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An American Woman's Struggle For The Soul Of Islam
HarperOne
March 2006
On Sale: March 1, 2006
352 pages ISBN: 0060832975 EAN: 9780060832971 Paperback
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Non-Fiction
As President Bush is preparing to invade Iraq, Wall Street
Journal correspondent Asra Nomani embarks on a dangerous
journey from Middle America to the Middle East to join more
than two million fellow Muslims on the hajj, the pilgrimage
to Mecca required of all Muslims once in their lifetime.
Mecca is Islam's most sacred city and strictly off limits to
non-Muslims. On a journey perilous enough for any American
reporter, Nomani is determined to take along her infant son,
Shibli -- living proof that she, an unmarried Muslim woman,
is guilty of zina, or "illegal sex." If she is found out,
the puritanical Islamic law of the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia
may mete out terrifying punishment. But Nomani discovers she
is not alone. She is following in the four-thousand-year-old
footsteps of another single mother, Hajar (known in the West
as Hagar), the original pilgrim to Mecca and mother of the
Islamic nation. Each day of her hajj evokes for Nomani the
history of a different Muslim matriarch: Eve, from whom she
learns about sin and redemption; Hajar, the single mother
abandoned in the desert who teaches her about courage;
Khadijah, the first benefactor of Islam and trailblazer for
a Muslim woman's right to self-determination; and Aisha, the
favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam's first
female theologian. Inspired by these heroic Muslim women,
Nomani returns to America to confront the sexism and
intolerance in her local mosque and to fight for the rights
of modern Muslim women who are tired of standing alone
against the repressive rules and regulations imposed by
reactionary fundamentalists. Nomani shows how many of the
freedoms enjoyed centuries ago have been erased by the
conservative brand of Islam practiced today, giving the West
a false image of Muslim women as veiled and isolated from
the world. Standing Alone in Mecca is a personal narrative,
relating the modern-day lives of the author and other Muslim
women to the lives of those who came before, bringing the
changing face of women in Islam into focus through the
unique lens of the hajj. Interweaving reportage, political
analysis, cultural history, and spiritual travelogue, this
is a modern woman's jihad, offering for Westerners a
never-before-seen look inside the heart of Islam and the
emerging role of Muslim women.
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