My Big Fat Muslim Wedding – Asra Nomani

http://www.marieclaire.com/print-this/muslim-wedding

Asra Nomani ditched the guy she loved and wed a man she hardly knew. What went on behind closed doors would change her life.

By Asra Nomani

On the night of my wedding, I sat stiffly on a red velvet sofa in the main hall of the Margala Motel in the city of Islamabad in Pakistan, a picture-perfect image of a traditional South Asian bride. With an embroidered chiffon scarf over my hair and a cascade of shiny 24-karat gold necklaces around my neck, I kept my kohl-rimmed eyes cast downward, following the instructions of my hovering aunts. I caught a glimpse of my face, caked with makeup, reflected in my bangles. I didn’t know the woman who stared back at me. I thought, What am I doing here?

The journey had begun when I was a little girl, growing up in a Muslim family in the city of Hyderabad in southern India. There’s a photo of me as a toddler, my sullen face peeking out from layers of bridal finery—part of a tradition that sets Muslim girls on the path to marriage. When I was 4, I boarded a TWA flight headed for America, where my family and I would start a new life while my dad pursued his Ph.D. I went to school in Morgantown, WV, and did modern things like run cross-country, but lived by traditional Islamic rules regarding love and marriage. I believed I had to marry a Muslim—better yet, a man with South Asian roots.

To me, abiding by the dictates of my culture and religion meant finding a love that would be halal, or legal, according to Islamic law. As a girl, I had learned to live by the hudood, or sacred boundaries, of traditional Muslim society: I never dated, and I never went to the junior high school dances. My senior year at Morgantown High, standing by my red locker, I politely refused the class president when he invited me to the prom. “I can’t,” was all I could say. And I couldn’t. It would be haram—unlawful.

The Saudi Bitch Slap by Asra Q. Nomani

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-12/the-saudi-bitch-slap/

May 12, 2009 | 6:35am

Hassan Ammar / AP Photo A Saudi Arabian judge declared this weekend that husbands can slap their wives if they spend too much money. The Daily Beast’s Asra Q. Nomani on why his outrageous remarks are a helpful wakeup call for the Muslim world.

The blogs are lighting up with ridicule after a Saudi judge declared this past weekend that husbands can slap their wives on the face if they blow their husband’s money. One headline declared: “Saudi judge says it’s OK to bitch slap your wife.” Said a blogger: “Just more of those Muslim family values in action, folks!” Another headline laid out the news: “Saudi Sharia Judge: Slap the Bitch…”

For my part, I’m thrilled the judge said what he did—and got busted for it.

Razine’s statement is emblematic of a disturbing interpretation of Islam exported from Saudi Arabia to the far corners of the world, and we’re better served as a global society every time the absurdity of this ideology is exposed.

But first, let’s start with the facts. The incident occurred at, of all places, a conference on domestic violence, sanctioned by the Saudi royal family. During the conference, Sheik Hamad bin Mohammed Al-Razine, a judge in the Saudi city of Jeddah, tried to explain an increase in spousal abuse by suggesting spendthrift women were partly to blame, a Saudi newspaper reports.

“If a person gives SR1,200 [$320] to his wife and she spends SR900 [$240] to purchase an abaya [a full black gown worn mostly with a face veil or head covering] from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment,” he said, according to an Arab News account. Women in the audience jeered loudly—but because Saudi judges are also Islamic clerics, their comments are influential.