Pilgrim’s visit within
Himmat Singh Gill

Standing Alone in Mecca by Asra Q. Nomani.
Harper Collins Publishers India/The India Today Group. Pages 413. Rs 395.

Nomani, a young single mother residing in Morgan, USA, makes the Haj pilgrimage with her infant son and parents, and returns to find that many men will not permit her front-door access and common seating with men at the local mosque. This journey to Saudi Arabia ends as a sort of self-discovery of her inner resolve to urge tolerance and equal rights for the modern Muslim woman, in the face of opposition. While providing a riveting insight into the fundamentals of Islam, one cannot but help come up with a feeling whether Nomani, "seeking to herald a revolution in the Muslim world of the 21st century", is not being too US-centric and too ambitious in her self-assigned role of a moderator.

Whereas the Haj "became the catalyst to my empowerment as a woman in Islam", quoting the author, it remains to be seen whether incisive debates will amount to much outside the USA and the West, especially now, in its post-9/11 configuration. Yet Nomani, in her call for a deep look by the faithful into their faith, has raised issues, which the Muslim clergy may wish to address to its advantage.

Nomani’s checklist is long and exhaustive. The local Muslim Student’s Association in Morgan had brought out a newsletter. "It listed new births, giving the names of newborn babies and their fathers. There was no mention of the mothers. We were truly invisible."

She writes about the public and the private world in Muslim communities. She says, "For all of the judgement against Muslim women who have pre-marital sex, how many Muslim men do it as well?" She speaks of "fundamental changes" that Islam needs to make, like "we must respect others" and "we must open the doors of Islam".

The exclusivity of this book rests in its bringing the teachings of Islam to thousands of non-Muslims, and in affording a peep into the direction in which many in the modern Islamic world seem to be heading. One incomprehensible point is the author’s slip in not even once mentioning Sikhism when discussing other faiths.

Nomani’s deep-rooted anger at the ‘patriarchal forces’ in her culture is too evident, and she resents the "silence, passivity, subordination and compromise expected of Muslim women". She writes candidly about inter-faith marriages and her case: "I had turned away from a man who loved me deeply. He was a white Lutheran man from Iowa. I broke his heart, and only later did I realise my own as well, to marry a Pakistani Muslim man who was right for me in every way but substance."

Nomani has raised her voice against "religious clerics and men who are more interested in power and control than the ideals originally set out by Muslim society", and have erased the "original might of women in Islamic history". In her call for changes in the thinking of her brothers-in-faith about Muslim women, Nomani may have raised a powerful gender issue that her community’s religious leaders may wish to take note of. Can moderates in not only Islam, but all faiths, convince radicals in their respective domains that the true essence and message of all religions is universal goodness and brotherhood? This can be the major fallout of this book.

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