Read Leila Aboulela’s Minaret!

“… I’m not middle class; I do not have a degree. I am upper class without money.”

Disclaimer: Earlier this year, in response to a competition prompt, I wrote a 500-word essay about how Leila Aboulela’s Minaret impacted my writing career. So, when I say this is my best Aboulela novel, for reasons totally unrelated to plot or the craft of writing, you have been warned! Also, this review is chock-full with spoilers (sorry, not sorry!)

Published in 2005, Minaret tells the story of Najwa, a young Sudani woman forced to flee her home in Sudan following the Second Sudanese Civil War. After her father’s execution, she and her family flee to London, having lost everything they had in their home country. Without the wealth and status she grew up with, Najwa struggled but eventually managed to find herself a new identity through her faith. 

As the BMW book club read for the month of June (I know, I know! This review is late, but… Life!) and unlike the previous group discussion on Lyrics Alley where everyone loved the book, some characters notwithstanding, Minaret’s reception was a “Yes, but…” As can be imagined, the discussion was spirited and invigorating.

Personally, I found this re-reading of Minaret (for the third, maybe fourth time?) a study in contrast.

I continue to be – even now – in awe of how very Muslim Women this book is. Especially in contrast to what was being published at the time (remember that this was before the era of Owned Voices and the call for diversity in mainstream publishing.) While Ms. Aboulela has mentioned in a couple of interviews how she wanted to add Islam and Muslims to English fiction, Minaret is one book that explores Muslim women in their own element with an intimacy that can only come from within. Beyond simplistic perception and monolithic depiction, the book shows a glimpse of the lives of these women, within the spaces they are most vulnerable – in the mosque, at sisters’ events, at home. When the veil comes off. It is my A-ha! book.

“Few people are themselves in mosques. They are subdued, taken over by a fragile, neglected part of themselves.”

Najwa, the MC, is no exception, although the mosque is the place she – contrarily – becomes a stronger version of herself. Najwa herself, as a character, is a puzzle, another study in contrast. Timid, people-pleasing, raised to no expectation than to “be good” and marry well, Najwa is the antithesis of what one expects of the heroine of such a tale. Falling from her Sudani upper class roots at an age young enough to – in the way of most stories – turn things around, Najwa settles into free-fall. Decision after decision, including refusing to make a choice until one is fostered on her, she does nothing to improve her situation or prepare for a better future, except the singular resolve to practice her religion better.

“I circle hack, I regress; the past doesn’t let go. It might as well be a malfunction, a scene repeating itself, a scratched vinyl record, a stutter.”

Life happens to Najwa. Her passivity makes her easy prey for Anwar; the poor but egotistical student she met at the Uni in Khartoum and with whom she began a toxic, co-dependent relationship when they reunited in London. His abrasive condescension, driven by poorly-concealed envy, would stand in sharp contrast to the kindness and consideration she experiences with Tamer several years later. Tamer, who was earnest, devout, cute, for all that he carried the selfish entitlement of young people with privileged upbringing; a better version of what Najwa might have hoped her own twin brother, Omar, could have been. 

But Omar, raised by their indifferent parents with no expectation of “goodness” like his sister, had quickly fallen into something the sense of community and eventual expectation of responsibility of his position in Sudan might have shielded him from; a life of addiction that ended with him in the British prison system. In the way of the other men in her life, benevolently patriarchal in good times, with no thought to the ones left to devices they were not prepared for when the men died, tired of them, moved countries or were sent to prison. Leaving girls and women raised with the assurance that some man will be there to take care of them to navigate this frightening new world alone. 

“…I imagined I would get married, have children, the usual things. I didn’t imagine anything different. I had friends who wanted to be doctors, diplomats but I never had these ambitions.’

 “… And now, nothing, no one… This empty space was called freedom”

Tamer, though. Tamer was an idea, a mirage – “that quality I had adored, that glow and scent of Paradise” And the relationship they formed was her chasing the possibility of something similar to the life she was raised, a life too long gone. 

“…I stare down at my hands, my warped self and distorted desires. I would like to be his family’s concubine, like something out of The Arabian Nights, with life-long security and a sense of belonging. But I must settle for freedom in this modern time.”

And much as I enjoyed the sweetness of their budding relationship, it was clear to all but the naive boy – “He will never cry like this again. It is the end of his childhood. In the future it will be manly tears, manly pains, but not these sobs.” – that this could not be. I am forever grateful the author did not attempt to shoe-horn them into some impossible-to-believe HEA. 

I have opinions about the ending, of course, but in the many years since I first read it, (especially given the outspoken ways many readers have let me their opinions of the ending of my debut, Rekiya & Z), I have come to accept that was the ending most true to Najwa’s character.

I doubt there will ever be a time I do not recommend Minaret for anyone interested in Islamic Fiction (and I do NOT use that term lightly!) or a book about Muslim women. Because while there are many themes and ideas I uncover with each reread, I continue to be amazed by how unflinchingly Muslim women  this book is – and you all know that is my primary literary ish!