What does ‘desi’ mean?

A question from a friend: She is white American Muslim and lived in Pakistan and India as a student and professionally while working in the development sector, and she hadn’t heard the term ‘desi’ until coming back to the US recently. She now hears it used frequently among American Muslims of South Asian decent as well as from other Muslims when referring to South Asian origin community members. She asked me what it meant. I thought I would use the opportunity to make this into a blog post because I have been asked on occasion what it means. Desi is one of the first Hindi/Urdu words I ever learned when I first started interacting with friends of various backgrounds from the South Asian American community as a new Muslim. It sounded like daisy to me, but with an /s/ instead of a /z/ sound in the middle. What was this word? Over the years the word has become a very normal term for me to use, so let me put this out there for anyone interested in the word. White girl hashes out her take on desi:

Desi is very much used all over the des (South Asia) where Indic languages are spoken. However, outside of S. Asia, it is used in a very different way than what one may have heard before, prompting the question.

Des/desh and the adjective desi/deshi have roots in Sanskrit (desh). Des and desi would be preferred in Urdu and Western dialects of Punjabi, going into India and further East and on South it becomes deshi/desh, depending on how the s/sh is pronounced in the local languages. It essentially means homeland, or something of the home, something domestic, or native. It also takes on the meaning of the Indic homeland. So you have a desi, a native, and a pardesi, a non-native. Foreigners are pardesis in the des. And you have terms like swadesh (homeland). In Hindi, a more formal term for pardesi is videshi.

Pardesi also means anyone who is not local, without the implication of Indic versus non-Indic. In wedding songs (in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, etc), the bride who leaves her native village to marry a person from a different village calls that man a pardesi, he is not native to her village. In other usage in songs, a man who leaves his village for travel, perhaps for economic migration, can become pardesi to his wife/love-interest by going to the pardes.

Desi is also use regularly all over to mean sort of like “organic” or grown/raised in purity in the countryside—so you have desi murghi (sort of like free range hen), desi anday (organic, natural eggs), desi ghee (pure ghee just like what is made in the village which has does not have adulteration or hydrogenated oils in it (opposite would be vanaspati ghee or adulterated ghee made with transfats). This particular usage would probably be the way that ‘desi’ is most frequently used within the des.

These are the main ways that desi/deshi is used within India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh by peoples whose languages include this terminology. (Bangladesh…the desh or homeland of the Bangaal people). However, the word desi has taken on a life of its own outside of the des among the South Asian diaspora. Probably coined by South Asians in the UK, desi has become shorthand for South Asia/South Asian and is used just to mean Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, and Nepalese. Rather than say that whole mouthful, one can just say desi.

Desi has even been used in diasporic academic writing (though the term has been deemed problematic) and very much widely used in common speech among diasporic desis. Desi aunties, desi foods, desi dinner party, desi clothes, etc. It isn’t used so much in this manner within the des because there is no need for contrasting, but saying desi in the diaspora highlights the contrast between desi versus the non-desi majority community, so it marks insiderness. Interestingly, in very recent times, this usage has spread back to Pakistan-India-Bangladesh, and now one can hear it used this way more and more in popular culture. So you have the word appearing in Hindi film songs.

I use the word desi frequently, and pretty much everyone I know does, too. It’s just easy. However, in the diaspora the word is not without controversy. Who counts as a desi both popularly and also by self-designation? What about Afghans? Bhutanese? Maldivians? Where do desis from places like Kenya, Guyana, or Trinidad fit into this picture? Some diasporic Nepalese say that they are desis, some don’t. Also, some Nepali cultures are very Indic, others are very Sino-Tibetan in culture and language, and hence more clearly non-desi. The term also has some particular ethno-political implications within Nepal. Some diasporic Pakistani Pashtoons are completely fine with being called and self-labeling as “desi,” while others see themselves as more Afghan oriented in terms of language and culture view desi as meaning Indic, in contrast to themselves. A friend tells me that Pashto only uses ‘desi’ in the pure organic food sense, but that within Pashtoonistan the term does not exist meaning homeland or native place the way it does in the Indic languages, so these factors give it a twist in the diaspora. Also for Kashmiris, in my observations and interactions, I’ve come across Kashmiri Muslims in India or from India who look down on the Gangetic Plains people (or in modern times, feel marginalized by them) and see themselves as more Central Asian-Persian than desi, and I have had convos with Koshurs who insist that they are not desi, while others I know wouldn’t think twice about identifying as desi and most certainly use the term themselves. I haven’t encountered a diasporic person who is of Pahaari Kashmiri origin who questions association with desi-ness, though.  There are hairy identity politics at play when it comes to using and applying the term in the diaspora. There are also many who don’t like the cultural lumping and erasure of distinctness that comes with such a blanket term. Obviously as a non-desi, it is in no way up to me to define who is and who isn’t desi, and I do respect that there are diverging views on the term and its usage.

Here in Amreeka, the term is used with impunity and definitely serves its purpose, though. For example, I might ask a Bangladeshi American friend “Should I wear desi clothes to your party?” I don’t want to be exclusive and say “Pakistani clothes” or “Indian clothes”  since that implies that one nation owns the clothes, South Asian sounds too formal…so I just say desi, she gets it, it’s fast and she lets me know what will be appropriate.

We all “get it” when a desi American person says “Oh that’s such a desi uncle thing to say,” or “She has such thick desi type hair, mashallah,” it shows cohesion and a common experience of such disparate groups as Hindu Gujaratis, Hindkowan Pakistani Muslims, and Bangladeshi Muslims in the US who up close in the des would find it strange that anyone thought that they had so much in common, but in the diaspora, share some common experiences as South Asian origin people with hyphenated identities. The term bridges religious and national divides, too.

Desi also evokes a longing for homeland, a longing for des…desis are such a global people now due to migration, they are of the des and in the pardes. There is actually a lot of media within South Asia and the global diaspora produced on the des-pardes migration issue, including a publication, and I think in the 90s, an Urdu drama of that name (Des-Pardes), a Hindi film with that name, and the issue crops up in Hindi films a lot, too. So many South Asian families have become des-pardes families.

So you have a word with deep roots that functions in distinct ways within and outside of the des.

 

Fitri Eid 2012: Eid Mubarak

I am having a very busy weekend. It is Eid tomorrow, Inshallah. I wish I could have accomplished more for myself religiously during Ramadan, but inshallah I will benefit for what I was able to do.

Last night I took the girls to a children’s chand raat party hosted by my friend. I cooked biryani for the party. We just put mehndi on the kids’ hands and sat around and snacked and chatted. It was very relaxing.

Tonight we are meeting friends at a community chand raat gathering. There are actually several around town in the DMV area and we are just going to attend the one closest to us. I really wouldn’t care to go, except that I want my daughters to enjoy the festive atmosphere and get the full “maza” of Eid.

Inshallah in the morning we will go for Eid prayers. Then we will go to a friend’s open house. She is originally from Bangladesh, and Sylheti at that, and she told me she is preparing some traditional “pitha” for the occasion. Pitha…I don’t know exactly how to explain what that is. It is like a term that categorizes sweet or savoury and carby Bengali snacks. They can be steamed, fried, baked, hard, soft, porride-like, or cookie-like, and more. I have tried pithas a couple of times before, but I love exploring food, so I am excited about that.

