Salaam, Love Read online

  For all the men who asked, “Where are our stories?”

  Contents

  Introduction

  Umma: It Takes a Village

  Soda Bottles and Zebra Skins • Sam Pierstorff

  Mother’s Curse • Arsalan Ahmed

  The Ride • Ramy Eletreby

  A Grown-Ass Man • Alykhan Boolani

  Who I Needed to Be • Yusef Ramelize

  An Unlikely Foe • Yousef Turshani

  A Pair of Photos • Ahmed Ali Akbar

  Sirat: The Journey

  The Other Iran–Iraq War • Ibrahim Al-Marashi

  Just One Kiss • Maher Reham

  AwkwardMan • Zain Omar

  In the Unlikeliest of Places • A. Khan

  Planet Zero • John Austin

  How Did I End Up Here? • Arif Choudhury

  Springtime Love • Mohamed Djellouli

  Finding Mercy • Anthony Springer Jr.

  Prom, InshAllah • Haroon Moghul

  Sabr: In Sickness and in Health

  The Promise • Alan Howard

  Fertile Ground • Khizer Husain

  On Guard • Stephen Leeper

  Our Way Lies Together • Dan I. Oversaw

  Echoes • Mohammed Samir Shamma

  Becoming Family • Randy Nasson

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  Contributors

  About the Editors

  Introduction

  Men don’t talk about their feelings—isn’t that the conventional wisdom?

  It’s what we bought into, anyway, which is why, for a long time, we never seriously considered doing this book.

  When Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women was published two years ago—a collection in which twenty-five women raised their voices to tell their funny, romantic, and moving tales about the search for love—it resonated with countless readers around the world. Including men. They started to ask us, “Where are our stories?”

  We dismissed the inquiries with a laugh. “Please! Guys don’t talk about this stuff.”

  But as the requests kept coming—over e-mail, at book readings, even at dinner parties—it struck us: what if it’s not that men don’t want to talk about their feelings, but rather that they don’t have the space to do so?

  Men without space? It sounds absurd. After all, men dominate corner offices and the upper echelons of leadership and power, men get the best prayer space in the mosque, and men even take up the most space on the bus (dudes, put your legs together, we get it).

  But what about the emotional space to be honest and vulnerable about matters of the heart, without jeopardizing notions of masculinity and manhood? The space to talk about sex, coupled with love and intimacy, without it being a joke or the raunchy punch line from a movie?

  We decided to ask. After all, there are two (or more!) sides to every story.

  We asked American Muslim men—our cultural and religious community—to tell us: What does it mean to be a man? To love well? To be faithful and constant? What do you do if you fail at love? How do you move forward after you’ve broken someone’s heart, or had yours broken?

  And they told us.

  Stories poured in from men of diverse ethnic, racial, and religious perspectives—including orthodox, cultural, and secular Muslims. They came from single, divorced, married, and widowed men, young and old, in large cities and small towns across the country.

  They told stories of love and heartbreak, loyalty and betrayal, intimacy and insecurity. And, above all else: feelings

  In this book, we share twenty-two of them.

  The title of this collection, Salaam, Love, couples two essential traits of the Muslim men we know: peace and love. Colloquially, salaam also means “hello.” The men in this book greet us and welcome us—with open arms—into the most intimate aspects of their lives.

  The subtitle, American Muslim Men on Love, Sex, and Intimacy, is a testament to these groundbreaking stories. By raising their voices, these Muslim men are leading the way for other men to recognize that being open and honest about their feelings is not only okay—it’s intimately connected to their lives and critical to their well-being.

  It goes without saying—but we’ll say it here anyway—that this book is not a theological treatise. It’s a reflection of the real lives and experiences of Muslim men—fathers, brothers, sons, and partners.

  We arranged these stories to mirror the ways in which our experiences about love, sex, and intimacy are shaped and evolve:

  We begin with “Umma: It Takes a Village,” in which our writers reflect—with humor and heartbreak—on the crucial role that family, friends, and community play in our sense of self and search for love.

