{"id":787,"date":"2012-07-06T11:09:19","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T16:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=787"},"modified":"2012-07-07T21:45:24","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T02:45:24","slug":"love-inshallah-the-secret-love-lives-of-american-muslim-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/love-inshallah-the-secret-love-lives-of-american-muslim-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a>Mattu, Ayesha and Nura Maznavi. Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Soft Skull Press, 2012. 256p. $15.95. 978-1-59376-428-9.<\/a><\/p>\n

Though Love, InshAllah contains very few stories from a LGBT\u00a0perspective (I counted only two), I\u00a0believe that this work is of interest\u00a0and use to those teaching LGBT issues. This is a diverse collection of\u00a0American Muslim women\u2019s accounts\u00a0of falling in love and marrying (and\u00a0sometimes getting divorced), including converts to Islam, those raised as\u00a0Muslims (in families of varying degrees of observance), and American\u00a0Muslims from a variety of ethnic,\u00a0racial, and national backgrounds.<\/p>\n

I suspect that one goal of\u00a0the editors is to present a common\u00a0American idea of the \u201cother\u201d (the immigrant or religious, racial\u00a0or ethnic other) as less of a stereotype and as \u201cfully American,\u201d despite perceived fundamental differences. This was\u00a0done in the 19th and 20th centuries for American Catholics\u00a0and American Jews and, of course, throughout the 20th and\u00a0now 21st centuries for LGBT people. It is often done by presenting, in novels, plays, movies, and in this case, first-person\u00a0narratives, the \u201cother\u201d as having the \u201csame\u201d desires and loves\u00a0\u201cas us\u201d (in fact, the word \u201csecret\u201d in the title appears to refer\u00a0to the fact that most Americans know little or nothing about\u00a0Muslim American women\u2019s interior lives). This is a rhetorical\u00a0gesture with which LGBT people can identify.<\/p>\n

Here some of the issues are \u201cnon-traditional marriage\u201d (polygamous ones), \u201ccoming out of the closet\u201d (as Muslim), being rejected by one\u2019s family (for converting or for marrying a non-Muslim or the \u201cwrong kind\u201d of Muslim), and negotiating respect for religious traditions while framing one\u2019s own\u00a0interpretations of them (an issue shared by religiously inclined\u00a0LGBT individuals and perhaps by many Americans regardless\u00a0of background or orientation).<\/p>\n

The collection, therefore, might be useful for courses\u00a0in which LGBT issues are raised to show similarities across\u00a0experiences. It might also ignite discussions about romantic\u00a0love as a social or cultural construct or a possible universal\u00a0experience, albeit one colored by cultural influences and expectations. Issues of assimilation, of adapting to the majority\u00a0culture while retaining a separate identity, or changing the\u00a0majority culture might be raised. The book could help spur\u00a0discussions about the importance of religion in the experience\u00a0of many Americans as well as how a pluralistic society comes\u00a0to both respect religion\u2019s role while not allowing any religion to\u00a0deny human and civil rights to others, including LGBT others.<\/p>\n

I strongly recommend it for libraries in colleges\u00a0where LGBT issues are taught as well as for public libraries.<\/p>\n

Reviewer: David Woolwine<\/strong>
\nAxinn Library, Hofstra University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mattu, Ayesha and Nura Maznavi. Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Soft Skull Press, 2012. 256p. $15.95. 978-1-59376-428-9. Though Love, InshAllah contains very few stories from a LGBT\u00a0perspective (I counted only two), I\u00a0believe that this work is of interest\u00a0and use to those teaching LGBT issues. This is a diverse collection of\u00a0American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}