Love from A to Z

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In this case, rest assured that you are free to enjoy the thoughts of Adam and Zayneb shamelessly. They have donated their diaries in the cause of… yes, love… on three conditions. One, that I cut out two incidents (the first involving a stranger’s coffee cup, misplaced, that they both drank from by accident, and the second something I cannot write about here without quaking). Yesterday, in social science, he rubbed his hands together before passing out his carefully chosen handout: Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close I think this is my first book I've read set in Qatar. From a meet cute in Heathrow Airport to a common connection in Doha, this growing relationship between Adam and Zayneb. The book alternates between their perspectives. Zayneb goes to visit her aunt after getting suspended from school for her actions in the class of a teacher who targets Zayneb with his Islmaphobia. Adam is headed home from his first year at University in London after a medical diagnosis that he isn't fully dealing with. Their story is heartfelt, rife with some misunderstandings. Zayneb's aunt is an amazing educator who is a connector and role model in both teen's lives. Read more But maybe Kerr saw my wet eyes. Because suddenly she cleared her throat, and when she next spoke, her voice was calmer. “The only reason we’ve decided to give Miss Malik a week’s suspension instead —which will go into her records, by the way—is due to her exemplary academic record over the years. I’ll see this as a terrible, terrible decision she’s made. Mr. Fencer agrees with me on this.” Her voice hardened again. “But give me one more thing to make me reconsider, Miss Malik, and we may be seeing your college future at stake. I will not hesitate to make that so.” Beside Mom, Fencer sighed as if he were pondering college-less me. Anger welled and churned inside. Eat them alive. I’m going to get him. I’m going to get Fencer. • • • As soon as we got in the car and she turned the ignition, Mom began. “I never thought we’d have this sort of trouble with you, Zayneb. A threat against your teacher? A knife?” “It wasn’t a threat! It was about getting him fired. And the knife was a butter knife. I was just about to draw the fork.” I frowned at the front of Alexander Porter High with its ugly green double doors. “We didn’t bring you up like this. I’m ashamed.” Mom’s voice was small, which meant it was going to be the crying kind of lecture. “You didn’t say anything!” I turned to her. “Nothing about what he’s doing! You acted like it was my fault!” “I can’t prove anything about your teacher. Every time Dad and I offered to talk to him before, you said no.” With the car stopped where the entrance of the school parking lot met the road, she glanced at me, mouth trembling slightly. “Can’t you just graduate in peace?” “You mean, Shut up, Zayneb! Don’t make a scene, Zayneb!” I put my hand on the door handle. “Can I get out? I’ll just walk home like I always do.” She let me.

Clears throat* When I heard that a book like this was going to exists I was ecstatic. S.K. Ali wrote a book that made me feel seen. Books featuring Muslim characters are quite rare. I've made it my goal to read as many books centering around Muslims as possible this year. This book right here is what every Muslim reader should get their hands on. The struggles that Muslim's go through is depicted so so well. Especially, for girls who wear the Hijab (headscarf). I couldn’t stop myself from jumping up. I went to stand in front of them, my arms open slightly, a hug cue. This was quite the pleasant read. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. Not only did it have amazing Muslim rep, but it was also very enjoyable.Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are. Meet Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, she isn’t bad. She’s angry. I didn’t have to open my mouth or do anything for people to judge me. I just had to be born into a Muslim family and grow up to want to become a visible member of my community by wrapping a cloth on my head. I just had to be me. Angry people are not known to be public criers. They usually don’t succumb to displays of grief. But I let the tears fall and fall without a care of who saw them. I didn’t sob or heave or make any movements. I just sat there staring at the white girl coloring happily and cried. Maybe it was Fencer’s sigh in the principal’s office yesterday, the suspension note in my student file, and the fact that Ayaan hadn’t replied to any of my messages before I’d left home this afternoon. Maybe it was imagining Hateful Woman enjoying first class, getting rewarded for her rudeness to me. Maybe it was everything for a long time. I succumbed to the sadness I’d held at bay. And the questions flooded in: If I had been that white, blond girl with a lap full of a journal, a pen, headphones, phone, and a sandwich, a coffee in my hand, would Hateful Woman have slammed her carry-on so hard above me? Would she have excused the time I’d taken to get up, thinking of her own daughter or granddaughter and how it took them a while to get their stuff together? Would she have made small talk and gotten to know me a teeny bit? Then would she have smiled fondly at me like the flight attendant walking by the coloring girl had smiled at her right now? I just held myself, alone on a full plane, and mourned silently until I fell asleep for the rest of the flight. • • • And then, Marvels and Oddities, I landed in London. She’s ISIS. ISIS girl should have been expelled. I don’t think me being a muslim and myself would’ve survived in a place where a zero to none understanding and hatred towards my faith was palpable. I live in a country where the majority of the people are muslims. Though I couldn’t comprehend the enormity of discrimination Zayneb received, it broke my heart and made me angry to read about it. I’m a pretty much ‘chill’ person. I hate conflicts so I’ll try to avoid them at any costs. Sometimes it was annoying to see how Zayneb would get so worked up about something. But it was also admirable that she never hesitated to speak up and wouldn’t ever let anyone disrespect and wrong her. I was pretty sure no book could top A Very Large Expanse of Sea in my eyes, but holy smokes!! This muslim love story book by this new-to-me author S.K. Ali was cute and beautiful and heartfelt and educational and just overall wholesome. I used to believe that stories like these two would not make an interesting book to read bcs all the restrictions, rules, and laws in Islam. But turns out they’ve brought a lot of crucial injustice against people of colors, of different faith, and others to light. I’m grateful that because of all these #ownvoices books that have been trending these past few years, we’ve all been educated and become more aware and understanding of ‘multicultural’ issues.

