cairo, she would become a Muslim. Keeping that bit of information from her family and friends, she starts her life in Cairo as a closet Muslim and that’s when she meets Omar, who she soon marries.

With The Butterfly Mosque, the author really has something great on her hands. She strikes a balance with all three of the stories she tells – the travel memoir, her discovery and path to Islam, finding love with someone halfway across the world, and presents a narrative that is never preachy nor self indulgent while offering a unique insight into life abroad.

This book isn’t just about Wilson though, it’s also about all the people with whom she interacts. She gives Egyptians, and with her trip to Iran, Persians, an identity that sometimes gets lost among all that we hear about the Middle East here in the United States. This reminds me of something my Arabic teacher once said – as an Egyptian who had moved to the U.S. a few years ago, he had not even considered himself Arab until he came here and was instantly classified as such.

I have to admit, I’m already fan of Wilson’s. I liked her graphic novel Cairo and her comic Air is one of only two monthly comic book titles I read. Yet, this book isn’t just limited to fans of her comic books. The author succeeds in writing a book that can be appreciated by many audiences. One can read The Butterfly Mosque to get a glimpse into the life of an American living in another country while someone else may be curious about the issues Wilson discusses that inevitably result from a cross cultural relationship and from her odyssey into Islam.

In the end, The Butterfly Mosque isn’t just another memoir. G. Willow Wilson’s voice differentiates it from so many other books. Her affable manner in conjunction with her sense of humor and resolve has the ability to really connect with the reader. Simply put, I really liked this book and can’t recommend it enough.

The Butterfly Mosque is published by Atlantic Monthly Press and will be released June 1st. Read it! I command you…

Earlier this week, I was wasting my time on the internet. Y’all know how that is. Somehow, I found myself on the Wikipedia page of Zachary Levi, the star of one of my favorite shows Chuck. I looked over his filmography and noticed that in one movie, he played a character named “Ray Rehman”. Rehman? I thought to myself. That’s, like, a “Muslim” name. I looked up the movie, Shades of Ray, and read that he played a half-white, half-Pakistani guy. In-teresting…

So guess which movie I saw on Hulu?

Levi plays Ray, the son of a Pakistani guy and American woman, living with his best friend in LA while trying to break into acting. His dad has always tried to convince him to marry a Pakistani woman but Ray never seemed to be interested. He’s only ever dated white women and the movie starts off with him proposing to his girlfriend of two years. She hesitates and needs time to think and also to convince her parents to embrace the idea of their daughter with someone like Ray.

Ray grew up a bit confused about his identity, if he was meant to be brown or white. When he happens to meet Sana who is also half-white and half-Pakistani, he finds someone he can actually relate to and that changes things for him. So begs the question – how important is culture between two people? (Religion in this case is almost negligible since, as Ray’s friend pointed out, the only thing Muslim about him is that he doesn’t eat pork.)

I’ve wondered about this question. I was born and raised in the States so how different would I be from someone who grew up here as well, regardless of culture? I think of myself as American before Pakistani** but then again, I need my food to be spicy (and have therefore been learning how to make all of my mom’s dishes), I take my shoes off before going into someone’s house, I want to become fluent in Urdu (InshAllah), and I don’t think it’s weird that I’m 28 and still living at home.

On the other hand, I’m way into American movies more than I am into Pakistani/Indian flicks, I still watch cartoons animated series and read comic books, and I don’t really care for mehendi parties (I’ve gotten a lot of flak for that last part).

A lot of thinking later I realized two things: 1) I’m not sure where I stand culture-wise and 2) My friend actually told me about this movie ages ago but I totally forgot.

Shades of Ray folks. Decent movie.

*The title of this post comes from the question that Ray’s friend asks him when he realizes Ray may have feelings for Sana after a lifetime of avoiding Pakistani women.

**Just a note – I consider myself Muslim before American or Pakistani.