In The Butterfly Mosque, Wilson presents an honest, rich portrayal of a Muslim woman’s life experiences with religion, love, and womanhood in a bi-cultural context as she addresses the challenging nuances, and more importantly the positive, delightful interactions she experiences along the way. Its inclusion in the memoir provides a unique, positive representation of a Muslim woman’s role within a religious sphere. The idea that a Muslim woman could achieve such a prominent religious status was something I found inspiring, a result of my own lack of familiarity with any similar positions held by Muslim women from among my own religious community. Wilson also presents the character of a sheikha she meets in Egypt (the role of female sheikhas, Wilson states, has been reduced in Islamic societies as a result of westernization, as both men and women turn to sheikhs for religious guidance as social interaction between men and women increases). When people wonder why Arab women defend their culture, they focus on the way women who don’t follow the rules are punished, and fail to consider the way women who do follow the rules are rewarded” (210). A woman in the Middle East, she finds, is “far less free than a woman in the West, but far more appreciated. Wilson also elucidates women’s roles in Islamic societies in both personal and religious spheres as she goes about her life in Egypt, actively contrasting them with Western views of Eastern women. Wilson’s willingness to portray these anxieties within her memoir contribute to a more complete portrayal of her experience-while on the whole her experience is positive, her mentioning of her anxieties makes for a more realistic read.

There are few things more overwhelming than love in hostile territory” (49). On her conversion, Wilson describes the “shame” she feels towards her conversion as a result of her non-religious upbringing: “Religion was taboo in my family, and Islam was taboo in my society-these pressures are not easily shaken off, and I sometimes felt as guilty as if I had committed a crime” (67).Īs she discusses her engagement to Omar with a friend, Wilson reveals: “I was terrified. While Wilson presents a positive appraisal of her life’s experiences with faith and love, she does not hesitate to share her anxieties regarding her conversion to Islam or her relationship with Omar. They are independent of the intellect, and trying to fit them into a logical pattern is fruitless they can be respected or discarded, but not debated…Culture belongs to the imagination to judge it rationally is to misunderstand its function. For example, as she elucidates her experience in a cross-cultural relationship with an Egyptian man, Omar, she has the following insight:Ĭultural habits are by and large irrational, emerge irrationally, and are practiced irrationally. Wilson’s prose is fluid and beautifully describes the nuances of everyday life she experiences while in Egypt.

The butterfly mosque