altmuslimah.com - IN DEFENSE OF “MOTHER OF THE BELIEVERS”: A response to “A warrior and a woman”

Specifically, Ms. Ahmed criticizes me for my (extremely light) treatment of sexuality in the novel, which she found discomfiting. And she also takes me to task for my use of the most controversial account regarding Aisha’s age at the time of her marriage to the Holy Prophet (SAWS). These are important points that she has raised, and I would like to respond to them.

First, I make no apologies for my very limited use of sexuality in the tale. As some of the readers to her post have already commented, the hadith literature which served as the primary source material for my book is very open about sexual relations, to the degree that many in modern Western society would find shocking. Sex has always been considered a natural part of life in Islam, and neither the Holy Qur’an nor the hadiths have any problem discussing sex with the same straightforwardness as daily matters of life such as proper eating etiquette or the how to correctly cleanse oneself after defecating.

Islam is a religion for every aspect of the human condition, and sex is central to human life and affairs. There is no shame in lawful sexual relations in Islam, and the hadiths say that the angels bless a husband and wife during intercourse. Indeed, this openness regarding sex is very clear in the hadiths where Aisha (RA) talks about how she and the Holy Prophet (SAWS) would bathe together after intercourse, their hands touching as they performed ghusl, the ritual bath required after sex. There are other hadiths that say that one of the wives of the Holy Prophet (SAWS) approached him and said she was embarrassed to admit that she had “wet dreams.” The Messenger of God (SAWS) is reported to have told her that she had no reason for embarrassment, and then gave her advice as to how to cleanse herself properly after nocturnal emissions.

The Companions (RA) regularly asked the Holy Prophet (SAWS) about explicit details regarding sex, and he answered in a straightforward fashion so that there would be no misunderstanding over what is halal and what is haram in Islam. Muslims would ask the Messenger (SAWS) if anal intercourse is forbidden (it is) and whether withdrawing before ejaculation is an acceptable means of birth control (it is permissible). And the Holy Prophet (SAWS) also told his Companions that it was their duty to bring their wives to orgasm, as sexual pleasure was a blessing and strengthened the bond between husband and wife.

Indeed, it is Islam’s openness toward discussing sex that has historically brought great criticism from Christians, whose own religious attitudes toward sexuality have been deeply confused and ambiguous over the centuries. Most Christians believe that Jesus (AS) was never married (which is highly unlikely for any Jewish man in his 30s in first century Palestine). But the real problem in Christian attitudes toward sex arises from the teachings of Paul (who most Muslims would reject as a true apostle of Christ). Paul’s letters in the New Testament reveal deep issues about sex as inherently sinful, and he recommends celibacy and virginity as the Christian norm, with marriage accepted as a last resort for the weak of flesh (i.e. – “it is better to marry than burn.” 1 Corinthians 7:9)

These attitudes have led to a great deal of guilt and shame in the Christian community toward sex. And this repression has naturally created an extreme backlash by people in the West who have heralded a new “sexual revolution” of casual relations in response. In Islam, neither of these extremes is healthy. Sexual intercourse between a husband and wife is natural and should be encouraged and applauded, and neither celibacy nor hedonism are seen as wise lifestyles. But the Muslim approach understandably outrages many Christians who are committed to their faith and must defend the sexual psychoses that result from their scriptural legacy. As a result, one of the most common attacks on the Holy Prophet (SAWS) by Christians throughout the centuries is to portray him as a licentious and lustful figure living in decadence with his harem. But, as Edward Said pointed out in his seminal book Orientalism, that image is really the result of projecting Christian neuroses on to Muslim culture.

And unfortunately many Muslims today have absorbed these neuroses as a result of Christian cultural influences. In India, during the British Raj, Muslim scholars were pressured by repressed Victorian officials to edit Islamic religious works on sexuality to remove “offensive” and “explicit” details that were seen as evidence of the barbarism of Islam. That British cultural influence remains deeply embedded in the Indian subcontinent. I was born in Pakistan and raised by Muslim parents who had been educated in British Catholic schools. Sex was not something that was ever talked about in my household except in embarrassed euphemisms. So I was shocked when I went to college and started studying pre-British Muslim culture in India and discovered that sex was a normal part of life for my ancestors. Two hundred years ago, it was considered completely acceptable for Indian Muslims to joke about sex with their grandmothers!