In the evening, we are invited to a friend’s home for a backyard BBQ which I believe will involve bihari kabab among other grilled meats. I have baked hand shaped cookies decorated with food coloring for mehndi for the occasion.

I was just thinking about my Eids in Dubai and how they were often very lonely. Some years we flew to Karachi for Eid. But when we were in Dubai for Eid, we sometimes didn’t have any invites or people to invite home. There was no Eid visiting.  Locals tend to stick to themselves and visit their own families, and our few friends would go to their nearby home countries. Sure, we occasionally were invited here or there. But mostly we were alone. So what did we do? We went to the mall. Everyone would go to the mall. It would feel like the whole city was there. At the mall it was like walking through a rock concert, it would be so crowded. Everyone would be in their Eid finery with their jewelry on. And we would just mill around in the crowd. One year I remember eating a Hardee’s burger as an Eid meal! I am so glad we are away from there, alhamdulillah. The last place anyone should want to be on Eid is at the mall.

Having a large circle of friends and an active social life here in the US is really what I wanted when I imagined us settling in the US. My kids have so many friends, mashallah. I don’t think I would have had such a social Ramadan or Eid if I were in just any part of the country, but being in the DMV area is really great. In Dubai it was so hard to make friends. I cherish the connections I did make there over the years, and I love my friends from those days. But it’s just so much easier here to settle into the bubble of an American Muslim subculture and find people who are very similar to me and who have kids who are my children’s ages. The community is so big here that I can pick and choose what I want to get involved in. It’s really diverse and dynamic, and there are always events going on. I can avoid places where I don’t like the atmosphere, and there are plenty of options when it comes to places which are more progressive oriented. I have gone to so many events this past year. (Did I mention that it is just over a year since we moved here? Subhanallah.) I have done a lot of interfaith activities, community service oriented activities, play dates and a mommy group, conferences and lectures, and more. There is just so much going on, alhamdulillah.

Having a busy, social Eid just makes me appreciate the place more.

Eid mubarak to anyone who reads this!

 

Half way through Ramazan

So, it is a bit over half way through Ramazan. I haven’t been fasting this year, alhamdulillah. I have some blood sugar issues that I haven’t been able to manage so well and have been taking metformin for it for several months, and I just felt it would be unhealthy to go on the blood sugar roller coaster that fasting causes me, especially with the 16 hour fasts. I have been having a great Ramazan anyway. I think I used to force myself to fast and make myself feel sick just because I thought I had to be fasting to get that ‘Ramazan spirit’ feeling, even when I could have opted out of fasting due to my health issues. (Although I was more in control of the issue in past years. Somehow as I get into my 30s I am finding it harder to keep things under control, that’s why my doctor put me on metformin.)  But I decided to stop doing the crazy blood sugar roller coaster and its after effects and to look at other ways to enrich my spirituality and increase my physical worship during Ramazan whether fasting or not.

I have been reading a book called Ramadan: Motivating the Believers to Action: An Interfaith Perspective. It is a collection of essays edited by Laleh Bakhtiar. The essays mainly deal with fasting, but also with other aspects of achieving a spiritually rich Ramazan. Some of the things I have read in the book have been really enlightening and have given me a new or a deeper perspective on issues of personal worship and spirituality. I have also been reading Laleh Bakhtiar’s rendition of the Quran in English.

I haven’t been going to taraveeh prayers since they occur so late at night and I don’t want to keep my kids awake at that time. But to gain the barakah of strengthening community ties during Ramazan, I have hosted three iftaars, one with a charity oriented activity, and two just with family friends. I have also been attending the halaqa and recitation of Dua e Kumail that I mentioned in the previous post. I also went to a few iftars at friends’ homes. Inshallah, next Friday I will attend an iftar and halaqa at the Sunni-Shia intra-faith sisters’ support group that I go to monthly.

For the iftaars I hosted, I made sure that we broke the fast with dates, water, and fruit. Then I served a regular meal afterwards. I noticed that when people serve several heavy items for iftaari and then serve a meal afterwards, nobody eats much of the main meal because everyone fills up on the initially served carby fried items. I think it is healthier for the fasters and wastes less food to do the iftaars with just dates and water, some fruit, and then a well-balanced meal after maghreb prayers. I know that culturally some of our guests were expecting the UFO iftaari (that’s Unidentified Frying Objects!), but everyone enjoyed what I served anyway. My husband has this type of light iftaar everyday whether we have guests or not, too. I might do one pakora night this month just so he can get that backhomeland iftaar feeling, though.

I also decorated the house for Ramazan with my two daughters. We made Ramazan decorations with crafting supplies that I bought at the dollar store. We made (okay, I made, they are just 3 and 5 years old!) a Ramazan calendar. Every night when my husband breaks his fast, we sit together and I say a du’a. Each girl eats a Hershey’s candy to open her baby-roza since neither one likes dates. Then they put a star on the calendar to mark the completion of the day. That has been so much fun. They still don’t really understand the concept of roza, though. My 5-year-old asks, “Where is the roza? Is it inside the khajoor?” Perhaps next year when they are both older, I will introduce them to the concept of a mini-fast and allow them to go for a couple of hours with no snacks or water just to get a taste of the experience. But they are very small now, and like many pre-schoolers, are grazers in their dining habits, meaning that they don’t eat three large meals  per day, but eat three small meals and several snacks.

The girls have really enjoyed meeting with their friends for iftaar. Their daadi (paternal grandmother) sent them some suits from Karachi, so I have dressed them up, too. It’s really great to see them and all of their little pre-school friends running around the house in little shalwar qameezes, chooriyan jingling away. This also enhances the Ramazan feeling, too.

So, I have been really really busy and I have not missed fasting one bit. I used to feel so disconnected from Ramazan when I was fasting and had to stop due to my monthly cycle. I used to fast even when it made me feel ill afterwards and was not good at all for my blood sugar and insulin issues. But this year I discovered that you don’t have to feel that you are not “doing Ramazan” if you are not fasting. You can “do Ramazan” in other ways. Some people fast and all they get from it is thirst and hunger, as the saying goes. And now I know that some people don’t fast and they can still attempt to get the most out of this blessed and generous month.

 

Sushi Living

For the past few months I have been attending a monthly women’s halaqah that is mostly attended by Shias, and the organizers are Shia. It is an inter-sect group, though, and the presenters are both Sunni and Shia. I also went last week to attend an event affiliated with the same group in which we heard a recitation of Dua Kumail followed by a short discussion on some ayaat from a particular Surah from the Quran. There is another meeting this Thursday and then the following Thursday during Ramadan, and Inshallah I plan to attend those, too.  We pray in a Shia jamaat at these events.

