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A review by indahmarwan
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry
5.0
When @sofia_reading mentioned that Ayesha S. Chaudhry is going to publish a book, I immediately check it up and it turned that the book is not an academic text but a memoir! It is always compelling that the scholar that you used to read their works for education purpose is writing something less theoretical but more personal one. So I was enthusiastic to read it.
I was hoping to find out how she became a Professor of Islamic Studies and Gender Studies. Yet book is beyond Ayesha S. Chaudhry’s personal memoir. This book is not only a South Asian descent woman’s memoir. This book is Muslim woman’s memoir. I could highlight every page as they all resonates with me.
She recollects her and her family’s lived experiences: as a Canadian Muslim woman from Pakistani parents who embrace puritanical Islam after failed attempt on assimilation because of racial discrimination. She explores the desire of belonging to the community where she lives in with her hijab and niqab on, patriarchal tyrants, her ideal of state & citizenship, taking ownership of one’s own body, typical (South) Asian mother-daughter relationship, and the loss of her loved one.
The book is fiercely honest, it lays bare the bitter truth of being raised in the fundamentalist Muslim household. Her voice here is many women’s voice out there which sometimes seen as oppressed by the West when it is actually their rejection to these people that then they decide to amplify their religious identities. She uncovers the stories of resistance to the patriarchal Islam and Islamophobic society and institution.
I was repeatedly heartbroken and entertained as she tells the stories eloquently from beginning to end. Could you imagine how a story of body hair could move from personal, philosophical, religious to political? She places Qur’anic verse, Prophetic and Urdu sayings making them relevant to the story she is telling, making the historical universal.
Behind her intellectual state today lays a long chain of distinctive spiritual events that is heartening to learn from. There no denying it goes into my Favourites List 2021, a very memorable one!
Thank you @oneworldpublications for sending me the e-ARC through @netgalley. If you reading a memoir from Muslim woman is on your #ReadingToChallenge list, then this book is unquestionably for you. It will be published on May 11th 2021 so you can pre-order now.
I was hoping to find out how she became a Professor of Islamic Studies and Gender Studies. Yet book is beyond Ayesha S. Chaudhry’s personal memoir. This book is not only a South Asian descent woman’s memoir. This book is Muslim woman’s memoir. I could highlight every page as they all resonates with me.
She recollects her and her family’s lived experiences: as a Canadian Muslim woman from Pakistani parents who embrace puritanical Islam after failed attempt on assimilation because of racial discrimination. She explores the desire of belonging to the community where she lives in with her hijab and niqab on, patriarchal tyrants, her ideal of state & citizenship, taking ownership of one’s own body, typical (South) Asian mother-daughter relationship, and the loss of her loved one.
The book is fiercely honest, it lays bare the bitter truth of being raised in the fundamentalist Muslim household. Her voice here is many women’s voice out there which sometimes seen as oppressed by the West when it is actually their rejection to these people that then they decide to amplify their religious identities. She uncovers the stories of resistance to the patriarchal Islam and Islamophobic society and institution.
I was repeatedly heartbroken and entertained as she tells the stories eloquently from beginning to end. Could you imagine how a story of body hair could move from personal, philosophical, religious to political? She places Qur’anic verse, Prophetic and Urdu sayings making them relevant to the story she is telling, making the historical universal.
Behind her intellectual state today lays a long chain of distinctive spiritual events that is heartening to learn from. There no denying it goes into my Favourites List 2021, a very memorable one!
Thank you @oneworldpublications for sending me the e-ARC through @netgalley. If you reading a memoir from Muslim woman is on your #ReadingToChallenge list, then this book is unquestionably for you. It will be published on May 11th 2021 so you can pre-order now.