And now we have degenerated under repressed Christian influence to a community with deep ambiguity over the most blessed human experience that Allah has created. Indeed, I was reading about how some Muslim women in (surprise) Britain were shocked to discover that Saudi businessmen were planning to open a lingerie store in Mecca. Their great-grandparents would not have thought twice about it. (And the lingerie stores proved to be a huge success, although many Muslim women are rightly complaining about Saudi rules that require the shops to be run by men, when most customers would prefer to buy their underwear from other women.)

This confused attitude toward sexuality has also led Muslims to forget that the early Islamic historians embraced the notion of the Holy Prophet (SAWS) as a virile, masculine and sexual man. In fact, many of the hadiths go out of their way to portray the Messenger of God (SAWS) as a sexual superman. There is one hadith (much mocked by Christians) that even says Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) would go to each of his wives and sexually satisfy all of them in the course of one night! Compared to these hadiths, my novel’s references to sex are quite tame and boring. There are no graphic sex scenes. Sexual references make up a few lines out of a 500-page novel that is primarily dedicated to making the history of Islam come alive and feel real to the reader. And I do not actually adopt the more fanciful hadiths about the Prophet’s sexual prowess. As one Western scholar has noted, Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) was an incredibly busy man with little time for indulgence in normal marital relations. He was single-handedly creating both a religion and a civilization from scratch. The Prophet (SAWS) spent his days and nights teaching, feeding the poor, administering justice, engaging in military activities and serving as a diplomat and a statesman. And according to the hadiths, he only slept a few hours every night, the rest spent in prayer.

It is therefore not surprising that during the ten years he spent in Medina, the Messenger of God (SAWS) had only one child, a son named Ibrahim (RA), despite maintaining a household of nearly a dozen wives. The obvious historical truth is that the Holy Prophet (SAWS), a man aged over 50 when he arrived in Medina, simply did not have the ability as a human being to engage in the intense sexual lifestyle that Muslims glamorize in their histories and that Christians mock. And my novel reflects that human reality. I show the Holy Prophet (SAWS) as balancing an impossible burden on his shoulders, and sex was a rare and much needed release from his overwhelming responsibilities.

Ms. Ahmed’s review creates, I believe, a false impression that I have written some kind of sleazy romance novel rather than a serious work of literature. She cites one scene where I mention Aisha’s jealousy when she hears sounds of sexual intercourse coming from the next room, where the Prophet (SAWS) is spending the night with his new wife Hafsa (RA). The Prophet’s wives lived next to each other in tiny mud cottages and the idea that they would never have heard any such thing through these thin walls is ridiculous. It would be an act of literary dishonesty for me to have pretended otherwise, and the line merely gave me a chance as a writer to explore how Aisha (RA), with her famed jealousy and fiery personality, felt as other women joined the Prophet’s household.

Indeed, there is a hadith where Aisha (RA) said that she used to follow the Prophet (SAWS) secretly at night to spy on him and see if he was spending his time with his other wives. It is this utter honesty and humanity that made me love our Holy Prophet (SAWS), our Mother Aisha (RA) and the other wives and Companions (RA) who serve as our role models. They were not plastic saints, but flesh and blood human beings just like us, and it makes their spiritual successes even more remarkable. And it is to highlight their humanity and educate the Muslims about how incredible the founders of Islam were that I chose to write this book.

With regard to the second issue that Ms. Ahmed disagrees with, my treatment of Aisha’s age, I make no apologies for my choice to portray her as nine years old at the time she menstruated and consummated her wedding. I will quote from my preface in the novel to address this issue:

“I would like to take a moment to comment on one of the most controversial aspects of my story, at least for many modern readers. In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion regarding Aisha’s age when she married Prophet Muhammad. Estimates of her age have ranged from early teens to early twenties. The most controversial account is that she was nine years old at the time of her wedding, which some modern critics have attempted to use to smear the Prophet with the inflammatory charge of pedophilia. In response to these charges, many Muslims are now performing all kinds of historical analysis to attempt to clear his name and reputation. What is evident is that Aisha was a young woman at the time of the wedding, but that her marriage was not in any way controversial and was never used by the enemies of the Prophet as a critique in his lifetime, unlike his marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh. So clearly whatever Aisha’s age was, it was irrelevant to her contemporaries and considered mainstream in the social context of seventh century Arabia.

