Butterfly Mosque (Wilson)

The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam
G. Willow Wilson, 2010
Grove Atlantic
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802145338


Summary
The extraordinary story of an all-American girl’s conversion to Islam and her ensuing romance with a young Egyptian man, The Butterfly Mosque is a stunning articulation of a Westerner embracing the Muslim world.

When G. Willow Wilson—already an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East at just twenty-seven—leaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course that leads to her shocking conversion to Islam and sends her on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future.

She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and submerges herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition.

Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow records her intensely personal struggle to forge a “third culture” that might accommodate her own values without compromising the friends and family on both sides of the divide. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—August 31, 1982
• Where—Morris County, New Jersey
• Raised—Boulder, Colorado, USA
• Education—B.A., Boston University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington, and Cairo, Egypt


Gwendolyn Willow Wilson, known professionally as G. Willow Wilson, is an American comics writer, memoirist, novelist, essayist, and journalist. She is best known for relaunching the Ms. Marvel title for Marvel Comics (which stars a 16-year-old Muslim superhero named Kamala Khan). But she has also received praise for her memoir and novels.

Early life
Wilson was born in Morris County, New Jersey, where she spent the first ten years of her life. She first encountered comics in the fifth grade while reading an anti-smoking pamphlet featuring the X-Men. Fascinated by the characters, she began watching the cartoon X-Men every Saturday.

Two years later she and her family moved to Boulder, Colorado where Wilson continued to pursue her interest in comics and other forms of popular culture such as tabletop role-playing games.

When she turned 27, Wilson decided to leave Colorado and to pursue a degree in history at Boston University. During her sophomore year, while experiencing adrenal problems, she decided to study world religions, including Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Having grown up in an unreligious household, Wilson drawn to Judaism's belief in an "indivisible God who is one and whole." Yet, although Judaism "was a near perfect fit," she explained in a 2017 interview, "it was created for a single tribe of people."

Wislon then turned her focus to Islam, which she saw as "a sort of a deal between you and God." The 9/11 terrorist attack set back her religious studies—fearing she had misjudged the religion—but later resumed her studies.[2]  After graduation, on the way to Cairo where she had taken a job to teach English, Wilson experienced a converstion to Islam: "I made peace with God. I called him Allah."

Living in Egypt, and struggling to negotiate a new culture, Wilson met Omar, a young physics teacher, who offered to serve as a cultural guide, and within a matter of months, the two became engaged. Later, the couple moved to the United States where Wilson returned to her writing career, and Omar worked as a legal advocate for refugees.

Jouralism
During her time in Cairo, Wilson began contributing articles to the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine and National Post. She was also a regular contributor to the now-defunct Egyptian opposition weekly Cairo Magazine. Wilson was the first Western journalist to be granted a private interview with Ali Gomaa after his promotion to the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Wilson's experiences in Egypt are the subject of her 2010 memoir, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam, which was named a Seattle Times Best Book the same year.

In 2007, Wilson wrote her first graphic novel, Cairo, with art by M.K. Perker; it was named one of the best graphic novels of 2007 by Publishers Weekly, The Edmonton Journal/CanWest News, and Comics Worth Reading.  In 2008 the paperback edition was named one of Best Graphic Novels for High School Students in 2008 by School Library Journal, and one of 2009's Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens by the American Library Association.

Comics
A year later, in 2008, Wilson launched her first ongoing comic series, "Air." Reunited with her Cairo graphic artist M.K. Perker, "Air" received the Eisner Award for Best New Series of 2009, while NPR named it one of the top comics of 2009.

Wilson also wrote "Superman" fill-in issues #704 and 706 of Superman, the five-issue mini-series "Vixen: Return of the Lion." and "The Outsiders." She then revived "Mystic,"a four-issue miniseries for Marvel Comics (with art by David Lopez)—although a CrossGen revival, Willow's version of "Mystic" bears little resemblance to its previous incarnation.

