If you\u2019re wondering why I keep mentioning the religious and ethnic backgrounds of Nomani\u2019s various romantic partners, it is because she makes sure to mention them. In fact, it appeared as if mentioning their religions and ethnicities somehow corresponded to how great or bad her partners were. For example, her Muslim South Asian husband was cold. But all of the \u201cwonderful\u201d men in her life were not South Asian, not Muslim, and not married to her (sometimes, dating a man and being married to him are two different things).<\/p>\n
I find Nomani\u2019s descriptions of her lovers to be problematic in light of the following quote:<\/p>\n
Then I realized\u2014I had loved with prejudice, basing my affections not on inner compatibility, but on external markers like race, religion, ethnicity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As I read her piece, it seemed that Nomani did<\/em> love with prejudice, but not in the way she mentions. It appears that Nomani is prejudiced in whom she loves and that her prejudice is against men that she views as being traditional and not in tune with her American sensibilities.<\/p>\nWhat I found more troubling though was how Nomani\u2019s personal issues were being transplanted onto Muslim women in general.<\/p>\n
Over the years, as I grew to become an activist in the Muslim world, I understood that one of the most fundamental ways Islamic legal traditions control women is through love, with a ban on marrying men who aren\u2019t Muslim. Today, thankfully, some women and clerics are challenging the practice. To me, that\u2019s a good thing for the Muslim world, because I believe a society\u2019s ability to accept marriages that cross racial and religious lines is a direct expression of its tolerance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I empathize with Nomani growing up as a Muslim in a non-Muslim culture and finding ways to reconcile the two. I also sympathize with her having an unfulfilling marriage, as I would not wish that on anyone. But I am honestly offended that she feels the need speak for me as a Muslim woman, to speak of what \u201ccontrols\u201d me or other Muslim women based on her<\/em> personal experiences. I do not want to discuss whether or not Muslim women should be allowed to marry non-Muslim men; that is not my place in this essay, nor is it proper for this site.<\/p>\nHowever, I never felt that I was controlled or oppressed because of my belief that I should marry a Muslim man. There are numerous other Muslim women who also did not feel oppressed by what they believe to be a commandment of their faith. There are numerous reasons why Muslim women as well as Muslim men would want to marry Muslims. Examples include that they may feel it\u2019s easier to be married to someone who shares the same ideas on the concept of God, who can share in various rituals, such as prayer or the Ramadan fast. They may even want to be married to someone who they feel can relate to their struggles as a Muslim. These reasons exist not only for Muslims who want to marry other Muslims, but for Christians who want to marry other Christians, Jews who want to marry other Jews, and so on.<\/p>\n
Muslim women being able to marry non-Muslim is not an issue of Muslims\u2019 tolerance for others. For a lot of Muslims, it is simply an issue of wanting to obey their faith (again, I am not trying to get into a theological debate, but pointing out that there are a lot of Muslims who believe that Islamic texts compel Muslim women to only marry Muslim men). It doesn\u2019t mean that they don\u2019t want to associate with non-Muslim or want to segregate themselves.<\/p>\n
More importantly, the issues that Nomani did have with her past partners may not have had anything to do with religion or race. Perhaps the issues in her marriage were due to having a partner that didn\u2019t express his emotions well (I also want to point that we only get Nomani\u2019s side of the story). This problem does not only exist among Muslim or South Asian men, nor are all Muslim and South Asian men like this. So was the problem really that Nomani couldn\u2019t marry someone who wasn\u2019t the same religion or ethnicity, or was it that she had the misfortune of marrying someone who just turned out to be a really bad husband for her? Again, her personal issues in her marriage get turned into a crusade for what she perceives as an issue for Muslim women.<\/p>\n
I am not saying that the personal does not inform the causes we take up. Indeed, it was the discrimination I received at various masajid because of my gender than in part made me become an Islamic feminist. That being said, we all have to be careful to understand when and how our personal experiences make us take on social causes and inform our view of them, and when our personal experiences can make us stereotype groups of people and impose our views on people who do not share them.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to speak about gender inequality among the ummah? Is she trying to deal with gender norms in her own South Asian community? These questions formed in my mind as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[151,813,1289],"class_list":["post-4294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-booksmagazines","category-culturesociety","tag-asra-nomani","tag-marriage","tag-south-asians"],"yoast_head":"\n
Asra Nomani's Big Fat Muslim Wedding<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Asra Nomani's Big Fat Muslim Wedding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Muslimah Media Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-28T08:00:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/0809-muslim-wedding-2-mdn.jpg?w=225\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"faith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"faith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/\",\"name\":\"Asra Nomani's Big Fat Muslim Wedding\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-07-28T08:00:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-07-28T08:00:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#\/schema\/person\/0f29c3f91829abc0334396b957dd5c83\"},\"description\":\"Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Asra Nomani’s Big Fat Muslim Wedding\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/\",\"name\":\"Muslimah Media Watch\",\"description\":\"Looking at Muslim women in the media and pop culture\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#\/schema\/person\/0f29c3f91829abc0334396b957dd5c83\",\"name\":\"faith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5cf03ae47bdead6646dc1e069ee0083?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5cf03ae47bdead6646dc1e069ee0083?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"faith\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/author\/faith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Asra Nomani's Big Fat Muslim Wedding","description":"Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Asra Nomani's Big Fat Muslim Wedding","og_description":"Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/","og_site_name":"Muslimah Media Watch","article_published_time":"2009-07-28T08:00:57+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/0809-muslim-wedding-2-mdn.jpg?w=225"}],"author":"faith","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"faith","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/","name":"Asra Nomani's Big Fat Muslim Wedding","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-07-28T08:00:57+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-28T08:00:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#\/schema\/person\/0f29c3f91829abc0334396b957dd5c83"},"description":"Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani\u2019s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,\u201cWhat is her point?\u201d I don\u2019t say this derisively. Is she trying to","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/asra-nomanis-big-fat-muslim-wedding\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Asra Nomani’s Big Fat Muslim Wedding"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/","name":"Muslimah Media Watch","description":"Looking at Muslim women in the media and pop culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#\/schema\/person\/0f29c3f91829abc0334396b957dd5c83","name":"faith","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5cf03ae47bdead6646dc1e069ee0083?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d5cf03ae47bdead6646dc1e069ee0083?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"faith"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/author\/faith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Asra](\"https:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/0809-muslim-wedding-2-mdn.jpg\")
<\/a>