  The men in the second section, “Sirat: The Journey,” share their stories about romantic, personal, and spiritual transformation. Their insights honestly—and bluntly—reveal how attitudes toward love, sex, and commitment can change over the course of our lives.

  We end with “Sabr: In Sickness and in Health,” in which our writers lift the facade of “happily ever after” to share what it really takes to keep a relationship going over a lifetime.

  There’s nothing like a good love story to connect us to one another and also help satisfy our curiosity about the lives of others—in this case, men. We welcome you to sit back—turn off your smartphones—and listen as these writers invite you to peek into their hearts, minds, and loves.

  Umma: It Takes a Village

  Soda Bottles and Zebra Skins

  By Sam Pierstorff

  Go ahead. Ask me if I am Muslim. It’s true, I am. I’m white, Orange County, MTV-reality-show white. Beastie Boys circa 1986 white. The skater boy Avril Lavigne sang about white. Now, if you ask me how I came to be Muslim, I will need more time—enough time to tell you the long story about a Syrian girl from Aleppo who met a Kentucky redneck in the heart of Tennessee. Don’t ask me how they got there.

  Sure, he was a Korean War veteran, an English literature scholar, and a bit of an alcoholic, and she was Muslim, not entirely fluent in English, and wide-eyed with America’s freedom—but the heart wants what the heart wants, right?

  He was sympathetic to Islam, embracing the simplicity of one true God, instead of wrestling with the complexity of a trinity. And she was sympathetic to his vices—nothing a faithful wife couldn’t cure, she thought. Of course, there were challenges—affairs, abuse, alcoholism—all of which were back-burnered when their two sons came along.

  The firstborn was named by my mother—a Muslim name—Ahmed. He would become a treasure, a spiritual son, blessed the moment al-Fatiha was whispered into his ear at birth. The second born, out of fairness and compromise, was named by my father—an Anglo name, Samuel Johnson, after the eighteenth-century English critic and writer, whom he had studied. That’s me. I would follow a more crooked path, spend more time outdoors than in, blessed at birth by my father’s whiskey breath instead of his prayers.

  By fifth grade, the back burner could no longer contain the flames of my parents’ marital problems. They split up. Our home went up in smoke. Poof. Gone. My father moved an hour westward toward the ocean, while my mother raised two boys alone in the desert of Riverside County, California, with all of the might left in her four-foot olive frame. She jarred my brother and me awake for dawn prayers and chauffeured us to the mosque on Fridays in her seatbeltless 1962 Studebaker while she tied her hijab in the rearview mirror and asked my brother to steer. Above all else, she taught us the five essential pillars of Islam: 1) believe in Allah and his final prophet, Muhammad; 2) pray five times a day; 3) don’t look at girls; 4) don’t speak to girls; 5) don’t think about girls.

  Girls, more than alcohol and pork, were haram. Hell was the tip of my mother�
�s wooden spoon as she chased me after girls called the house, wanting to know why girls had my number. She yelled about religion and temptation and how kissing spread disease and French kissing made babies. God’s anti-girlfriend stance was unfair and complicated. But my first crush was simple and powerful: Amy McKiernan. Every day I watched her on the playground, the sun in her blonde curls, her perfect pink-lipped smile. My heart was bursting every time Amy McKiernan pranced across the blacktop. My heart was not bursting with love for a deity that I could not see or touch or smell. Amy smelled like citrus, like rose petals, like love. One day after school, Amy and I circled behind the school’s baseball dugout and nuzzled against each other. Her lips met mine. It was quick. Innocent. For a moment, I thought it would conjure the devil, but nothing happened. Just a spark that set fire to my heart. It felt like a tiny piece of heaven.

  Though I could not see or touch or smell God, I could feel Him. The fear of Him, the weight of Him, the guilt of Him. My mother had taught me well. And that kept me from kissing Amy ever again, from holding her hand, or even talking to her after that first kiss.