In 2014, Marvel debuted a new "Ms. Marvel" series written by Wilson. The book stars Kamala Khan, a Muslim teenager living in Jersey City, New Jersey, who takes up the mantle—now that the previous Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, has taken the name Captain Marvel.

Although worried about criticism, Wilson did not believe Kamala should wear a hijab because the majority of teenage Muslim Americans do not cover their heads. Yet despite their initial concern, Kamala was received positively—some seeing her as a symbol for equality and religious diversity.

In 2018, Wilson began writing "Wonder Woman" from DC Comics. The character will battle Ares in an arc entitled "The Just War."

Novels
Wilson also turned to novels: 2013 saw the release of her debut, Alif the Unseen. The book won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for best novel.

Wilson's next fantasy novel came out in 2019 —The Bird King, the story of a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, as the new Christian monarchy begins its rule. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/18/2019 .)

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Book Reviews
[S]atisfying, lyrical memoir…. Arguably, Wilson's decision to take up the headscarf and champion the segregated, protected status of Arab women can be viewed as odd; however, her work proves a tremendously heartfelt, healing cross-cultural fusion.
Publishers Weekly


Moments of clarity and humor thread through this uplifting story of one young American seeking integrity in a fractured world. A first-rate memoir and love story that is a delight to read. —Lisa Klopfer, Eastern Michigan Univ. Lib., Ypsilanti
Library Journal


Debut memoir chronicles Wilson's conversion to Islam…. Enlightening cultural description and analysis blends somewhat awkwardly with self-regard.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE BUTTERFLY MOSQUE … then take off on your own:

1. What first drew G. Willow Wilson to Islam? What explanation does she offer for her conversion, and does it satisfy you? In what way did her religious, or non-religious, background influence her decision to convert?

2. Comment on this passage from the book: "Religion was taboo in my family, and Islam was taboo in my society—these pressures are not easily shaken off, and I sometimes felt as guilty as if I had committed a crime." What precisely makes her feel guilty?

3. What are the challenges she has faced, particularly after 9/11, in accepting Islam as her faith?

4. What distinctions does Wilson make between fundamental Islam and "true" Islam? She says that Islam is an "antiauthoritarian sex-positive faith." Did you disagree at the outset of the book… and did you change your mind by the book's end? Or not.

5. Discuss Wilson's struggles to reconcile Egyptian culture, once she has moved to Egypt, with her own values and expectations.

6. How easy would you find it to integrate yourself into another culture, especially one so very different from Western culture as Egypt's?

7. Do you agree—or disagree—with this statement by Wilson:

Cultural habits are by and large irrational, emerge irrationally, and are practiced irrationally. They are independent of the intellect, and trying to fit them into a logical pattern is fruitless; they can be respected or discarded, but not debated.… Culture belongs to the imagination; to judge it rationally is to misunderstand its function.

8. Talk about her condemnation of American and Canadian behavior she witnesses in the marketplace. What most disturbs her about their behavior? Do you think she over-generalizes… or makes an astute observation? As a Westerner, how do her criticisms make you feel?

9. Discuss Wilson's anxieties on becoming engaged to Omar, especially when she writes that she "was terrified. There are few things more overwhelming than love in hostile territory.”

10. What do make of the fact that Wilson dons a headscarf. What are her reasons? What does the headscarf mean to her?

11. How does Wilson defend Islam's patriarchal attitude toward women? What does she find comforting?

12. Follow-up to Question 11: Do you think the following point is valid? Wilson says at one point that a woman in the Middle East …

is far less free than a woman in the West, but far more appreciated. When people wonder why Arab women defend their culture, they focus on the way women who don’t follow the rules are punished, and fail to consider the way women who do follow the rule are appreciated.

13. What new insights into the Middle East, Muslims, and Islamic life does Wilson present? Has reading this book altered your views of Islam? In what way does the book challenge the stereotypes portrayed by the media?

14. Do you feel this is a book that those in government—or anyone involved with foreign relations—should read?

15. What is the significance of the book's title?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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