Over at the New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar writes about the recently published Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women, by Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi:
The two editors, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, sought to create a book that dispelled the stereotype of Muslim women as mute and oppressed. They gathered 24 portraits of private lives that expose a group in some cases kept literally veiled, yet that also illustrate that American Muslim women grapple with universal issues.
They solicited submissions from across the United States, mainly through Facebook and Twitter, winnowing down a couple of hundred to a collection that represents women with origins in East Africa and across the Middle East to Pakistan, as well as a mixture of ages, professions and sexual orientations. Some experiences speak to issues broader than those concerning Muslim Americans: The woman who discovers that her dream date already has a young daughter, or the woman who comes out to her parents only to learn that they had been reading her blog for years.
But many issues are particular to their religion, like what to do when your date surprises you with a bottle of Champagne, and you have to explain that Muslims cannot drink alcohol. Even in families that are not highly observant, numerous women grapple with the question of premarital sex.
Read the full article here.