A diversity of American Muslims

Growing up in Karachi, Anvar was the rebellious, non-conformist kid in the family, snarkily resenting his perfect older brother Aamir.

[Aamir] has gone through life checking all the right boxes that a model desi boy should check. […] Somehow he’s always been popular too. He organizes community events for young kids, all while praying five times a day and banking every optional prostration he can manage along the way. He does all this with a smile, and it is a glorious smile. Four out of five dentists would recommend the toothpaste that he uses.

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This opening, and the title of the book, might lead a reader to expect a lighthearted irreverent novel about being Muslim, and given the cover image, specifically Muslim in the Bay Area of California. It is actually a whole lot more, tackling complicated issues of identity, religion, domestic abuse, control over women, geopolitics, American immigration and the dreaded ICE, while retaining an impudent take on the author’s own community and his past and present country.

Nor is the book restricted to the story of Pakistani-American Anvar. Alternate chapters tell the harrowing tale of Safwa, a girl growing up in Baghdad. Born during Desert Storm in 1991, Safwa turns twelve in 2003, “when the Americans returned.”

Abu said […] that the kind, caring American characters of the show [Full House], full of love and empathy and compromise, existed only on screens. Abu had seen plenty of Americans during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when he’d fought on their side against the Russians.

“I know how they really are,” he told my mother.

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Safwa’s mother dies of cancer, and her beloved older brother is also dying of a blood clotting disease. And then “the Americans took” her father.

The Americans did what they wanted, and they answered no questions. They had arrested many people. The families of the disappeared had no idea where their loved ones had been taken. There was no one they could ask. No one who would even say that they were alive.

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Safwa’s migration from Baghdad to Afghanistan, and eventual arrival as an illegal immigrant in the San Francisco area is told with empathy, but never slides into sentimentality or overwrought oppressed-women condescension. This is a delicate and impressive feat. The chapters in her voice are more somber, befittingly, than Anvar’s.

Meanwhile, Anvar’s family has emigrated to America, where he meets the intrepid, distinctive Zuha and is instantly smitten. The novel follows them through high school and college, but most of it is set when Anvar is a half-hearted lawyer, living in the seedy apartment complex when Safwa (now renamed as Azza) and her father also live.

Anvar’s main concerns are love and enforced religious identity, but he is, in the end, free to choose his path. An implicit contrast is drawn with that of Safwa/Azza, her father and Qais Badami, the man who arranged for their trip to the US and plans to marry Azza. Besides their traumatic history as refugees in one country after another, there is the ever-present threat of ICE (American immigration officials) that looms over their lives. And for Azza, there is the patriarchy: her father and Qais control much of her life.

The title of this novel comes from a character who acts as the Deus Ex Machina: the owner of the apartment complex where Anvar and Azza live, who gives out a ‘Good Muslim discount’ to favoured residents. Despite only an occasional appearance, he is a nicely rendered character, as are all the others. One of the more charming personalities is Anvar’s father Baris, who communicates with his children via a delightful mess of music on his car stereo.

[Anvar] I got Michael Jackson’s ‘Dangerous’ after my first speeding ticket. Aamir swears that when he started gaining weight during the long nights of medical school, he got ‘Milkshake’ by Kelis and ‘I want Candy’ from Bow Wow Wow.

That day my lot consisted of a few emotional Indian songs including ‘Dost Dost Na Raha’, followed by Dire Straits’s ‘Borthers in Arms’ and then Harry Chapin’s ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’. When a song from the movie Hum Saath-Saath Hain began to play, I broke. “All right. I’m sorry, okay?”

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Anvar might be the protagonist, but he is no ‘hero’: in every situation, he takes the easy way out either physically (by moving across country when his heart is broken) or mentally (by preferring not to question the motivations of himself and others). His irreverence makes him appealing, but the author does not gloss over his shortcomings, which he discovers, slowly, by himself, over the course of the book.

It was easier and prettier to let myself believe that Azza had come to me because of who I was than to wonder if I was just a diversion or escape from things she didn’t want to even share with me.

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It would have been nice to read a little more about Zuha’s parents, who (in contrast to the other Muslim parents in the book) put no restrictions on their daughter’s life at all. One would imagine that Anvar would be intrigued by their nonconformism, but in fact they are barely mentioned in the novel. Perhaps their inclusion would have resulted in too many characters.

The women in this novel have agency. Azza has little control over her life, but uses what emotional stamina she has.

I should’ve said what he wanted to hear.

But I didn’t.

I kept silent and he kept hitting me, until I wasn’t able to talk anymore.

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And Zuha is unafraid.

[Azza’s father]: “You are not modest like a Muslim woman. Your dress betrays what is in your heart.”

Zuha answered him. She spoke sweetly but her words had the edge of a knife. “And your gaze betrays what is in yours.”

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If I have one nit to pick, it is that the conversations of Safwa/Azza and Zuha sound very similar. They are both bright, intelligent, quick-witted women, but surely their vastly different life experiences would have given them a different way of talking? Yet their snappy rejoinders can sound surprisingly alike.

That aside, this novel has a lot to say, and says it very well.

For another take on this book, see Reeta’s review.