In my novel, I have chosen to directly face the controversy over Aisha’s age by using the most contentious account, that she was nine at the time she consummated her wedding. The reason I have done this is to show that it is foolish to project modern values onto another time and world. In a desert environment where life expectancy was extremely low, early marriage was not a social issue – it was a matter of survival. Modern Christian historians have no problem suggesting that Mary was around twelve years old when she became pregnant with Jesus, as that was the normal age for marriage and childbearing in first century Palestine. Yet no one claims Mary’s youthful pregnancy was somehow perverse, because it is easy to understand that life expectancy was so low in that world that reproduction took place immediately upon menstruation.”

The fact is, whether Muslims like it or not, people who hate Islam are using this account in the hadith to insult our Holy Prophet (SAWS). And until these attacks began in the past few years, there was no controversy among Muslims over the idea that Aisha (RA) could have been nine when she married the Messenger of God (SAWS). Indeed, one of the most popular modern biographies of the Holy Prophet, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, by Martin Lings uses that account. Mr. Lings was a British convert to Islam and his biography is beloved throughout the Muslim world. But this issue of Aisha’s age clearly did not cause Martin Lings any problems, as he understood the historical context of such a marriage. Nor did Muslim readers raise an outcry over the story, until enemies of Islam started using it as a slur.

So in adopting this account, I have simply attempted to present why such a marriage would not have been controversial or even noteworthy to the contemporaries of the Prophet (SAWS). In doing so, I am seeking to end the spiteful attacks on the Messenger of God (SAWS) by pointing out that his attackers are simply bigots who are twisting history and conveniently projecting 21st century values backward into an ancient desert world where these values would have made no sense. In relying on this “controversial” account, I am seeking to dethrone Western critics from their self-righteous perches and reveal the cheap hypocrisy of those who would insult our beloved Prophet (SAWS), who was sent by God as a Mercy for all the Worlds.

So that is my response to the criticisms that have been raised against my book. And I want to thank again Ms. Ahmed and AltMuslimah for the very generous and supportive review, which does capture my overall intentions in writing Mother of the Believers. I sought to bring to life the remarkable story of Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) for a new generation that frankly does not read “boring” history books. In doing so, I have followed in the footsteps of people like filmmaker Moustapha Akkad, who made the remarkable movie “The Message” about the birth of Islam. Like Akkad, I have sought to use modern media (in my case, literature) to spread the message of Islam as a religion of love and beauty.

I hope that Muslims will read Mother of the Believers and come to their own conclusions about my novel and whether I was indeed successful in increasing love for Islam and our Holy Prophet (SAWS) through its pages. That was my only desire, and if I have succeeded, the credit belongs to Allah alone. And if I have failed, not only is the fault mine, but I also encourage Muslims to correct my mistakes and write a hundred new novels about Islam in response. If you find fault with my effort, then please, by all means, improve on what I have done with your own books. It is your duty as Muslims to do so.

By the mercy of Allah, I was able to release my novel through a top publisher, Simon & Schuster, and in doing so I have shown Muslim writers that they can distribute their works of literature at the highest levels of the publishing industry. It is now up to the next generation of Muslim artists to follow the path that I and other Muslim authors have blazed for them, and to expand and create new opportunities to share the message of Islam with the world.

And despite whatever ways we disagree as Muslims, let us all agree on one thing. That there is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger.

Kamran Pasha is a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of Mother of the Believers, a novel on the birth of Islam as told by Prophet Muhammad’s wife Aisha (Atria Books; April 2009). For more information please visit http://www.kamranpasha.com.

Kamran, thank you for your very thoughtful and detailed response to my critique of your wonderful book. As an American Muslim, an attorney, and a mother, I find your accomplishments thrilling and I hope that this generation and the ones that follow will indeed follow in your footsteps and write a hundred new novels about Islam.

I would like to rebut your response with a few thoughts. One, I understand and agree that the Prophet and his companions were open about sex and sex-related issues. In fact, in a piece I did earlier for AltMuslimah, I explored whether the taboos surrounding discussions of sexual relations promote the proliferation of sex trafficking and prostitution in Muslim countries, and noted that our sexual repression is not rooted in Islamic history:

“This collective repression regarding discussion of topics related to sexual relationships is not rooted in Islamic tradition. Numerous hadith document that the Prophet and his companions were very comfortable discussing both sex and sexual problems within the community. Both men and women reportedly approached the Prophet to discuss the details of their physical and intimate problems, and he readily provided advice regarding these issues. The modern-day Muslim prudishness is therefore more culturally rooted, and likely a by-product of colonial rule and left-over vestiges of Victorian sensibilities.