I’m not a violent person. I’m not advocating violence. But I am an angry person. I’m advocating for more people to get angry. Get moved.” You’re going to use this article to do an analysis with the graphic organizer I modeled last class. Assignment due Wednesday, before break, no extensions. Questions? I also appreciated how through her characters main and side alike, the author showed so many different Muslim experiences. From Zayneb who was born and raised Muslim, to Adam who converted at eleven, including her mom who converted when she got married and his dad when he was grieving his own wife. And I love how all the things that make them the Muslim people they are were thrown so casually, as it should be. But this is not a reward, you understand? Dad crossed his arms. You’ll have to do whatever Auntie Natasha says. She’s still working, you know. She’s not going to appreciate you giving her problems. I tilted my head and blinked at her sweater-set self. “Okay.” “Shit. Bitch.” She pretended it was because she couldn’t find her seat-belt slot. “Okay,” I said again, popping headphones on and scrolling on my phone to find the right selection. I turned up the volume and drew the left earphone away from my ear a bit as if adjusting it. A bit of Arabic, a traveling dua, filled the space between Hateful Woman and me. She stared. I smiled. • • • *I know, I know. I hate hateful people was so ironic. But I was born this way. Angry. When my siblings and I were young, my parents had this thing where they liked to sum each of us three kids up by the way we had entered the world. “Sadia had an actual smile on her face. Such a happy baby! Mansoor was calm, serene. And our youngest, Zayneb? She screamed nonstop for hours. A ball of anger!” Dad/Mom would say, laughing when they got to the punch line: me. When I was way younger, I’d get angry at this, their one-dimensional descriptions of us, their reducing us to these simple caricatures, their using me as a punch line. My face would redden, and I’d leave the room, puffing. They’d follow, trying to douse me with excuses for their thoughtlessness. After a while they learned to follow up the punch line with descriptions of my positive qualities. “But Zayneb is the most generous of our kids! Did you know she’s been sponsoring an orphan abroad with her allowance since she was six? He’s two years older than her, and she’s been taking care of him!” They’d beam at preteen me, at my newly developed guarded expression. Then, two years ago, when Mom and Dad had stopped this rudeness, I began not to care that they’d called me an angry baby. Because by then I’d discovered this about myself: I get angry for the right reasons. So I embraced my anger. I was the angry one.Friends & fellow readers: I have finished writing the book. It is a book full of pain, love, anger, love, joy, and soul -- so much of it being the stuff we Muslims hold inside. A thirteenth-century drawing of a tree caught his gaze. It wasn’t particularly striking or artistic. He didn’t know why this tree caused him to stride forward as if magnetized. (When he thinks about it now, his guess is thus: Trees were kind of missing in the landscape he found himself in at the time, and so he was hungry for them.) As they start spending time together, Adam and Zayneb share a common set of values on how they'll behave -- no kissing, no touching, no sexting. Do you think it's a good idea to set some ground rules when you begin dating someone? It’s a good thing my roommate, Jarred, is practically never here. I mean it’s a good thing his girlfriend has her own place.