Throughout my time various Muslim American communities, I have always had a couple of Shia friends who participated in our local Sunni mosques and Muslim groups, perhaps due to lack of Shia oriented options. I remember having Shia friends complain to me about Obnoxious Aunties at the mosque who came up to them and told them Shi’ism was the wrong path and that they should convert to Sunni Islam. I actually had some similar experiences when I lived in Oman, which is an Ibaadhi majority country. Occasionally an Ibaadhi person would just say, “Why don’t you convert to Ibaadhism? It is better.” Though I was a sectarian minority in Oman, and though there has been political and even physical fighting between various sects in Oman, I never felt threatened or offended by such suggestions. Although it didn’t occur to me at the time, perhaps this was because deep down I knew that Sunnism is the global majority sect, and outside of this tiny Omani bubble I would suffer no personal judgement or persecution for being a Sunni. I can’t say that the same thing is the case for Shia friends who have been told to convert to Sunnism by Obnoxious Aunties. Although there is a history of warring between Ibaadhis and members of other sects, it is regionally limited and not something as widely known as strife between Sunni and Shia. Although I see the devastation of Sunni Shia tensions playing out in places like Pakistan, Afganistan, and Iraq, I also look at the long history of coexistence and even syncretic  lifestyles among Sunni and Shia. My mother in law told me that in her childhood in Lucknow, Sunnis regularly observed Muharram’s public sobriety, and that on special occasions, it was important to pay respects to the Shia Imambara no matter what one’s sect was. This is really the way we should be living, I suppose.

I don’t mean to sound self-important, but I am really proud to be part of this inter-sect group. I like the idea of Sunnis and Shias learning and worshiping together. These are bridges that should be frequently crossed. During these halaqas, we get to hear from a larger variety of sources of knowledge and traditions, which is enriching.

I really know very little about Shi’ism, though. I’d like to learn more. At a friend’s suggestion, I am planning to watch the Iranian serial the Mukhtar-Nama. I may watch it dubbed Urdu. I have been watching really silly and trivial stuff in Urdu for the past few months (Humsafar, Maat, Durr-e Shahvar, etc) when I could be watching something that adds to my knowledge and perspective instead of just titillating me with saas-bahu dramaybaazi and romantic tension.

This particular Shia group that I have fallen in with is progressive oriented and much more gender egalitarian than some of my other study options around here. I have no idea if this is common for Shias. (Common for Twelvers, that is. I know Ismailis are very egalitarian in their jamaatkhanas.) Actually, I am sure it is not that common. But this group is good about such things, at least. For example, when we met as a mixed gender group for the du’a recitation, both men and women read aloud and recited and participated very actively in the discussion. The woman who read the dua in English used gender-egalitarian language when she spoke of the Worshiper, rather than just saying “He…” and so on. That is a nice and refreshing change from some other types of mixed gender halaqas I have attended where women sat in the back and had to ask questions by writing them down on slips of paper.

So, that is what I have been up to lately in terms of my spiritual life.

 

A Book- The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism

I recently read The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism on Maryam Jameelah.

Here are links to some gripping excerpts from the book:

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/22042011/page26.shtml

(part 1)

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/29042011/page22.shtml

(part 2)

http://www.deborahbaker.net/books3.htm

(author Deborah Baker’s website)

Let’s call Maryam Jameelah  ”MJ,” and just remind yourself that I don’t mean Michael Jackson so as not to become confused if you actually read through all of this

Muslim readers, just curious, how many of you have heard of her or read anything by her? If  you or your SO or family members are from Pakistan, have you/they heard of her?

My husband had never heard of her. Neither had a handful of Muslim and Pakistani people who I asked when I started reading the book. I learned of her when I was living in Oman when a friend of mine gave me a copy of MJ’s correspondences with Maulana Maududi. My friend was an older Zanzibari lady, so she reads about Islam mostly in the English language, as do some South Asian Muslims. (Colonialism connection there.) I had been a Muslim for several years in the US before I moved to Oman, so that means that I spent years in an English speaking Muslim context without coming across Maryam Jameelah’s name or writings.

Upon being given the book of MJ and Maududi correspondences, I remember being fascinated by her story because she and I had something in common-namely that she and I are both Muslim converts of Jewish heritage. MJ was born in 1934 to a secular Jewish family in the NYC area, but converted to Islam and moved to Pakistan where she married and settled for the rest of her life. She was a white, Western woman who supposedly gave up a privileged American life for a strict orthodox Jamaat-e-Islami recommended austere Muslim Pakistani life. She had the potential to confirm the supremacy of the Jamaat-e-Islaami narrative by rejecting the Evillle materialism of the West in the nobler quest for the boons of the Akhirah. As an author and intellectual, she wrote in that polemic, absolutist, grandiose way (to use Baker’s terms) that neo-orthodox oriented Muslims lap up. But I think her time of relevancy was over decades ago and the author is making it seem like she is currently as influential.

Years ago, when I read her writing, I was quite put off. Like her mentor Maududi, she was vehemently anti-Western and her Islam was a Salafist neo-orthodox Islam. As with many Salafist oriented writings, I found myself cringing at the ridiculousness of some of the anti-Western assertions put forth as truths in her writing; I recall reading something about Western feminism being a path towards an all-female, lesbian, Amazonian style society or some such utter nonsense. I read this maybe 7-8 years ago, so I can’t remember precisely what it was that she wrote, but some of her writings are available online…I have been lazy to find where I read the Amazonian society thing because I couldn’t find it from a quick google, if anyone knows please let me know…I did find one article in which she suggests that feminism leads to lesbianism here. Her thinking and her writings reflect the colonial and post-colonial times in which she grew up. I agree generally with her criticisms of Western imperialism. I think the long-lasting negative effects of colonialism are pretty clear to us today. But I disagree with her idea of “pure Islam” (which really means rigid, literalist Saudi styled Salafi Islam) as the solution to the ailments of the global Muslim Ummah.

Anyhow-I never gave MJ much thought after having a good eye-roll at her writing all those years ago, but after reading the above linked excerpts from the book in The Friday Times, a mix of nosiness and curiosity came over me and I had to know more about her. Maryam Jameelah is featured as one of the VIPs of modern Islam in Makers of Contemporary Islam by John Esposito. But unlike Baker suggests in her book, I have never seen MJ pamphlets in Islamic centers, and have not heard of her mentioned often, possibly not again since that time in Oman from the above mentioned friend. I think her style of anti-Western discourse is actually very passé for contemporary Western based Muslims. There are certainly some forms of anti-Western rhetoric, but MJ’s was an older anti-technology, anti-modernization ideology that equated modernization with Westernization, and while I am aware there are some fringe Salafi-oriented groups (like Tableeghi Jamaat) who still preach such things, these ideas are not broadly current among us. Clearly this discourse is still prevalent in certain circles in Pakistan, though.

Here is a link to the MJ chapter in Makers of Contemporary Islam- worth a perusal if you are interested.

Apparently, MJ is a person of great importance. That is the take author Deborah Baker has. The author exposes MJ’s unusual life circumstances, and both the author and MJ are fixated on the presumed divide between Islam and The West. Baker seems to agree with MJ that the divide is ultimately unbridgeable. (I disagree, especially in our era of globalization, global inter-connection, and as a Western Muslim myself.) Baker also exposes a lot of dysfunction in MJ’s life, ultimately painting MJ as a lunatic—or perhaps she just pieces together enough evidence to prove that MJ was a lunatic. MJ was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was hospitalized several times for mental breakdowns and psychotic behavior, including a hospitalization in Lahore shortly after she arrived in Pakistan. As a reader, I felt somehow guiltily impertinent and voyeuristic during certain parts of this book, especially since MJ is still alive and residing in Lahore.