While it is neither desirable nor necessary to discuss the details of a couple’s intimate life publicly, it is problematic when this unwillingness extends also to discussions of family planning issues, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual abuse, among others. Notwithstanding our community’s treatment of these topics as being shameful and embarrassing, the fact remains that sex is a basic human need. When it becomes something to hide, it naturally leads towards the potential of deviance and abuse.“

As you can see, I am aware of the history and hadith you cited in your response. My critique was based not on a feeling that any discussion of sexual relations is incorrect. Rather, it reflected my belief that there is a serious difference between accounts of the Prophet’s sex life in hadith, which have been intensely scrutinized over centuries (and many of which are still regarded as questionable)and any fictionalized portrayal of the same. You must admit it is a very sensitive subject, and any details which stem from an author’s imagination and use of creative license seem the product of inquiries which seem unnecessary. I don’t think the book would have been any less interesting if all the scenes had been based only on the details in the most valid hadith, and nothing more.

I also understood your view regarding your decision to show Aisha as being nine at the time of her marriage to the Prophet, since you explained your position in the preface. One of your stated reasons for choosing the age of nine is because in a desert environment with a low life-expectancy, such a marriage is more understandable. However, as you showed in the book, Aisha lived to be 65. Her sister Asma lived to be nearly 100. Aisha’s father Abu Bakr lived into his 60’s. The life expectancy was apparently not much lower than what it is today in many parts of the world.

Furthermore, it does not appear from the book that the practice of child marriages was very common or uncontroversial. There is a passage earlier in the book where Aisha mentions that she was viewed with derision and suspicion by certain women in foreign lands for her youthful marriage, and in several passages the enemies of the Prophet derisively mention his child bride. Even in the scene where the Prophet relays his wish to marry Aisha to Abu Bakr, you show her parents’ shocked reaction.

In any event, these are topics which have been debated for centuries, and I certainly hope that people will read this fascinating book to reach their own conclusions.

- U. Mariam Ahmed

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I’d like to respond to several points raised by different people.

1. Uma1: I understand your opinion regarding fictionalizing discussion of sex in my novel versus actual hadith. But my point is exactly that many of the hadiths that have been accepted for centuries are works of historical fiction. The hadith that the Holy Prophet (SAWS) would sexually please all his wives in one night is quite probably fictional, yet it has been popular over the centuries and does not invite criticism from Muslims. I at least do not pretend to be presenting fiction as history, as some of our ancestors did in inventing hadiths.

Also with regard to lifespan in ancient Arabia—the reason that many of the Sahaba lived very long lives is exactly that Islam pushed the primitive Arabs toward civilization. Prior to the rise of Islam, life in a chaotic wilderness was brutal and short. In a world without rules, laws, police and courts, people died regularly from blood feuds and attacks by robbers and thieves. Islam brought order to the chaos, thus ensuring longer life spans. Also, the Prophet (SAWS) instituted important dietary rules and established daily cleansing rituals which were foreign to these desert dwellers. This resulted in an increase in hygiene and prolonged life after the rise of Islam.

Finally, the passage regarding women in foreign lands deriding Aisha’s age at her marriage was my literary effort to introduce the discussion of this topic to readers, who are living in a society today that is very different. In reality, what we would call “child marriages” were common throughout the Middle East at the time. In “civilized” nations like Byzantium and Persia, getting married at 12 years old was normal. The reference I made was about the catty jealousy that some women had toward Aisha (RA), and her age of marriage (a “primitive” 9 versus a “civilized” 12) was just a cheap excuse to put her down by snobby socialites among conquered peoples.

2. Saadia: As I stated in my response above, and as I state in my book very clearly, even the account that Aisha (RA) was 9 assumes that she had menstruated and was not “pre-pubescent.“ The fact that there was no controversy around Aisha’s marriage in her lifetime means that whatever her age, it was normal for her environment.

3. Asmauddin: Islam understands that sexuality is an incredibly powerful force that can both create and destroy. According to the Muslim accounts, Hind was a very sexual creature who used that power to control and manipulate others. She represents in Islamic history as well as in my book the dark side of sexual power, which can be used to destroy. We all have that battle of light and dark inside of us, and the parallels I drew between Hind and Aisha (RA) reflect that inner struggle, the greatest jihad, that each of us as believers must face.

