In the brief time that I have been both a blurker and a blogger, one issue in particular has troubled me considerably. I've pondered it, tried to understand it, and yet remain completely puzzled by it. Why do so many Western women who revert to Islam and marry men from the Middle East feel compelled to reinvent themselves -- to cast aside much of what makes them who they are as individuals? (This may also be true for women who marry Muslims from other parts of the world, I don't know; my experience has been with Arabs married to women from North and South America and Europe, so my observations come from that perspective.) "Worship none but Allah; treat with kindness your parents" (2:83)
If the name that your parents gave you does not have a meaning that is patently un-Islamic, why change it? A name change does not make you a better Muslim, but it can further isolate you from your already confused parents whom, as a Muslim, you have a duty to obey and care for (unless they demand that you do something contrary to your deen).
"O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted with all things." (49:13)
Your cultural experiences are different from your husband's and vice-versa, but that does not mean that you should abandon yours for his just because he comes from the part of the world whence came the Prophet (saws). So much culture has become imbued in the Islam of the Middle East that the average person can hardly distinguish between the two. One of the beauties of practicing Islam in a country that doesn't have such a long cultural history is that the boundary between faith and culture is not blurred.
And why is it that we suddenly forget that most of us never even heard of things like mehshi, kawerah, molokhiya, konafa, lift, fasolia, macarona bechamel, or babaghanoosh until we got married, but they have become daily staples of our diets? What happened to things like pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni salad, grilled steak and mushrooms, biscuits and gravy, creamed corn, key lime pie, and fried chicken? Did your taste buds change once the marriage contract was signed?
We are frequently cautioned that Islam is the middle path, yet like a pendulum, we have a tendency to swing back and forth from one extreme to the next without settling in the center where we should be. Our husbands are important and we should strive to make them happy; however, common sense tells us that an unhappy wife stands very little chance of making a happy husband! Misery loves company, or so I've heard. . .
14 comments:
Ma'ashallah sister, did I write this?!? ;-)))
I have been saying the same thing for the past 6 years (since I became a Muslim. I believe that a big part of the reason that my parents have been so receptive to Islam as my choice is because I have not rejected everything from my culture. Except for a few things like dressing more modestly, praying and controlling my language (all things which they see as positive changes, btw) they recognize the daughter that came into their lives 48 years ago.
Thing really came to a head about a month ago when my STBEH presented me with "The List" (which was his proposal for how to reunite after our recent separation) and the vast majority of things on his list had to do with me trying to change who I am -- the worst affront being that he expected me to give up my culture and take his.
I have asked many times: if Islam is for all times and places, then why must we all become 7th century Arabians?
Love you, sister, and keep you in my prayers. Hope you are doing well.
Salaam Alaikum,
PM
PS: I think I will blog about this and link to your post. Hope you don't mind.
Alhamdullilah, the first comment was a positive one because I was fully expecting to be pelted with rotten tomatoes for this one, LOL! Thank you, sister for understanding what I meant with this post.
In terms of my health, I am doing fairly well at the moment, alhamdulillah. The double vision is mostly gone and will probably disappear entirely as the eye heals. The doggone seizures still aren't under control, but I pray that they will be soon, insh'Allah.
Blog away about this one, PM -- I think it's an important topic!
Assalamu Alaikum sister,
I think I've been quite lucky in my marriage, in that my husband has been open to the good in american culture, and I'm open to exploring the good in egyptian culture. We're working on creating a bicultural marriage, and while it's been bumpy at times, it's well worth it, alhamdulilah.
I have to agree with all of your points. I don't think I've ever gone through a hardcore "must be arab" period in my 5 years as a muslim. I like being an american muslim, one who will put an abaya on on occasion, but it just as happy in jeans and a long tshirt paired with a scarf, one who goes to the gym and trains for 5ks, someone who still celebrates thanksgiving with her family. It's nice to know that there are others out there like me :)
inshaAllah I'm going to link your post and PM's on my blog.
Now, Sister al-maraya, You've made me comment on this, and you did surprise me, with your thoughts. Bcz, I been struggling with these thoughts, all my married life to my Palestinian husband for (21years)--- Masha-allah & Alhamdu-lillah. I feel like, I tried too hard to become Arabiya from Ajnabia, or as they call me Hindiye, since, I was just a teen(17). Doing everything a falastiniye suppose to do, but, I mean behaving, cooking, talking. Do You think, I am successful, No 100% failure in this case. The end result Neither I am Arabiye nor Hindiye, so just hanging in the air with no Identity. OK, enough said, Right now I am changed, without any hesitation, I show my INDIANESS, (food,music) and ready to kick some asses, if they put me down or any Indian thing. I lived in Jordan for many years, but since 2000, I am here in UAE, which is much better, not much interaction with In-Laws(except horrible visits. I am the Best. LOL., Astagfur-Allah. You made my day sister. I feel better Now. You are on my blog links. www.my-eden-garden.blogspot.com
Wa alaikum as salaam, Rahma. Thanks for stopping by!
