I've recommended this book to many friends. It's both a good 'intro' to Islam book and discussion of women's roles as well.
Going through the book was as if I am reading my own mind. When I came to America, I thought the American muslims are much more progressive than where I was raised in Indonesia. Although Indonesia is more pluralistic than any other Islamic countries, there are still pockets of muslims that put some kind of restrictions on women, though not too severe. Indonesian muslims are very free to interact with each other, men and women, moslems and non moslems.
I can really relate to Asra's way of thinking. I would however not call ourselves as moderate moslems, rather, re-newed moslems since we believe in the real teachings of the Quran. In as much as Asra's role as a ginele non-wed mother, there should be some statement that single women should not just have children for the sake of having children. Other considerations should also be thought of, how the children will be brought up -- education-wise, economic-wise and not fall into the widespread idea of having children to collect welfare as we see in our society. When I was much younger, I was planning to have a child of my own (without a husband), a thought that will shutter the moslem world. Unlike Asra, I finally conceived a child after I got married to a non-moslem, but very knowledgable and open minded about Islam.
I have stopped going to the mosque here for the very same reasons of treating women as a 3-rd class citizen, and I reject that idea!! Quran does not teach that, and I have become a lone moslem in following the quranic teaching.
Right on, Asra..... we need to re-new our beloved faith, Islam and let the world know the real mccoy.
Rosita Sipirok-Siregar
Honolulu, Hawaii
My brother was in her class, and I grew up an older MHS alumni, reading her work as a very young journalist. Watching as she evolved into this activist writer. And then, years later seeing her work, I was thinking her family must be so worried, so proud, thinking of how from here to there of the ways she was taken onto her path. I just finished watching "America At the Crossroads" on PBS, a program telling of the struggle Asra Nomani had returning to Morgantown. After the horror of the loss of her friend Daniel Pearl, she went home going to raise her son. I was so surprised in some ways, watching the program, as it was showing her encountering her religion there. Shockingly she found a very rigid Mosque.She had to enter a back door. And in the things her journalist self would catch, she listens and sees that she is called to act, she knows this kind of language leads to places we cannot undo. So I was watching this program follow her there through time- as the story of her confronting the mosque unfolds, as she is seeing her book (this book) into print and asking of her community to look fully at how women are treated within that Mosque of Morgantown, WV. Looking at her asking about how we slide a slope into things unrecognizable when we fail to stand and debate difficult questions. And demand of one another open communication.
I know that town too. Can understand thinking going there again might keep us safe, shield us from things that are too painful to know, but having gone on into my work to serve others knowing it would ask more of me, not less should I ever return. It would require an adult. Truthfully Morgantown always held me aware of all that is our requirement to understand, see and process to develop ourselves in our time here. I designed the county seal of this place, I grew up there, and it does not surprise me in any way to see debated there the issues of our times as so very often I saw this spring from Appalachian soil as the very meanings of America it represents to me. To think and to act based on the looking from perspectives and reason as well as love and community. I looked at the program tonight and at the way my town looks.
You know similarly as the book looks through her entire life perspectives and lessons to interpret to us her meanings. You can glimpse the roads I walked too, if you want to know a place for me that is quite dear.
She's an amazingly brave person, cannot recall a time my brother has failed to praise her. So I encourage reading this work. It seems such a short time ago I was reading something with her by-line in the Dominion Post.
Quite a longing for home comes to me, and the struggles she's bringing forward have been touched by this place. I can send to her my respect and love..
Asra Nomani is a talented writer. Her descriptive language creates pictures in the mind of the reader. One feels they have accompanied Nomani on her spiritual and political pilgrimage to negotiate the dichotomous life of being a Westerner with an Eastern faith. This book evokes concepts of humanity, feminism, family values, tolerance and above all the universal quest of us all to find the meaning of life.
Well done Sister Asra! Well done!
Beside portraying a wrong picture of Islam and denying the rules of the religion for legitmizing somthing inexcusable, Asra Nomani also lied about her paternal connection with Allama Shibli Nomani, the historian and author of the Biography of Prophet Mohammad(PBUH)"Seerat-un-Nabi". She claimed to be the direct descendent of Allama Shibli Nomani, after whom she named the son she had out of wedlock. Infact, she is not related to him at all.
Here I copy a letter from MOMNA SOHAIL SULTAN (Karachi) published in Dawn of April 22, 2005 which claims Asra has no relation with Allama Shibli Nomani.
"Asra Nomani no kin of Allama Shibli
We were extremely embarrassed to read in 'Books & Authors' (April 17) about Asra Nomani, a controversial personality, who claims to be a direct descendant of Allama Shibli, after whom she has named her son. Asra is in no way connected to the Shibli family.
We five real granddaughters are the real direct descendants of Maulana Shibli, who had one son and two daughters, Rabia Khatoon and Jannutul Fatima. Both the daughters died in their youth in 1904 and 1909. They were married and their family lived in their ancestral villages in Azamgarh.
Allama Shibli had only one son, Hamid Hassan Nomani. He was born in 1882 and died in 1942. He had no sons but five daughters. They are: A) Dr Nasim Jehan, retired director of health, Bangladesh, died in Karachi in 1997. She was married to Dr Zafrul Huda of Dhaka University. He died in 1978 at Dhaka. They have one daughter Shahla living in the US.
B) Shamim Jehan, married to Ehtesham Ahmed, who died in Azamgarh in 1982. They have eight sons and seven daughters all married and living in Pakistan, except one, who is in Kuwait.
C) Tahsin Jehan, married to Shaukat Sultan, principal of Shibli College, Azamgarh. He died in 1986. They have three sons and four daughters, living in India, the UAE and Karachi. The above three daughters were married in 1940 at Azamgarh.
D) Mohsina Sultana, married in 1950 to Amanullah Khan, director of industries, India. They have five children, all married, one daughter and three sons living in the US and one son in India.
E) Momna, the youngest, was born in 1935 and married in 1952 to Capt. Khan Sohail Sultan, who retired as general manager of Pan-Islamic Steamship Co., Karachi in 1993, now living in North Nazimabad.
They have four sons, all married. Eldest Maj Khalid Sultan, Sitara-i-Jur'at, met 'Shahadat' at Siachin in 1992, Capt. Danish Sultan is managing director of Pac Marine Singapore, Wamiq Sultan, MD, living in the US, youngest Capt. Toaha Sultan is serving in the Pakistan Army.
Considering our sentiments and Maulana Shibli's fame as writer of Seerat-un-Nabi, we hope you will publish this clarification. "
Momna Sultan is the one of the two surviving granddaughters of Allama Shibli Nomani.
Any questions about this matter can be answered by emailing her on [...]
Zehra Wamiq Sultan
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