The niqab verse came down (according to one hadith) after Aisha (RA) was being flighty and flirtatious at a social gathering, thus inciting sexual desire among some of the men, which was beneath her dignity as a Mother of the Believers. The actual hadith says that Aisha’s hand accidentally brushed the hand of Umar (RA), which was seen as a breach of etiquette. I did not use that account, even though it was present in the Islamic histories, as I did not wish to suggest any impropriety between these two great figures. But clearly Muslims historians did not have any such restraint.

As for the story of the Holy Prophet’s relationship with Mariya, I don’t understand what is unsettling about it. It was a normal relationship according to the values of the time, and she bore him a son lawfully. But according to some hadith, the relationship did incite the jealousy of the other wives, and my account about Aisha (RA) asking the Prophet (SAWS) to stop spending time with her is referred to in the Holy Qur’an in Surah 66, which criticized the Mothers for harassing the Prophet (SAWS) and forcing him to deny himself lawful sexual relations. (There are other stories about this verse, one that Aisha had asked the Prophet to stop eating honey, rather than spend time with Mariya, but my version of the story is definitely found in early Islamic sources.)

The Holy Prophet (SAWS) was a man. He found women attractive. He had sex with his wives and consorts. He fathered children. What exactly is unsettling about him having lawful sex with Mariya and having a child? What should be unsettling is how the other Mothers could not contain their jealousies that they placed an unwarranted emotional burden on the Prophet (SAWS).

As for writing my book in a more “egalitarian” way—I don’t know what that means. Men and women are different. They have different strengths and weaknesses, and different reproductive agendas and needs. That is a good thing, and a blessing from Allah. I am not interested in writing a book that creates a “politically correct” vision of male-female relations that does not reflect human reality. The Prophet (SAWS) had sex with his other wives and consorts, and that made Aisha (RA) jealous. That is a historical fact, based on Aisha’s own testimony, and completely believable.

I think many women today have become so enamored with distorted Western ideas of “female liberation” that they lose sight of the natural differences that exist between men and women, differences that are acknowledged and regulated by Islam.

Islam does not pretend that men do not have the natural sexual desire to mate with many women (like Christianity does). And that women, in contrast, would prefer to have one man who stays with them and invests in their children. But Islam also aceepts a truth that many Western women are embarrassed to admit today—that they find men who are able to attract many women more desirable than a man who can only attract one mate. Yes, this is true—it is the female attraction to what Western psychologists call “the Alpha Male.“ Don’t believe me? As a writer in Hollywood, I can attest that the vast majority of people who are fans of “Big Love,“ HBO’s show on Mormon polygamy, are women! The vast majority of people who are fans of “The Girls Next Door” about Hugh Hefner’s “harem” are women! These are “ugly” truths about our natural tendencies, which Islam acknowledges and regulates.

I was in Senegal in West Africa a few weeks ago and stayed with a Muslim friend who had three wives. I asked his eldest wife about whether she was satisfied with the arrangement, and she told me that the fact that other women were competing to reproduce with her husband made her desire him more. In fact, she had chosen his youngest wife for him, as her social status as the “Queen Bee” rose when her husband could support a harem of young and beautiful women! This attitude is not “politically correct”—but it is brutally honest.

Islam accepts the truth of human sexual nature and places rules around it to make this reality one that does not lead to social breakdown. The Prophet (SAWS) was a normal man who was attracted to many women and the Holy Qur’an had to order him to have no more wives “even if their beauty pleases you” (33:52). In the West, people pretend that men are normally monogamous, and as a result there are no polygamy laws to keep families together when men naturally have relations with other women. In the West, over 50% of men have extramarital affairs and their children from such unions are considered “illegitimate.“ Women have to go to court to get these men to acknowledge and support their “bastard” children. Auzubuillahi minashaytan ar-rajeem! What is better, Islam’s regulation of human sexual nature, or the West’s false idealism and the resulting social problems that arise?

Islam sees people as they actually are, and encourages them to be better. Christianity, by contrast, holds up an impossible ideal that cannot be achieved, and then leaves people to figure out for themselves what to do when then they fail. Which is better?

My novel embraces the true humanity of all of its characters, including the Holy Prophet (SAWS) and his wives. I am less interested in being an “egalitarian” writer than I am in being an honest writer.

kpasha72,

Regarding what I found ‘unsettling’ - it wasn’t the Prophet’s sexuality that I was commenting on. There was something about the wives’ feelings of imprisonment after the niqab verse came down, and how this happened directly after Aisha was being flirtatious at the Prophet’s wedding because of her jealousy of his new wife, that just bothered me. Maybe because I feel that polygamy can sometimes cause a lot of emotional turmoil for the women involved, and that those emotions are real and legitimate. I felt bad that they were being punished for those emotions. I recognize that as Mothers, they were in an exalted position and were required to place themselves above such feelings. But what does the verse and its context mean for the average women in a polygamous situation? Are her emotions legitimate or should they just be silenced and denied? I don’t expect you to have the answer; I am just thinking out loud.