  In middle school, a bully named Hector called everyone a “jack-off.” I didn’t know what he meant when he said, “Fuck you, Sammy, you little jack-off.” Then he made a fist and beat the air between his legs with an invisible hammer. I had no idea what he was doing. I was twelve, barely able to comb my hair without my brother helping me mousse down the cowlicks in the back. My brother was always generous—trading shirts when mine fit like a potato sack, helping me define cool words like “disembowel” and “castration.” He knew it all—a nose-in-a-book, glasses-wearing, king-of-all-nerds reader with an IQ the size of Jupiter and a penchant for pleasing Mom. He could read Arabic, too—slowly, right to left, one swooping letter at a time. They sat together after prayer, hummed the thick vowels of each sura. But not me. I was quick to launch myself outside as soon as possible. There was a dumpster behind our apartment complex. Inside were old, egg-stained Playboys, newspapers that advertised strip clubs and phone-sex numbers with images of naked girls with red stars on their nipples. That was my first exposure to pornography—long before the Internet. The torn pages of diaper-stained magazines and newspaper ads were my porn sites; the dumpster was my Google search engine. Pretty soon I figured out Hector’s little move. All the time, perhaps. I locked myself in the bathroom, turned the faucet on high, and hammered until I thought I broke it. But I didn’t. This was puberty, coming too early.

  In high school, my mom loosened up slightly. She didn’t want to risk losing us, and work kept her out of the house for ten hours a day, so if she wanted to stay connected to us she had to become our friend or we’d never speak again. Besides, we were nearly men, so what choice did she have? We were growing facial hair, frosting our armpits with deodorant, and sprouting muscles up and down our bodies. (Muslim workout tip: twenty push-ups after each salat = one hundred push-ups per day.) My mother let my brother get away with his long, curly hair, and she let me get away with having a few girlfriends. There were more, of course, than she knew.

  With these girls, I learned the fine art of dry humping, jean-on-jean friction so hard and fast I worried we might make a fire between our rubbing thighs. I knew intellectually that I was breaking countless rules of pious Muslim behavior by giving into lust. But it was like playing a game of chicken with God. How far could I walk toward the edge of the cliff without falling? I was young and horny enough to dip my toes past the edge, but strong enough to avoid falling from grace and permanently injuring myself. That was the game of balance I played. And I was winning. I never unbuckled or cut the ropes that tethered me to God. Loosened them a little, but never cut them completely.

  The fear of sex that my mother introduced into our young minds stuck with me most of my life. Allah seemed pretty forgiving according to the khutbahs I heard, but in our house, sex was unforgivable—a one-way ticket to hell—and I didn’t want to board that plane. Looking back, fear and guilt may have saved me from drowning in a world of high school sex and all the side effects that came with it. But there were still side effects, and that is where an American dad can help.

  It had been months since we had last spoken, but I needed advice.

  “Hey, Dad. It’s Sam.”

  “Howdy, chief. How’s your momma?”

  “Fine.”

  “Brother?”

  “Studying.”

  “How ’bout you?”

  “My balls are killing me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It feels like I got kicked in the nuts. Everything down there hurts. My stomach is sore too. I can hardly stand up.”

  “Sam, I am gonna ask you something, and you have to be honest with me. And don’t worry, I won’t tell your mother.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you been getting a little hot and heavy with your girlfriend?”

  “A little.”

  “Did you go all the way?”

  “No!” I shouted.

  “Well, then, there’s your problem.”

  “What?”

  “You’re backed up. Ever shake a soda pop bottle with the cap on? It wants to burst. Don’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right now, that soda bottle is your dick. It’s gonna take a while to settle down. If it doesn’t stop hurting in an hour, go rub it out.”

  I knew what he meant. He understood male plumbing. I had a genital clog and two options: be patient or beat off. I should have prayed—dropped two rakat to ask Allah for forgiveness and sabr. Minutes later, I relieved myself and took a long nap afterward. I later read that I had experienced “blue balls”—epididymal hypertension or vasocongestion. Unlike unicorns and leprechauns, blue balls are very real and very painful.