Baker delves into the relationship between Maulana Maududi’s and Maryam Jameelah’s writings and the War on Terror. Among the historical factors surrounding the current War on Terror situation are the neo-orthodox Salafist Islamic movements that arose as a reaction to the subjugations of colonialism and post-colonial imperialism. Thinkers like Maududi come from that climate. I do see connections between Maududi’s influence and part of the reasons why Pakistan has become religiously radicalized in some segments of society. For example, the long-lasting injustice against Ahmedi Muslims, including periodic incidents of violence committed against Ahmedi Muslims in Pakistan are connected to Maududi’s anti-Ahmedi stance. Interestingly, I learned from Baker’s book that Maududi didn’t understand the monster he created and lamented it to other elderly Jamaat-e-Islami colleagues in his later years. But all of this blasphemy law insanity, hudud ordinance injustice, and the anti-Ahmedi, anti-Ismaili-Shi’a, and anti-Shi’a rhetoric can be tied to him, not as the originator of such ideas, but as a main source of propagation due to his scale of influence. Baker takes things a step further and blames Maududi and Maryam Jameelah for 9/11. She actually blames MJ to her face and reports on MJ’s unprepared and lame response. I think that both Maududi (and MJ, if she really had such significance) have some small hand indirectly in jihadist/terrorist form of radicalization simply because the Islamist rhetorical foundations of the later extremist movements are connected to these older movements. In the same sense, so do the colonizers who created the oppressive climates that spurred these movements in the first place, right? Anyway, it is a common and irresponsible insinuation in Western rhetoric that neo-orthodox Islamist movements and extremist-terrorist movements are one and the same. I don’t think MJ ever called Muslims to attack The West, just to reject it. Some violent extremists have been influenced by Maududi’s thoughts since their version of ultra-orthodox so called “pure” Islam comes from the same Islamist theological movements, but to my knowledge, he never specifically called for Muslims to rise up and go to the West to attack people, either. As a matter of fact, as far as I know, the Jamaat-e-Islaami vision of an Islamic society is based on individual commitment to their neo-orthodox version of Islam as a logical-intellectual domino effect towards their styling of a  ’Shari’ah based’ society, and not on a forceful overthrow or physical attack on any establishment, Western or otherwise. So, I don’t think Baker should have gone and told a 75 year old granny that she personally caused 9/11, which is essentially what Baker did to MJ. In some ways, that seemed like a twist to make MJ’s story extra relevant and interesting to readers. I think MJ envisioned some self-sufficient, powerful “pure Islam” Shari’ah state, and saw resisting the West/Modernity as a way to achieve this, but I don’t think she advocated offensive militant jihad or offensive terrorism.

Anyhow, it is a fascinating book, even though it is essentially a piece of gossip that defames MJ and causes her to look like a loon. Since many of MJ’s ultra-orthodox, anti-Western premises are so disagreeable, perhaps it is a good thing to know the back story and know how deranged she was (is?) because this discredits her and her ideas. But I still feel bad for MJ because she was ultimately just a young idealist, and now just an elderly woman living in a dingy room in Lahore. Apparently, a couple of MJ’s children emigrated to the US from Pakistan as adults.

Though I don’t think MJ is currently as popular or important as Baker suggests, MJ is an interesting figure to learn about. Baker made a sort of peace with MJ’s story at the end, and ended up corresponding with her. As a result of the meetings between MJ and Baker, MJ produced an article in 2009 in which she condemned terrorism, the Taliban, and the destruction of girls’ schools in Northern Pakistan “under the false pretext of Islam.” (p. 222-223) Baker sent MJ some magazines, and wondered in the last line of the book what other reading material she should send to MJ. Well, how about Progressive Muslims: Essays on Justice, Gender, and Pluralism, or any of the books by Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl?

 

The baby name issue

In the pardesi+desi and gora/gori+desi online community, baby names are always a fun topic. The baby name topic is also an issue for second generation desi Americans and Muslim Americans as well. I am very interested etymology and language, so it is a topic of interest for me.

Here is an excerpt from a convo with a friend-We were talking about class and baby names—like how upper middle class desis of various ethno-religious backgrounds have their preferred equivalents of names like Emma, Hannah, and Madison. For Americans, think of Gertrude, Mildred, Twyla Jean, Nakisha, or Starr, and how in the USA names carry some message of age, class, rural versus urban, or might be associated with a race or ethnic US subculture.

In convos with desi+pardesi couple friends, such issues come up- A white American Christian background friend married into a Jain Indian family says:

“…The class thing comes out in other ways too…for instance, I have a running “future baby name” list, and my husband nixed many of them because they sounded “like servants’ names” or “too old-fashioned.” I guess we’ll end up with the trendy babies’ names of India then…I wonder what the “Madison” and “Aidan” of India would be, heh.”

I said:

“Actually there absolutely are Madison and Aidan in both Hindu and Muslim desi flavor of the year names. I love names like Jahanara or Dilara but these sound like “servant names” or “old lady names” to people of my husband’s particular background. “

EASY-FOR-GORA NAMES: I have had this discussion online and ‘in real life’ with friends, too, but about Muslim names. We have our own considerations as individuals, and one in particular for me when I was pregnant and name-hunting was that I wanted something that wasn’t too hard for people unfamiliar with Muslim names to pronounce, but which had a good Arabic/Islamic meaning. (Being from Texas, the name had to sound okay in Spanish, too no Suda, no Maimona, etc. )

Are you in an interfaith relationship with a Muslim? Is your significant other trying to convince you to choose a “Muslim name” for your baby?  Technically, there is no such thing as a Muslim name. However, names carry the message of what community one belongs to, so people tend to like names that reflect their community. If you come from a mainstream or majority group in your society, you may have never thought much about it. But name choice is a very important identity marker and part of affirming and celebrating one’s identity for religious and ethnic minorities.  I said that there is no such thing as a Muslim name. What do I mean? By ‘no such thing as a Muslim name,’ I mean that many Christian Arabs have Arabic origin names, and people in many other countries from Iran to Indonesia have modern concocted names or names from other sources, like Adelina or Nurgeisha in Central Asia. Or pre-Islamic indigenous names like Bahram or Maneezheh in Iran, or Watri in Indonesia. These people are all Muslims. Dave Chappelle is a perfectly Muslim name. A name doesn’t have to be Arabic, Turkish, or Persian origin to be a “Muslim name,” although that is usually what is meant by “Muslim name.” And once again, Muslims don’t ‘own’ Persio-Arabic names. In India (and Pakistan, which also has a small Parsi community), Parsis have names which are Persian origin. Sometimes we know that a person is Parsi by seeing their full name, such as something plus-walla as a surname. (Some Muslims also have -walla surnames, too.) But often Parsi name choices overlap with Persian name choices of Muslims.  I have observed that some Sikhs also have Arabic or Persian origin names like Iqbal or Daler. So one will find Christian, Parsis, Sikhs, and others with names of  Arabic or Persian origin. Muslims don’t “own” these names.