You can't imagine how nice it is for me to learn that there are other sisters like me, too! Sometimes I want to shout from the rooftops, "I'm a Muslim, but I'm not an Arab -- I'm am American of the garden variety apple pie type!"
Insh'allah, I'll pop over to your blog when I've finished responding to comments. I'm still relatively new to the blog world and adding blogs to my favorites!
*~*~*~*~*~*
Hello Tariq, and thanks for the visit! I saw your post on PM's blog and plan to visit yours as well.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Asalamu alaikum, Aliya. Sister, your response made me so very, very sad because it is exactly what I was talking about in my post! Of course you didn't succeed in being the perfect little Palestinian wife because you aren't Palestinian and no matter how hard you tried to be, the only thing that could happen with any success is that YOU would get more and more lost in the charade. Alhamdullilah you found some relief while you could still find yourself!
Insh'allah, I will visit your blog in a short while, too!
Thanks to you my sweet sister al-maraya BTW, I like your name, it's beautiful. Oh, I am sorry, If I sounded very sad to you. Alhamdu-llillah sister I am a very strong person but you know how we women at times tend to become very weak and all compromising. Be happy to hear that I tried my Best to be the Best, and I am the Best amoung all my sister-In-Laws, in all aspects, in Education(masters), Manners (mom taught me), patience-
in-bad times,and Alhamdullilah, he blessed me with good looks, Ya-Rab give us more Noor(light). Thanks for visiting my blog sister in Advance--keep us informed with your knowledge.
Well I think the most that I've done is change my name. I gave up my last name because I felt the one that I took on characterized my family better than the one our slave masters gave us. I kept my first name because my Mom went through such a hard time picking one that you can't make a nickname out of, and I changed my middle name to Muhammad the one you know and love.
I tried to do the whole Islamic i.e Arab dress thing could never get the Turban on right still have problems maybe one day I'll get it. I don't really like hats all that much anyway. So Kufis and all that jazz I enjoy but I don't really wear.
Not without My Jeans and t-shirt I'll never give up my Jeans and t-shirt. I think if I was invited to the Whitehouse (not that I want to be invited by the current crowd) I'd wear jeans and a t-shirt, but my wife would have severe objections. Sheik Hamza and Imam Zaid have talked about this culture thing extensively as they see it as a problem as well, coming up with an American-Islamic identity. It is necessary. It is also in the Sunnah I believe that you can't go to a local and look radically different than the local inhabitants. So I understand what you are saying.
Great post.
Assalamu Alaikoum, I responded to in my blog to this as my comment was very long!
rashida said...
as-salaamu alaikum
i'm a "black american" married to a "black arab" when we first married i almost divorced him because his culture was too much for me to deal with. but it's been about five years now and honestly i've changed very little. he's changed he cooks almost everyday, does luandry, has bathed toddlers,and combed hair.
he really had to realize why he wanted to get married. i'm not a scholar or anything but i know more about islaam than just how to read surahs. and now i think he actually appreciates our cultural differenecs.
if he were married to a more typical arab woman then he couldn't work the long hours that he does. sometimes the wives are so dependent on their husbands that the marriage seems more like a parent-child relationship than a real marriage.
don't get me wrong the cultural crap is still there but theres less of it now. my girls know that they are arabs, but they're also being taught about my heritege too. no matter what i spenfd the most time with them so they are going to be more like me than like a typical arab woman.
my family refuses to acknowledge my children's ethnicity because they don't like my husband and see all things islamic as wrong and oppressive. so, my innocent children are punished bc i converted, i didn't change, i just ackowledge my creature better.
also, i don't think that my jilbab and hijab make me look arab or foreign at all. bc not that long ago historically everybody dressed like this, minus the hijab. i feel most at ease when covered and completely confident in my niqaab(back when i wore it).
and the food thing: if it weren't for my conversion i would have never discovered sooooooo many wonderful varieties. i'm from the "true south" where lamb was for rich white folk. and no one ever heard of falafel, or gyro back when i was a child.... i my home i just started making and posting menus so that everybodies tastes can be accommodated.
Asalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu to all.
*~*~*~*~*
Muhammad, your point about changing names is one that I can understand completely. In your case, the name change is not about reinventing yourself as much as it is about reclaiming the heritage that had been stolen from your family so long ago. But still, out of respect for your mother, you didn't mess with the name that she gave you! Why do I find it difficult to imagine you wearing a white turban and flying down the highway on Brown Betty? Now that's a picture!
*~*~*~*~*
Musulmana, thanks for stopping by! Your story about the Bengali brother reminded me about something I learned while visiting Malaysia. -- all converts (or reverts, if that's the term you prefer) are automatically assigned the legal last name of MUHAMMAD! Even more strange, the government requires Christian and Jewish women to convert to Islam before they can marry a Muslim man in Malaysia. I argued until I was blue in the face that this was contrary to the teachings of Islam, but it got me nowhere. Yet another example of culture taking over the religion.
*~*~*~*~*
Jamilalighthouse, I'll pop over to your blog to read your comment. I always enjoy what you have to say. :)
*~*~*~*~*
Ummaiyesha, I'm sorry to hear that your family hasn't been more accepting of you as a Muslim. As the daughter of a redneck, I half-expected to get a similar reaction from my own father but alhamdulillah, my husband is the only one of his sons-in-law that my father respects. Oh, he still lets his redneck ignorance show sometimes, but I've learned to deal with him more patiently than ever and to hold in the "Uff" that I really want to say, LOL!
*~*~*~*~*
Suroor, thank you so much for the visit! I'm one of your long time blurkers. :) I haven't read the post you mentioned; however, I wander over your way and read it later today.
i love how you said this
One of the beauties of practicing Islam in a country that doesn't have such a long cultural history is that the boundary between faith and culture is not blurred.
because I think that it actually puts us in a unique position, one with a great deal of freedom. And the irony is that so many of us don't make the most of this freedom...that is they leave their ability to critically assess things lying dormant.
This is one of the trials in my marriage. My husband has told me that when we married his culture became my culture. All that discussion ever does is start a fight. I am not Yemeni, nor will I ever be Yemeni. I don't like Yemeni food and so I don't cook it very often because it usually means making 2 different meals. He has complained about it a few times, my response was that if he wanted Yemeni food then he should ask one of his friends to have their wife to cook for him. Sometimes I chose to wear an abaya but for the most part I am more comfortable in jeans and a sweater so that is what I am going to wear. I've had to tell my husband if he wanted a Yemeni household then he should have married a Yemeni woman, not an American!
I am so glad you left a comment on my blog, otherwise I wouldn't have found my way here. I see I'm about a week late reading this post(and commenting) but I still wanted to anyway.
This culture vs. religion thing is just what I am also trying to decipher in my own journey. It was good to read your blog and all the various comments. I will no doubt be visiting here often.
Thank you!
Asalaamu alaykum all,
JAK for your thoughtful and honest responses. I've actually been grappling with a similar issue for some time now... only both my husband and I are arab. We were both raised in this country (the USA) but my husband's parents are Palestinian and mine are Tunisian.
You'd think that since we're both arabs we wouldn't have any "inter-cultural" differences. That's precisely what I assumed when we got engaged. I figured that we both can speak arabic (or get by at least) and there are many similarities in our backgrounds and upbringing and we both are practicing Muslims, so it wouldn't be a problem.
However, I now realize that that was a very simplistic assumption. I want to talk to friends about this but most of them have married from their own country-of-origin so I don't think they'd really understand... My husband seems to be totally fine about it... However I've realized that I'm more "Tunisian" than I thought I was... To make matters worse, the Tunisian community is very clickish and (for the most part) it's frowned upon for a Tunisian girl to marry out (although it's more acceptable for the men to do so).
It may sound silly to you all since we're both arab, but this has become something that I think about ALL the time. I sometimes think that I've made a big mistake in marrying my husband and I feel bad feeling this way because he is a really good man alhamdilah...
The issue is deeper than this and I'm really thinking that I need to talk to someone about this, but I just don't know who to talk to. I'm very close to my parents but I don't want to bring this up to them and cause them stress or worry... I actually came across this blog as a result of a google search on "inter-cultural marriages" within the Muslim community. I'm looking for a support group, maybe a muslim marriage counselor, or just some material to read that can help me. However, it seems that this is hard to come by (maybe because the community just isn't talking about this?) Any thoughts or direction would be wonderful!
jazaakum Allahu khairun
Post a Comment