  In college, among my Muslim male friends, which, alhamdulillah, I had plenty of at Long Beach State University, no one talked about masturbation or virginity. We all just assumed they both existed in our lives. The running joke was that every Muslim male was Hanafi until he got married because the Hanafi school made masturbation permissible, but only to prevent zina or to release sexual tension (not just desire). Otherwise, it was forbidden. I never asked, but I am pretty sure my male Muslim friends released a lot of sexual “tension” in college. I read somewhere that 99 percent of men do it, and the other 1 percent lie about it. We were the 1 percent. Muslim men, growing up in the United States of pornography and booty shorts, are not immune. Guilt ridden? Yes. Overflowing with regret and shame? Perhaps. Full of prayers for greater strength in the face of temptation? Every Jumma. But definitely not immune.

  Marriage, I used to say, was the cure. Actually, I may have subconsciously been paraphrasing the Prophet, who said to young people, “Whoever among you can support a wife should marry, for that is more modest for the gaze and safer for your private parts.” Marriage is a life raft wherein one’s libido can float along safely as it sails down a choppy river of American hypersexuality.

  “Think about it, amigos,” I would say to my college buddies. “What great sin do we commit that won’t be cured by marriage? We’re actually pretty good Muslims when you think about it. We don’t drink or snort cocaine. We don’t kill people or steal cars. We don’t blow shit up, contrary to the stereotype. We help old ladies across the street. We donate food to homeless shelters and send money overseas to Palestine and Afghanistan to help build schools.”

  “Yeah,” Rashid interjected, “I helped a neighbor move her couch up two flights of stairs yesterday.”

  “Remember when that guy’s Buick broke down on Pine Avenue and we pushed him out of the street so he wouldn’t get hit?” Mohammed added.

  We reminisced. There was no shortage of good deeds among us. We were diligent about Friday prayers, and fasting, and salat five times a day (or at least four—fajr was tough).

  “With this one tiny exception of lust and our obsession with girls, we’re pretty good guys, right?” I pronounced.

  “Dude, you’re droppin’ know
ledge, mashAllah.”

  Everyone started puffing up with a sense of confidence that quietly slipped away every time an overly bearded fellow or scowling auntie at the mosque insinuated with their eyes that we were girl-crazy.

  “Now we just need to find ourselves some wives.”

  Graduate school was on the horizon. I chose to stay at Long Beach State University to complete a master’s degree in English because they offered me a class to teach. I was older, more mature. My libido was tamer than it had been, and my heart was open to real love, the kind that is sustainable and permanent. At Jumma prayers, I found myself drifting, my eyes falling upon little boys in thobes dragging toy cars across the prayer carpets, or infants asleep in their fathers’ arms as the fathers continued to pray, careful not to wake the baby. I wanted a family. The next stage of life was calling out to me. I could sense the seismic shift in my brain, moving from lust to wanting lifelong love.

  By my second year of grad school, I was working full-time at the university, teaching composition courses and coordinating educational programs for inner-city youth. I made a decent wage for a twenty-four-year-old kid and owned a new black Toyota pickup. What girl wouldn’t want to marry me? My quest began.

  There were rumblings within my inner circle of mostly Indian American Muslim friends about a girl named Ruhi. She was Indian American, too. Some said we should meet. We’d be perfect for each other, they said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because she’s short like you!”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “She’s also cute. She’s funny. She likes to read.”

  “Read what?”

  “Books, stupid.”

  No one mentioned faith, hers or mine. The irony of Muslim dating is that very few people mention Islam. That’s the easy part: believe, pray, fast, donate, hajj. If you’re both Muslim, it’s really a matter of attraction and compatibility—and a short, cute, funny reader of books sounded divine.

  I’d never dated Indian American girls, but in college I was a cowboy surrounded by Indians. My best male friends were Indian American; their girlfriends were too. At the mosques in Southern California, there were more dupattas than hijabs, more biryani served at iftar dinner than kibbeh. The comfort of my Arab/white palette (e.g., meatloaf and hummus) was left in the wake as I dined on tandoori chicken and naan. My tastes changed. Drastically. I began to marvel at the thick, black, glimmering hair of Indian girls, their big eyes glazed with green eye shadow, gold bangles clinking up and down their forearms. All the white girls I’d ever crushed on became pale ghosts rising from my memory and disappearing into an exotic, marigold sky.