Once, a friend and I were discussing Muslim baby name choices. She is white-Christian American and her husband is a Pakistani Muslim. She noted that to her ears, many of the Muslim male names she saw “sounded Black.”  We are socialized to read names as identity markers, as I discussed above with the examples of Gertrude and Twyla Jean. I have looked at boys’ Arabic names and it has occurred to me that a name “sounds Black” as well. This thought process led me to a quick check of white privilege and what a name “sounding black” means in my culture in terms of racism and intolerance coming from the mainstream white culture. Names are so rich in meaning, markedness, and connotation and a name “sounding black” or “seeming Muslim” has a lot of cultural implications, including many negative ones due to racism in our US culture. African American sounding names, as well as ‘foreign sounding’ names are stigmatized in mainstream white culture. That brings up the reality that what your name is does have an effect on your future. There are multiple studies that show that having a name associated with African Americans or which sounds Asian get less call backs for jobs in the US and Canada. See here and here for some support for that claim. I think it is sad that people should fear affirming their child’s ethnic, religious, or racial identity by giving them a distinct, non-white sounding name. We as parents make choices that will deeply affect our children’s lives, names being a major one. Some US communities of color have been compelled to have legal ‘American names’ in addition to ethnic names used at home. Many children of color with foreign sounding names elect to use shortened nick-names or select an ‘American name.’ For us white Americans, when considering these issues as a partner in a desi+pardesi relationship, it also becomes a question of white privilege and whether we will give in to structures of white privilege and avoid marked names. Are we hoping to perpetuate some form of white privilege for our multiracial children of color? It’s very complicated. If I give my child a ‘Muslim name’ that is more aesthetically pleasing for the mainstream white culture,  hence less likely to elicit grade-school teasing, am I still playing into the wrong side of things just the same as avoiding a Muslim name altogether and going for a mainstream “white name’? I realize that many of the Muslim names that I personally like sound better to me than others because I have been socialized in white American culture to find certain sounds more aesthetically pleasing, while others sound awkward to me even though they have beautiful Arabic meanings. Names are so very complex. I do feel that I have opted for names that are aesthetically pleasing in my native culture while simultaneously Muslim for a variety of complicated reasons.

Since we are talking about desi+pardesi couples and names, let’s look at Hindu names. It might be the same that desi-pardesi Hindu Indian affiliated couples would want a sound Sanskrit origin name that is ‘easy’ on the ears for non-desis so that  kids don’t get teased or have names that the non-desis can say.

Take note that just like it is problematic to say ‘American name’: George Joseph, Balbir Chauhan, Shehpar Humayun, and Jose D’ Souza are all equally Indian names. These are baby name quests for a Hindu name or Sanskrit origin name, not a Hindi name, and not an ‘Indian name’ as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others are also legitimately Indians with Indian names, just not always necessarily Sanskrit origin or Hindu names, depending on the community. So you are looking for a Hindu Sanskrit origin name, not an Indian name. Your significant other is rejecting names for sounding like a maid’s name, or “old fashioned,” or too something or another. And beyond that, you get to know that some Hindu names sound very stereotypically Bengali or Gujarati or Tamil Brahmin or whatever. It is a lot to consider.

I can imagine some people might be confused as to why I would mix Sanskrit origin names and Muslim names in the same post, but all I can say is that in in my experience some of the same topics come up for all of us. Not to mention, that I have noticed that some Indian baby name books and websites have Hindu and Muslim baby names mixed together. A non-desi friend who is married to an Indian Hindu told me that all of the names she liked from one such baby name website were rejected by her husband because they were Muslim names. I suppose the website author just presumed that Hindu and Muslim Indians would know the difference automatically, but it wasn’t considered that some pardesi who is less familiar with such things might be perusing the site. I really don’t know that much about names from other religious communities but I wonder what issues come up for Sikh-American and also desi+pardesi Sikh affiliated American couples, though.

Desi American Muslim couples, as well as couples in interracial marriages where one parent is non-desi and non-Muslim, tend to all have some common names that they use: like Zain, Rayaan, Ayaan, and Adam for boys and Sara, Laila, Yasmine, and Aliya  for girls. I would bet a lot of money that there are similar issue for Hindu Americans and mixed Hindu desi+non-desi couples and there are probably some names that a lot of people in the US use. (Neel, Jay, Anjali, etc)

This website that mentions some popular US Hindu names.

http://hinduism.about.com/b/2005/06/05/most-popular-indian-baby-names-in-us.htm

This website that has it’s own filter for “easy-for-gora” names:

http://www.indiaparenting.com/names/homepage.htm

I can tell you some ‘trendy’ Hindu names after discussing with a friend: stuff with -aan in it is popular for boys and girls (interestingly also same in Pakistan these days) so for boys: Amaan, Yuvaan, Vivaan, Ayaan and also Aryan, Aman (short -a-, not aan), Saamir, Aditya. For girls: Anya (BIG trendy name) Aryana, (interestingly both Anya and Aryanah are trendy in Pakistan but with the Arabic and Persian meanings taken) Vivyah, Vanya, Riya, Siya, Diya, Rashi. You could have a look at some baby name websites to check the meaning of these names.

Friends, may I suggest that you purchase a comprehensive book of Hindu babynames, though, because one thing I have found about researching baby names online (I have had two kids in the past 3 years) is that there are a lot of mistakes in baby name website name meanings because they are made by non-specialists (no linguistic background), sometimes randomly user-added, and sometimes the same mistake is copied from website to website. If you are interested in a name you see online and want to confirm its Sanskrit meaning, you can aske here at the Word Reference forums Indo-Iranian language section or consult a Sanskrit dictionary or Hindu baby name book.

I have read multiple online discussions of non-desi partners who want a mainstream American name while their significant others want a Hindu or Muslim name. I understand why the significant others desire names from their own communities as religious minorities in the US, and how it represents their culture and background and re-affirms identity. No one should be *forced* to name their kid something when they don’t want to. I hope any couples going through this can reach a compromise.

****

A list of Pakistani Muslim-American girls names beyond Leila and Yasmine:

A few words on Pakistani names-Pakistani Muslims tend to take names from Turkish, Persian, and Arabic (mainly the two latter). An exception to this would be Pashtoons who also use Pashto origin names. There is no such thing as a ‘Pakistani name,’ anymore than there is an American name or Indian name since Pakistan is also multi-ethnic and a home to people of diverse faiths. However, I have compiled this list and over the years I have shared it with a few friends who were either desi Muslim American or married to one and looking for a desirably sound  Muslim girl’s name that was ‘okay for the goras’ to pronounce:

All are Arabic unless indicated as other. You can leave the ‘h’ off of the ending of any of these names, it is just to be closer to the Arabic spelling that many people leave it on. Some of these names would have an -at ending in Urdu, while they have an -ah ending in Arabic (ta marboota). It is up to you which pronunciation to take, but it seems the -ah Arabic endings are more popular in Muslim-American communities.

There is no standardized way to transliterate Arabic or Persian into English orthography, so some variation on spelling is possible. In some cases, variation on pronunciation is also possible based on whether one takes the Arabic versus the desi pronunciation.

Meanings are confirmed from The Complete Book of Muslim and Parsi Names by Maneka Gandhi and Ozair Husain. (Don’t trust unsourced babyname website meanings!!!) Please let me know if you find an error in the meanings.

