The Butterfly Mosque

I came to G. Willow Wilson's work through her incredible novel “Alif the Unseen.” Back when we could do things like hang out in bookstores together, I saw her speak at Boulder Book Store about her second novel, “The Bird King” and also picked up this copy of her memoir. The memoir itself is not what I expected necessarily, and at times it challenged me on a cultural level the way her fiction never has. It covers the time from her initial dabbling into Islam through her conversion, move to Egypt, marriage, and gradual transformation into Muslim and Egyptian citizen. It made me reflect on my own time living abroad, on falling in love with a culture not my own, but also feeling frustrated with what felt like limitations to me. When I lived in Japan, I was still definitely American, though I tried my best to be a respectful, aware, and sensitive American. I definitely still held (and hold) judgements about things that felt backward to me (though I just as often complain that America needs to get its act together and be more like Japan).

Wilson's experience is extremely different, largely because it is so rooted in her religious conversion. While I'm certainly not a person who thinks all Muslims are violent extremists and the religion should be abolished, I am an atheist who is particularly wary of Abrahamic traditions and the way all three are frequently used against women. Wilson paints a picture of Islam much closer to my picture of traditional Christianity, a core of spiritual fulfillment and a path to a right life that is easily corrupted by those in power, especially men. She draws a distinction between traditional Islam and what she calls the Islam of Bin-Laden. Nonetheless, this was extremely challenging for me to read with an open mind. Anything that divides the sexes so completely is so foreign to me that it is hard to learn about judgement free. Still, Wilson does the best of anyone at explaining the philosophy and culture to a westerner like me. I don't think my opinion of Islam or religion in general changed reading this, but I think it was a good exercise for me to read it and look through Wilson's unique window.