Essay on "Girl in the Tangerine Scarf Composed"

Essay 4 pages (1454 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

Composed by Mohja Kahf, the Girl in the Tangerine Scarf informs the tale of Khadra Shamy, a Syrian-American young woman going back to her home town of Indianapolis for the first time in a number of years. Many of the book recalls to her youth and very early adult years throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as she works out concerns of religious beliefs, identification, racial discrimination, and belonging. Sprinkled with this, is her return to the neighborhood at the age of 28 as a publication photographer doing a tale on minority spiritual areas in America.

Covering a long period of time and a range of geographical places, the story follows Khadra's spiritual courses, from being the little girl employed at a Dawah Center, with a "rise of spiritual austerity" in her very early teenagers, a "neoclassical stage" of typical knowing as she grows older, a sense of disillusionment and unpredictability as she pertains to question the monolithic picture of Islam she matured with, and eventually reaching a settlement or middle ground as she pertains to feel even more secure in her own spiritual course while valuing the neighborhood where she was raised.

The book likewise incorporates an excellent variety of political concerns, mirrored in local communal relations (Sunni-Shi'a stress within the Muslim neighborhood, and KKK physical violence and various other racial discrimination directed at the Muslim area from some others in the city) in addition to worldwide concerns (the Iranian transformation, the line of work of Palestine, the dictatorship in Syria, and so on).

Personal Reflections

I adored reading this book. There's something specifically beautiful about reading a story with numerous resonating experiences. Numerous of likely structured novels, being particular to the experience of being a young Muslim woman in America, are seldom any good in current literature. There were a number of occasion that actually got me or made me laugh aloud, not a lot due to the fact that of their humor (although there was a lot of that too), however simply due to the proximity the incidents had with real life and how they made me feel connected with the book. Quotes at the start of each chapter-- from sources as varied as clinical writing on pests, historic discussing Indiana, Qur'anic citations, and mystic poetry-- include additional thought-provoking memories form the read.

I discovered Kahf's composing to be appealing, genuine and truthful, and typically really comical. I commonly felt the young Khadra's confusion over the inflections of being a Muslim and having an American identification as she comes across individuals who challenge her fertilizations of both, and an older Khadra's depression as she fights Muslims who omit her or demean her due to the fact that she's a female, in spite of her earnest and repetitive accounts of spiritual concepts developing the exhaustive females' rights in Islam.

Reading through the book, I could not help but relate, positively and negatively, to many of the values and cultural structures that were discussed in the book. A good example of this can be the overall demeaning attitude of people based on Khadra's gender. Even though, Islam - I reiterate - as a religion gives the most extensive rights to women - and, in my opinion if the foundational framework for all constitutions of women's rights anywhere in the world (I even believe many of the feminist viewpoints were derived originally from rights given to women in Islam) - there still seems to be a regular battle for Muslim women anywhere in the world and even within Islamic communities. I personally believe men and women need to be balanced in nature - not necessarily always equal - but that women are always stronger in certain aspects and men are always stronger in other aspects, but there is still a vast void in many minds with regards to women's role in a Muslim society. One of the biggest things that bother me is the word 'hijabi' that is used to describe many Muslim women who choose to follow a certain dress code that covers their entire body with a loosely stitched cloth. I personally don't wear hijab but the word seems demeaning as it doesn't look beyond the appearance but merely judges.

Khadra's experience of hajj is wonderfully and poignantly explained; the Kaaba, a Lady, is their Hostess-- it was without a doubt… READ MORE

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