Aida: saffron
Aliyah: high, exalted, feminine of Ali, (my daughter is Alayah, the diminutive of this)
Amani : uh-maan-ee pl. of hope
Amara: uh-maa-ruh a sign
Amber/Ambreen/Ambreen: amber
Amina: trust worthy, one with iman
Ammara: uh-maa-ruh: tolerant
Anayah: uh-naa-yuh (in Urdu this becomes Inaayat, but you can use the Arabic pronunciation): help from God, grace, bounty from God. This is actually popular in Pakistan right now as a girl’s name.
Anisah: uh-nee-suh companion/friend

Aania /Anya(aahn-nee-yuh): She that has achieved her ambition/aspiration(the highest goal).

Ariana/Aryana: aa-ree-aa-nuh, (Farsi name) pure, it is related to the word Aryan, as in the nation of Iran and the root of the word Ireland, it is a proto-European word. This name is also popular in Pakistan right now. It is the name of the Afghan airlines. It sounds close to the word for naked in some dialects of Arabic, as some  Arabs will tell you, but the real Arabic word is ‘uryaanah, not Ariana anyway. The word Uryaan exists meaning ‘naked’ in litererary Urdu, too.

Dalia: dahlia the flower

Daniya: close or near (Arabic), giver (Old Persian)
Daria: daa-ree-yuh: learned, knowledgeable
Dara: daa-raa, halo (This is an Arabic meaning, but if you take the Persian meaning it becomes a boy’s name)
Farah: furr-uh, not Fae-ruh as in English: joy
Faria/Fariah: faa-ree-yuh: tall
Haniyah: haa-nee-yuh: a young maid
Hina: Hinn-nuh: henna, mehndi
Jennah: Paradise, Heaven. This is said as jinnat/jennut in Urdu, but you can just use the Arabic pronunciation which sounds like the English name Jenna.
Layla: night (this is considered a bad meaning by Pakistanis, though)
Linah: soft, gentle, also spelled Lena
Liyah: pure white, morning
Liyaan: lee-yawn: gentleness
LujaneLujain: loo-jane, silver
Marjaan/Marjaana: coral (I love this name, it is mentioned in the Quran, but it sounds like die-life or die in Urdu.
Maria/Maaria/Mariya/Mariah/Mariyah: maa-ri-uh (note the stress is on the first syllable, not as in Spanish): a type of bird, fair complexioned, the Christian wife of the Prophet pbuh. Popular in Pakistan right now, also sounds close to the Italian and Spanish names to Americans
Maya: means like wealth or capital in Farsi (and in Urdu, like sar-o-maya) it is also a note on the Persio-Arabic musical scale. (It has the Sanskrit meaning illusion, as well)
Mina: mee-nuh: Farsi. a type of enamel used to decorate gold. This is a well known style of desi gold design, you can google meena/mina meena kaam or meena kari for pictures.
Muna/Mona: muh-nuh: a wish or desire
Naila/Nayla: nigh-luh: a winner, achiever
Niyah: knee-yuh: vow, intention (this is niyyat in Urdu) It might be bothersome to some to not use double /y/ when spelling this name in English, but I could even see it as Nia.
Nolah/Naulah: Largesse, a gift, a kiss
Naurah: no-ruh: a blossom
Nura/Nora: Light, illumination
Rasinah: of good character
Razaan: ruh-zawn: a modest woman, calm, composed
Razeen/Razine: ruh-zeen: same meaning as above
Sabrine: suh-breen patient
Sabria/Sabriyya/Sabriya: suh-bree-yuh: patient
Sakeena: suh-kee-nuh: calm, peaceful
Samina: suh-mee-nuh valuable, expensive,another common mixed couple name
Samira: suh-mee-ruh one who converses by moonlight, another mixed couple name
Sara: saa-ruh, This one actually has multiple meanings-a shawl and a princess in Arabic, a star in Persian, another mixed couple common one; it means princess in Hebrew, too.
Soraya: the stars (the Pleides)
Tamara: tumm-aa-ruh, female date seller,
Talia: taa-lee-yuh: stress on first syllable, start, outset, beginning, like the Mexican singer
Tara: taa-ruh Persian and Urdu: star
Yasmin: yuss-meen: jasmine, always a crowd pleaser with the mixed couples
Zaina: zane-uh: beautiful
Zeenah/Zina: zee-nuh: adornment, this is zeenat in Urdu

For boys I have no list, but I like Aliyaan (twice sublime), Ayaan (leaders), Junaid (I know, so 80s, but it is a great name)…it is the diminutive of the Arabic for soldier), Firaas (horseman), Jaid (sounds like Jade and from the Arabic word for good) and then there are the mixed couple classics: Adam, Rayaan, Zain which are great!!! I also love Tai (obedient).

 

Next Goal: Telugu

WordPress tells me that it has been over three months since I last posted. I have been busy and in another transitional period with the Texas-Virginia move, so I haven’t felt like blogging.  I am just waiting right now for my pressure cooker lid to fall in, so I will try to write a post now as I sit in wait.

I didn’t feel much like blogging last year when we were getting ready to leave Dubai. Subhanallah, it has been well over a year that I have been back in the US. My husband left Texas for the DC area to start his new job in late June, and my daughters and I followed him in August. We would have joined him sooner, but we had to wait for the apartment we had selected to be ready. So, I got more play time with my family in Texas, alhamdulillah.

Now, I am in Novastan. I quite like it here, alhamdulillah. There is a huge and diverse Muslim community here. It is A LOT easier to be in public in hijab here, thank God. In Austin it was very challenging due to all of the stares. Here, there are many hijab wearing women everywhere, and they seem to be working in major stores like Walmart, Target, the grocery stores, and all. So it is a regular sight here and not something that draws too much attention. In Austin, it was also hard to go out with my parents because people would stare even harder at our interfaith family as if to say “Oh my, golly garsh, I would be so embarrassed if my daughter ever went and married one of them men and came home to me wearing that thing on her head…” but then again, maybe that is all in my own head and no one was really thinking that at all. Stares and visible discomfort, though mostly stiff uncomfortable friendliness and politeness, were a common reaction to me.  My whole family is great about it and it never bothered a single one of them at all to be out with me in public (well, except for my 90 year old grandmother, but hey, she’s 90 mashallah), and I realize that I am lucky that way because I have other friends who really get hell from their own relatives about hijab.

So, out here in Novastan I have a lot of options for Muslim worship, including a more progressive oriented community, which is refreshing coming from the Arabian Gulf where in order to be considered “religious,” you have to wear all black and cover everything but just one eye to see the way and pray in the darkest corner of your house. Any inclination to pray at mosques in a mixed gender musallah where you could actually SEE the imam or khateeb, while indisputably the Sunnah arrangement of a mosque, was just unthinkable. But here I have it much better. One of the many reasons I like being a practicing Muslim better in North America than in the Arabian Gulf.

There are also a lot of other things I like here: greenery (I like walking on trails), Muslim mommy meet ups, Hindi/Urdu language practice groups, and…I have an Andhra style dosa place right outside of our apartment complex where I can go and get my dosa fix. No, it isn’t my precious Saravana Bhavan by Lamcy Plaza, but it is crispy (though a bit oily), spicy, and good. Actually, my apartment complex is filled with Telugu speaking people. All my neighbors above and below are from Andhra/Telengana. It seems that there is quite a large Andhra community here. I should learn Telugu.