When I used the term ‘egalitarian’, I wasn’t referring to a formal equality but more so to a sense of equal justice. If women in polygamous societies generally are OK with and even valorize men who mate with many women, then that sense of OK-ness would have made the description of the Prophet’s polygamous marriage seem fair or, ‘egalitarian.‘ But Aisha’s and the other wives’ constant jealousy and discomfort with the situation made me, as a reader who already isn’t at peace with polygamy, even more riled up about the situation.

Of course, it’s not your fault that the wives felt this way, so I acknowledge that you had no choice but to portray it as it was. It’s puzzling, though, that the Prophet’s wives were so different from the average woman, according to your above description.

As for your discussion above about women preferring polygamous males - I am familiar with this phenomenon. I know that from an evolutionary biology perspective, a polygamous man is ultimately more ‘successful’ and that a woman would look to share her eggs with a man seen as having evolutionarily beneficial genes. But when I read this biological explanations, they do nothing to move me to want or accept or understand polygamy, and I don’t think human psychology always follows the patterns set by evolutionary biology.

And as for women who grow up in polygamous cultures and desire polygamous men, it’s possible that their desires are also formed by their environment, just as women in the West may be programmed to prefer monogamy.

As for the women who watch “Big Love” and “The Girls Next Door” - I wonder if that has to do less with their approval of polygamy than with their wanting to understand how other women deal with a situation like that - what those women are like and how they manage to put aside the seemingly natural, and often very strong, emotion of jealousy.

Dear Amina,

Everything you say is correct about the limitations placed on polygamy in the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet’s monogamous marriage to Khadija (RA). These are points Muslims make again and again and are basic arguments we use to defend our faith. But I am trying to get past these talking points to analyze deeper realities of human nature, instead of reiterating again and again a defensive posture on Islam.

You are projecting a value judgment on to my comments by labeling my points as being in support of “patriarchy.“ Islam is about balance. Men and women each have to support each other in creating society. But we Muslims have gone to such lengths to defend our faith against accusations about sexism that we often go to the other extreme—trying to make Islam into some kind of modern feminist movement that would have felt very strange and alien to the early Muslims.

I think we need to get past the knee jerk “Islam doesn’t oppress women” rhetoric and look at things on a more sophisticated level. That requires us to acknowledge human nature as it actually is, not as it is theorized by modern political movements. In truth, most women prefer men to be strong, aggressive leaders (the “alpha males”), and most men value beauty, femininity and nurturing in women. That is who we are. Pretending otherwise does not serve any purpose, except to make Islam impractical to the human condition.

What Islam offers is idealism coupled with practical efforts to improve human beings. If men are naturally polygamous, and yet spiritually would benefit more from deep monogamous relationships, then Islam sets up a system to evolve them in that direction. This is contrast to other religions like Christianity that hold up an impossible ideal and whose followers then do whatever they want because they know they can’t achieve the ideal.

As for me being embarrassed by women’s sexuality, where would you get that idea? In my comments above, I noted that the Prophet (SAWS) encouraged men to bring their wives to orgasm. As modern scholars of sexuality have noted, the female orgasm has the potential to be far more powerful than male sexual pleasure. And that makes sense. If Allah is going to place great physical burden and pain on women due to childbirth, He has balanced things by making the sexual act more pleasurable for women. Otherwise, the biological urge to reproduce would be overwhelmed by the physical costs involved.

In my experience, the people who seem most uncomfortable with female sexuality are some modern Muslim women raised under confused Christian sexual mores that have taught them to be ashamed and embarassed about sex. My experience has been that the only Muslims who criticize my very light treatment of sexuality in my novel are women. Muslim men don’t seem to mind. And I think that difference is tragic.

We have forgotten who we are on matters of male-female relations and sexuality and are taking our cues and even our language (ie—“patriarchy”) from deeply confused non-Muslims who have all kinds of baggage that is foreign to our own heritage.

I am simply seeking to restore Muslim dialogue on these matters on Muslim terms, not on terms that are subservient to Western discourse on the subject.


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