Relief at Community
By Mona Eltahawy
When I first moved from Egypt to the US in the summer of 2000, my then-husband – an American from whom I am now divorced – offered to drive me to the neighborhood mosque. He had looked it up so that he could take me there when I arrived in Seattle.
As we approached the mosque, I saw a man coming out who looked as if he’d been lifted from Saudi Arabia, where I lived for many years as a young adult. He was wearing a turban and a white robe and had a huge beard. He represented the most conservative elements of my religion and I wanted nothing to do with him or the mosque. I told my husband to keep driving.
I vowed there and then that I would not join any Muslim community in the US but would find my own way as a Muslim in my new home. I maintained that vow during my time in Seattle.
After I signed my divorce papers, I was offered a job in New York City. I’d been to NYC several times before and always loved it – its energy, the crowds, the non-stop pace, and even the noise. I’m from Cairo, Egypt, one of the largest and most crowded cities in the world and for me, NYC is Cairo right here in the US!
I didn’t want to get on a plane and start a new life six hours later so I decided to drive from Seattle to NYC. I took 18 days to drive across the country, stopping at places I wanted to visit and in cities where I had arranged to meet an old friend and two new ones. My road trip began on Nov. 1, 2002, just over a year after the terrible attacks on Sept. 1, 2001.
It was a time of increasing suspicion of Muslims and all things Islamic. Getting into my car and driving alone through the US was my way of introducing my fear of those suspicions to the paranoia that Americans.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but my road trip was also taking me to a community I had been determined not to find in Seattle.
They say it’s not about the journey but the destination but it was about both for me. While the journey was indeed my quest to find my own way in my new home country, the destination was of utmost importance not just because NYC is still my home city but because it also turned out to be the home of a community of Muslims I never thought I’d find.
Looking back, I see a pattern I never noticed before. I see now that my arrival at each of the cities I’ve lived in during my life has heralded a new stage in my faith.
I became a feminist in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia when I realized that the Islam we practiced at home was so different from the Islam outside of my home and which so often discriminated against women and denied them their rights. I became a liberal Muslim in Jerusalem where I lived in 1998 and where my ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors reminded me of the ultra-conservative Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Seeing the impact that such orthodoxy has on religion, again particularly on women, I was able to start a journey towards liberal Islam that my road trip to NYC completed.
Soon after I arrived in NYC on Nov. 18, 2002, I came across the liberal Muslim website www.MuslimWakeUp.com and made friends with the founder of the site, Ahmed Nassef, and Patricia Dunn, the site’s current managing editor.
Through them and the website, I discovered a community of like-minded liberal and progressive Muslims which I happily joined. For the first time in my life, I felt comfortable sharing my ideas and values as a liberal Muslim.
I’m so glad I drove past that mosque in Seattle and all the way to NYC.