Advance Praise
by
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Coming to America is seldom associated with discovering one’s faith—let alone Islam. A demure Pakistani young woman willingly coerced into marriage and air-shipped to America over the defiance of her father, Sabeeha relents to America’s coercing her to unravel her faith from her culture, and reweave into it a culturally American motif of Stars and Stripes—a faith wholly Islamic and wholly American. She humorously and candidly tackles the issues confronting women and the double-lives they are forced to lead. She will charm you as she contrasts her parents’ anxieties and joys over her arranged and splendid Pakistani wedding to her anxieties and joys over the nostalgia- erasing American marriages of her sons in America. For Muslim immigrants, her journey is an assuring roadmap on how shedding cultural traditions can make you ‘more Muslim’—not less. Demure no more, her emotional encounters with Islamophobia reveal her longing to be embraced for both her individuality and her humanity. Rich in exotic detail, Sabeeha’s true-life story is funny, sweet, beautiful, warm, and deeply touching to any reader, who will note how much the heart and soul of a Muslim mother is like that of any other.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the founder of Cordoba Initiative, and author of What’s Right With Islam. A New Vision for Muslims and the West, Moving the Mountain. Beyond Ground Zero to a New Vision of Islam in America, and Defining Islamic Statehood. Measuring and Indexing Contemporary Muslim States.