Q: What qualifies you, a non-Muslim, to tell this tale? 

A: I’m not a Muslim but I am a woman, and I know the rivalries and yearnings and heartaches that women experience in the name of love. I’m also a human being, so I know about love and desire and greed and jealousy and fear. I can’t really know what it was like to be alive and a woman in seventh-century Saudi Arabia, but I can certainly start, as Hemingway advised, with what I do know. The rest, as for any writer, is imagination. 

As for being a Muslim, no, I’m not, but I do come from a Christian background. I also have a huge respect and regard for the Muslim faith, which I hope is evident in my novel. Spirituality is not unfamiliar to me. I was a deeply religious child and young adult, and I know very well how it feels to include God in every thought and every decision, and to be praying for His help and to fear His displeasure. I know about the fear of Hell-fire, and the sweet spiritual yearning for communion with the Higher Power.  

Q: What was your motivation for writing this book? 

At first, I just wanted to honor these women by telling their stories. Then, during my research, I discovered things about Muhammad and Islam that excited me, and I began to hope that, in writing this book, I could help increase inter-cultural empathy and understanding and that I could empower women, especially Muslim women, by showing that Islam is not at its source a discriminatory religion but rather an egalitarian one. I think Islam gets a bad rap in that regard, whereas really the oppression of women comes from male insecurity more than anything Muhammad ever advocated. From what I’ve read, he was actually fairly egalitarian in his attitudes toward women. 

Q: How can you say that, given the Qu’ranic verses allowing men to beat their wives, giving women small portions of inheritances, making two women’s testimonies equal to that of one man, etc.? 

A: The scholar Fatima Mernissi addresses these questions very aptly in her book, “Women and Islam,” one of my sources. According to her, Muhammad’s initial support of women’s equality was undermined by his male followers, who resisted sharing power with their wives. In fact, in giving women rights they’d never had before, such as the right to testify in court and to inherit property -- rights that women didn’t possess in western culture until many centuries later --  Muhammad created a monster in the eyes of Islamic men. Soon their wives were asserting their rights, including the right to say “no” to sex! So many men complained that Muhammad, forseeing the loss of followers, received a compromise revelation from God allowing men to beat their wives “lightly” for refusing sex -- but only after first trying other, nonviolent measures. 

All these things, including veiling, have to be considered in their context. In his empowerment of women, slaves, and other disempowered groups, Muhammad was way ahead of his time. Yes the Qu’ran allows for the beating of wives, but it also contains this verse: “People, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the pair of them spread countless men and women far and wide...” (Sura 4, verse 1). All of us created from a single soul: It doesn’t get more egalitarian than that!  

[More Q&A]  

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