Living Islam Out Loud

Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak is a great, eye-opening book that helps the reader understand what it truly means and feels like to be a Muslim who is a women and an American. When most people think of Islam, they think women are oppressed and have very little rights but that is not the case. The view of the oppression of Muslim women comes not from the religion but from the countries Islam is very prominent in. In this book you will read stories from multiple American Muslim women on the different topics of how they came to be Muslim, marrying as a Muslim woman, how they live out their Muslim faith, and their spiritual journey of developing their idea of what it means to be an American Muslim Women. What you will find …show more content…
Being that she was one year old at the time she does not remember it exactly but she describes everyone’s face and what she believes they are thinking at this moment in time and goes on to explain why she believes this from the experiences she can remember from growing up. Just how this story starts off makes it feel very personal to me because she is letting us into her family explaining their thoughts and feelings and how they reacted and have adjusted to living in American where they knew absolutely no one except for one man the father had attended university with. Samina Ali continues on talking about what she learned about God and Islam in her community. She also had an arranged marriage with a man from where she was from and for the first two years lived in India waiting for her husband to get his green card which is when they returned to America. Samina Ali’s husband did not love her and found her repulsive; he would not have sex with her because he said she was “too Americanized.” And because of what she was taught to believe she “prayed that Allah would rid [her] of any impurities” she might have so her husband would consummate their marriage. She really believed that it was her fault and she felt guilty. When they finally moved to America, her husband admitted he was gay and divorced her. Samina Ali looked like the bad guy even though in my opinion she did nothing wrong and she comes to terms with this as well when she finds herself again. She turned away from God and lost her faith from all the anger and resentment she felt from her family and community blaming her for the divorce and viewing her as impure because a good man would not stay with her. This is what many outsiders looking into Islam view as the status of women; they are