I also met a Sindhi Auntie who is visiting her daughter from Pune for a few months here in my apartment complex, and who I chit chat with while her grandchildren and my kids play on the apartment complex playground. She brought me a sample of some kind of Maharashtrian fresh green chile and garlic chutney that she made the other day. This place is really starting to feel like Dubai, all Indian neighbors and aunties bringing me samples of delicious things to eat!  I also met a white Australian lady who is married to a Bengali. She is a Hindu convert and she introduced herself with a Sanskrit name, and even though we have chosen different paths I feel we have quite a bit in common as someone who has changed my name to Fatima. When I talk to her about my life and travels, I don’t have to explain every single thing to her. Interestingly, she has a brother who converted to Islam. He is married to a Malay lady. For some reason, a lot of Western male converts seem to be married to Malay or Indonesian women, I have noticed. Last, I met an  Andhra lady from Hyderabad who is very nice to talk to. She told me “Oh, I have lots of Muslim friends back home, and when I talk to them,” …she points to the group of Andhra aunties standing nearby in a circle next to the play area… “they say, your Telugu is half Urdu!” I peeked at some online Telugu learning resources out of curiosity, and I saw that there were a lot of Sanskrit as well as Persio-Arabic words in it, so although it was Greek to me, I could pick out some words I recognized from the sample sentences…so I guess Hyderabadi Telugu is very Urdu-influenced??? She also told me her roommate in college was a girl named Ayesha who is still her best friend. I get it, she has to show me that she is friendly with Muslims and doesn’t have any issues with making a friendship with me. I held back from telling her the same thing back-”Oh, in Dubai I had sooo many Hindu friends, I lurve pure vegetarians and they lurve me back, yippee! Some of my best friends are…blah blah blah.” I did tell her that my husband has relatives living in Hyderabad and he has been there before, but let my actions and personality let her know that I am totally open to friendships with anyone and everyone. Anyway, I am an American, not an Indian Muslim, so I don’t count when it comes to these sensitive issues, and I have the option to brush this stuff off. She is very nice though and we have good conversations. I am thinking about asking her to take exercise walks with me, since she seems like she might be game. I walked almost every day for the whole year in Texas, but sadly have only been out walking one single time here.

We have settled into are apartment nicely, and we are just missing some pieces of furniture and some things that will finally make our new home complete, but mostly everything is set up. I still have to take care of some special vehicle registration stuff and get new license plates. I did get a new driving license, so one thing down, two more to go!

Well, *pop* there goes the lid to my handy old pressure cooker. Off I must run!

 

Honorary Member

The Big, Bad, Blonde Bahu was discussing this recently. My 2 rupaiyan:

In American Muslim communities there are a lot of women of various ethnic backgrounds (African American, Latina, and white…definitely a lot of white) who get married to native Muslim men and become ‘honorary Arabs,’ for a while. I really haven’t seen any convert men doing this. I have seen them getting into a foreign language. But they don’t experience the metamorphosis that women often go through. I don’t know why. WHY? But I have friends who have gone through this phase with Arab culture. Often at the other end of this tunnel of romanticizing and exoticizing the culture is later becoming disillusioned and becoming and ‘expert’ on all things wrong with the people and the culture.

I do think that with desi and Arab cultures, if your husband or significant other is a recent immigrant, you do get pressure from his family and community to desify or Arabize. We receive pressure as well as positive praise and attention from in-laws, other recent immigrants, or locals when we go to husband’s home country. US raised children of immigrants of course find ‘wannabes’ creepy. They know exactly who we are and where we come from, so we look extra ridiculous to American born and raised children of immigrants. We also get to do all the “cool” stuff of the culture (sari and bindi) without the burdens that they have to face—possibly growing up in a household with strict gender roles and sexism, expectations that they study a certain subject or go into the family business, avoid sexual transgression, marry a person of their own community, and so on. So there is that element that us foreign-wives are not only flakey but also extra patronizing because we have the right, the privilege,  to pick and choose with much more freedom than they ever could.

There is also this competition between white wives married to these recent immigrants: take gori wives. Who can cook desi well, who can speak a little of the language, who knows all the desi habits and manners, who has been to the des the most on visits? When we pardesi-married-to-desi women see each other, often  hackles stand on end because in our minds, we are each other’s competition. And we will be compared to each other by some, but more so by ourselves.

With white people in particular, many of us believe that we have no culture. We are ‘normal’ and other people are ‘cultural.’ Well, live abroad or get married to a foreign man and we learn really quickly that of course we have a culture when we have something to compare it to. Anyway, this whiteness as a cultural blank-slate phenomenon is an aspect of our culture that pushes some people to mistakenly see other human beings from foreign cultures as exotic and spicy and we see imitating them as a way to spice up our white bread with mayonnaise lives. That is objectifying and ultimately racist.

It isn’t popular to discuss this white-American (or Aussie or Canadian or Brit) element in the context of converting to Islam, but white people get into Buddhism and Native American religions to spice up our lives, so there IS an element of white privilege and white entitlement when we look into Islam. I know that this isn’t all it is about, but it is there. I know that becoming Muslim is different than going to some phony Native American sweat lodge one weekend, obviously we change our entire lifestyle and take on the burden of being visible Muslims, and face Islamophobia. So it is different. But for some of us, what prompted our ‘seeking’ outside of our own backgrounds in the first place has a connection to our entitlement and privilege.

I think it is really complex. We all have our own stories. Some of us have lived in India or wherever for long periods of time…just as our husbands change in the US, wouldn’t we change living in an Indian community in India? Some of our adoptions have become natural to us. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE Pakistani food and love to cook and eat it, I am not trying too hard there, that is really me. I read a lot about South Asia. I am not an expert, and I find there is always something new to learn. It is an interesting region for me. I like gold bangles. I own many. Hmmm. Why do I feel defensive about these things?

I have written these words here and there before when this discussion comes up on blogs: We have all seen her, the girl with Irish features and freckles, obviously a strawberry blonde, who has dyed her hair black, has  painted  on black eyebrows and cat eye kaajal. Occasionally some desi humors her and tells her she looks like a Kashmiri or a Pathan…she is sooo elated, maybe she can pass! She is wearing a bright orange, sequins covered shalwar qameez and rolling off copious head bobbles and spouting ufffos. She looks so silly. She is newly in love with her desi guy…why is she affecting his accent? WHY does she do that? Sometimes a girl meets a guy who is into camping and hunting and she gets into that to please him, impress him, to be closer to him. Sometimes a new beaux listens to some type of music that she doesn’t know, and suddenly she has to know all the bands and his station becomes her favorite station. Do men do this with the same frequency as women? Do many of us women really feel the need to attach our identities to a man’s? With a foreign guy, it becomes his culture.  With the pardesi-desi relationship, her man is her vortex to spicy exotic love (cringe), her wanting to please him has taken her to bizarre extremes, well…many of us have been there and we usually come to our senses and get over it. She will, too. I actually like her better than some of the women who are married to desi recent immigrants and know nothing about their husband’s cultures or countries. (I am NOT lying, I know a white woman who says her husband is Pakistanian!!!) As long as she comes away with a positive respect for the culture and doesn’t turn into one of those women who go on tirades of  ”I know everything about Indian men and they are SO sexist and uncivilized!!!,” then I see no harm in it, cringe worthy as it may be. It passes.

