The author at the time of her travels Posted on 10/13/2017 1:06:09 AM PDT by Cronos
“Is that your husband? He is English?” Of the millions of Egyptians in the world today, you opted to marry an Englishman?”
The Syrian passport control officer glared at me after I crossed the once peaceful Lebanese-Syrian border seventeen years ago. He shook his head, and interrogated me with a fusillade of awkward questions after I had submitted my passport.
“Yes, I did marry a blond English man,” I said, looking the officer straight in the eye. “Not only that, but we are also planning to travel around the Middle East together.”
Eventually, Bashar al-Assad’s perplexed official allowed us to enter the country. Little did I realise it was only the beginning of a relentless journey of “honour proving” – a struggle to prove my Islamic bona fides whenever and wherever I travelled. And through it all, one thing eventually became clear: my Islamic marriage certificate was more important than my passport.
I repeatedly questioned why Muslim societies are happy to accept their men marrying non-Muslims, but firmly deny their women the same right.
Two weeks ago, Tunisia became the only country in the Arab world to officially allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, a decision that has sparked outrage in my native country, Egypt, and triggered fresh memories of my own ordeals as an “outsider”, who dared cross the cultural divide and marry a westerner.The author at the time of her travels
In the early days of my relationship, I assumed that the only challenge would be from my mother, my only close relative. I was wrong; the challenges extended far beyond the immediate family. Indeed, although my mother strongly opposed the marriage, she later mellowed and respected my wish after my husband went to Egypt, converted to Islam, and formally proposed to me.
Although my ex-husband formally converted in Al-Azhar, he did not take a Muslim name. That was enough to render his faith as “questionable”. Shortly before midnight, after touring Damascus, we were interrupted in our hostel room by a rude wake up call – literally. An aggressive voice at the door said, “We are the night staff, we need to check your marriage certificate.” Although we had shown the precious certificate to the afternoon staff earlier, the night staffs were not convinced. They wanted to check it one more time – at around midnight. “This is a Muslim country, and you claim to be Muslim,” one of them said. The two hostel staff looked bemused and offended when I responded angrily, “Yes, I am Muslim, and I have the right to choose my husband.”
Even in my native country Egypt, officials, hotel employees and others we met on tour questioned his Islamic credential.
We had, however, a particularly challenging encounter at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. To enter the Dome of the Rock, my ex-husband was asked to perform ablutions (the ritual of washing before prayers), apparently to prove he was not a Jew. According to one of the guards, this was a necessary ritual because “Jews occasionally want to break into the sacred site.”
In England, the challenges and grilling continued. One night was particularly distressing when a well-educated, senior medical colleague of mine (a doctor) volunteered, “to educate me” about how God would punish me if my husband stopped performing his Islamic duties. This colleague then said, with no small degree of condescension: “I know a girl who made your stupid mistake; she was eventually punished by God who cursed her with a rare skin disease.”
I repeatedly questioned why Muslim societies are happy to accept their men marrying non-Muslims, but firmly deny their women the same right. This social dualism, in my view, is not triggered just by the literal interpretation of Quranic verses per se, but has its roots in the Muslim world’s medieval evolution. Muslim armies conquered what is commonly referred to as the Christian Middle East with relative speed. Those easy “conquests” resulted in the importation of Christian women as slaves into the lands of the Muslim conquerors. The opposite scenario, however, was rare. Very few Muslim women ended up as slaves in Christian countries. Muslim leaders always tried hard to avoid such a nightmarish scenario, which considered capture by Christians as a disgraceful loss of honour.
The impact of those medieval religious wars is still ingrained in the Muslim psyche. In societies where the past reigns over the present, words such as honour are taken literally. Most Muslim scholars are still living with this medieval mindset, despite the fact that modern-day conflicts are essentially political, not religious. They base their edicts on the basis that non-Muslims do not acknowledge or respect Islam, which is not necessarily true in our postmodern world. In such a sexually free world, a deep love and respect is the only motivating factor behind a non-Muslim man’s desire to marry a pious Muslim woman. Those men usually respect Islam, and have no intention of changing their partner’s faith.
My marriage eventually fell apart for reasons unrelated to faith, but it opened my eyes to the need to respect Muslim women’s choice in marriage, even to non-Muslims. Bureaucratizing Islam by suggesting such solutions, as “let him convert on paper” is not just hypocritical; it does not work in reality. Imposing a straightjacket of cultural and religious conformity on a marriage by laying down such conditions is indeed the work of over-zealous bureaucrats who often embrace misogyny to prove the sincerity of their faith.
When modern Muslim women choose a non-Muslim for a marriage partner, they are not abandoning their faith; rather, they are integrating their faith into a broader family bond that respects and cherishes Islam. Such relationships could help build bridges between communities in our tense, polarised societies, and temper the tidal wave of suspicion and hatred that is often a by-product of intolerance and misunderstanding.
It’s because islam is a war plan and a death cult.
She apparently doesn’t understand that Islam is about controlling the population in all aspects or that women are viewed as a lesser species to Muslim men.
in the muslim world, she doesn’t have a right to question men and how they may treat her- so she, as a muslim, can either be quiet and subservient to men, OR renounce her faith and choose another that allows women to speak their minds and be free- Islam is not about fairness nor equality- it is about separation and men dominating- she doesn’t get to pick and choose what parts of islam she likes and doesn’t like-
[[Imposing a straightjacket of cultural and religious conformity on a marriage by laying down such conditions is indeed the work of over-zealous bureaucrats who often embrace misogyny to prove the sincerity of their faith.]]
Yeah? What’s your point? That is the religion you choose to worship- so quit belly-aching
The title is a lie. She was only able to marry him because he converted to Islam.
Headline gave me a headache.
>> It’s because islam is a war plan and a death cult.
Yes, Islam is a war plan.
Oh, this woman understands the Islamic doctrine of the subjugation of the female gender, all right, she merely chafes about it fretfully (which may just earn her a fatwa). The fact remains, those who are fully committed to Islam, regardless of its inherent inequities, have accepted a crude socialism, and will defend it to the death, even if they have to resort to taqiyya, lying about their faith to escape persecution from non-Muslims.
Islam is a command-and-control system of government, similar to the National Socialist party of the Third Reich, or the international socialist Communism which spread across fully a third of the human population of the planet at its height. Muslims add the little extra compulsory factor of making all this social construct subject to a supernatural deity, which is what atheistic Nazis or Communists failed to include.
If she catches flak every time she travels to Muslim countries or talks to Muslim clerics, maybe she should stop doing these things.
I cannot imagine how you work around being married to a liberal as a conservative or a Christian. For one thing the commitment to God not being there? Why be married at all?
So married to a Muslim woman who has not converted to Christianity seems unreal. Unless you have next to no faith at all. That is a river I would not want to navigate in marriage. Heck, why would I even bother coming back from Brasilian Carnaval at that point?
Anyway, for those who can bring those women into the light of God, and not have it be due to her somehow detonating, I lift my coffee in cheers to you and wish you the best.
Proof reading fail: She is “LatinA”. :)
If she really cares about the rights of Muslim women, she will leave Islam and fight against its advancement in the modern world.
All about her. You think the guy doesn’t have problems?
Hence the divorce, more than likely.
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