 

Hungry for Sisterhood

A poem for Blog Carnival “Convert Truths: In Shades of Grey”

Sister in Islam

Cringe at revert

Revert

Convert

I am jealous of you

Sister

Fake ass Muslim

Christmas tree and Easter egg hunt

How can you do all that and still say

Muslim

Hate coming to the mosque

Side glances slash through you

No hijab

No fast during Ramadan

Fake that you know how to pray

Husband goes to the sports bar after work

Only complain that he spends too much time out with friends

Don’t even know what’s haraam

Hate all the native women

Abhor all the converts

Fakes and phonies!

Nominal Muslim

No community mess for you

You ain’t messy

Lost children

Sister!

You say

Over-head abaya

Like a giant black egg

Wishing for niqab

But your husband won’t let you wear it

Vomit

Scoffing at my colors

Tut-tutting my tight jeans

Don’t you know I can’t find no loose jeans, thick thighs like mine?

Facetious words to mess with you: prudish

Fake

Lost and lonely

Me, too

On the best of best paths

Nice, so nice

Self-righteous, several atom’s worth of arrogance

Gossip monger

That is all you have

Not a care how you look, no make up, not even eyeliner

Some color for your dull face

Male species

Writhing in ecstasy with one glance at you

Red face, rosacea, glowing noor of hoor

I am jealous of you

Confidence in yourself, your path

I am jealous of you

Sister, stand up!

With men

No hijab

Persian custom

Took it off

Talk like you know what it’s like to wear it

But girl, that was years ago

Teachers out of the classroom for too long

Forget how to teach

Can’t be a real convert without hijab, don’t ya know?

No one stares at you in public

Privilege

That’s why they don’t accept you

Auntie conspiracy

Plant to destroy the faith

Convert can’t see the True Islam

Western values, weak Arabic

Veil your eyes from knowing your true place

Shaitaana

Fight alone

Fight for me

And your sisters

So much knowledge

Wrong sources

I am jealous of you

You know what it should be like

What you lost on this path

Still believe

A path worthy of salvation

Could have left, stayed to fight

My fight

Zizter

Masriya: Miyya bil miyya

Talk to me in one voice

Dawk to yor hoszbond in anozer voiz

Bechamel and tomato gravy

Grew up on fried chicken and Happy Meals

Happy now?

More Egipshun than the Egyptians

Lonely now?

They love you

Ana ghayraana minnik, ya azizati

They told you in so many words that he would love you more

They would love you more

If you changed

You changed

Have you ever seen a man

Imitating women

In such a way

That it seems like he is mocking womanhood?

That’s why they avoid you

Not comfortable

With yourself

Not a daughter of the Mother of All Cities

Does your own mother even recognize you?

Zizter

I mean Sister

Sister

I eat you alive

Crazy convert

Lost soul

Confused

Ashamed

Daddy complex

Mr. Molester’s Victim

Freak

Wannabe

You and me

Chosen

Don’t embrace

Raise forks and knives

Abandon them

For claws

Dig in

To each other

Tastes like me

Tasting you

Sister Convert

 

Spanish up to speed

My Spanish has gotten a lot better since I’ve been back in Texas. I never lost the ability to understand, but I was having a hard time communicating everything I wanted to say at first. I used to speak fairly fluently when I was younger, so it was frustrating to feel so clumsy when speaking. When I first came back, I was talking to a lady and she told me that her mother got attacked by bees. I could understand everything she was saying, that her mother (who lives back in her home country) was going out from a beach house towards the sea and went into a little cabana and disturbed a hive and suddenly the bees swarmed her and there was a pool nearby so she jumped in the pool and the bees kept on attacking her when she would come up for air. Her poor mother was hospitalized and kept developing bumps on her skin for weeks after the attack because the bee venom was coming out of her system through her skin. Her mother is elderly and it was a very traumatic experience for her to say the least. Anyhow, so the lady is telling me this, and I am listening and stunned by the terrible story, but I was unable to articulate anything appropriate to say back to her. Obviously it was a sensitive situation and all I could muster was “Oh, that’s terrible.” “Oh, and how is she now?” I talked to this other friend and told her that while the lady was telling me the story, I was just shaking my head up and down and couldn’t think of anything to say. My friend told me that when she came to the US she noticed that when English speakers had conversations with her, they always interjected to show that they were listening and following along. She says that in Mexico people don’t interrupt as much. I was like, okay, if that is the case, then that’s good for me so that I can think of something useful to say if someone is telling me something sensitive about a problem or ill health or whatever. Anyway, I still make a lot of mistakes when I speak, but I have a very good (Mexican!) accent and I feel a lot more comfortable communicating now. Recently, a neighbor was telling me that she had been married three times and that people were always shocked by that, but it wasn’t her fault. Her first husband turned out to be gay. Oh, I had A LOT to say about that situation! Women always suffer so much! I feel sorry for him, too because he probably didn’t want to acknowledge his feelings or didn’t understand them or just wanted to conform to avoid prejudice, but your life was ruined due to all of this. I just blabbed on en español like a motormouth. Anyway, her second husband had some emotional problems and became physically abusive, so she left him. But she has been married to #3 for nearly a decade and he is a great guy. So good for her.

Where I live, Spanish is very useful. As a teen, when I worked in food shops, customers would just start out speaking in Spanish sometimes, never asking if I could understand or not. Now, even with hijab on, people sometimes still start out in Spanish with me or comfortably switch to Spanish with me without asking about my hijab or acting like it is weird if I switch into Spanish (I only switch if I notice that their English is far worse than my Spanish, just to facilitate ease in the communication). Once, in the Walmart, I asked an employee where the shampoo was. She looked at me and I could see her eyes on my hijab, but she just said to me in Spanish “Over there near to the pharmacy.” Sometimes, I can understand people who are talking about me in Spanish. Once these two ladies were standing near to me and said that I looked like a nun and started laughing. At one of the taco trucks near to my house, the owner has called me Mother Superior because of my headscarf, ribbing me in that Mexican Uncle sort of teasing way.

Sometimes people do ask about my origins and my religion. “No, I am not Mexican, I am Anglo. I just speak Spanish cuz I grew up here, I did study it in high school also. Why am I wearing this? Oh, because I am a Muslim and it is in our faith. No, my husband isn’t Arab, he is Pakistani. No, well, I converted out of conviction, not for my husband. I was a Muslim before I met my husband.” That’s how it goes. I have had a lot of hispanohablantes ask me much more sophisticated questions about my faith than the English speaking strangers do, for whatever reason. Mostly other Anglos stick to hijab questions. I have tried to analyze why that might be, but haven’t come to any conclusion.

In addition to talking to people, I have been watching Spanish language TV (A guilty pleasure is Caso Cerrado) and also reading Spanish language magazines which I pick up in the check out aisle at the grocery store. I usually go for People En Español, but once I got this cheap tabloid magazine and in the back of it there were ads for psychics and healers and you will never guess what I saw. Among the pictures of Indigenous or Afro-Latino curanderos, there were ads that contained pictures of Sultan Qaboos (the ruler of Oman) and Madhuri Dixit (famous Indian actress). Since they look exotic, Gypsy, Eastern, or whatever, someone had just probably taken them from the internet and put them in their cheesy ads!

Anyway, it is good to be home and to slip back into the Texan life with our diverse population and bilingual English/Spanish atmosphere.