When Dunya Khair writes a controversial article in the newspaper challenging the status quo in her country, the response — ranging from adulation to death threats — is swift. In this exclusive excerpt, Nejoud Al-Yagout’s novel When the Haboob Sings paints a striking portrait of a woman whose unshakeable resolve to preserve her authenticity costs her more than she ever imagined.
Nejoud Al-Yagout
My mailbox quickly filled up. Men criticizing, men supporting, women agreeing, whining about their husbands, their veils, their woes, their pressures, women condemning me, fans agreeing, followers lamenting, and I, the writer, responded to each and every one of them. I remember one person tagged me on social media exclaiming her excitement that I, the writer, was humble enough to respond to her and thank her for her support. Her post was an excerpt of my response — without my permission, but who was I to say anything to someone who was publicly praising me? — and the caption was filled with hearts and more hearts. Although there were only about twenty emails, it was my first taste of celebrity, and the attention galvanized me.
The week after the gender equality article, I wrote an article asking why children of local women married to expatriates had no citizenship. Why, I wrote, did local men who married women from other countries automatically pass their citizenship on to their offspring? I added that it was unfair of the state to ask potential spouses from other religions to convert to Islam. Why should anyone interfere in something as personal as marriage? If women here want to get married to others outside the faith, I wrote, that should be between them and their husbands. Why does the state prefer that both parents are Muslim? Why can a local Muslim man marry a Christian or a Jew, but a local Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim?
Here is something I did not include in the article: I know a local Muslim woman who married a Christian. He pretended to convert to have their marriage recognized by the state, but he remained a devout Christian. People were asking whether this man, in his early thirties, got circumcised! The bride said yes, but that was an outright lie. It does not bother anyone whether a person has truly converted or not. In any case, he becomes a poster child for conversion, another headcount in the statistics of Muslims in the world.
Here is another thing I did not include in the article: My friend Layla has an aunt who married a Coptic man from Egypt. Her aunt had secretly become a Coptic as well. During one of the gentleman’s visits back home to Alexandria, as he was praying in a church, bombs exploded. At the hospital, he begged the doctors not to reveal his identity for fear of backlash from his wife’s family. He came back here without a limb and to this day everyone thinks he had been in a car accident. Can you imagine not being able to recount such an important incident in one’s life? To suffer in silence? To have to live a lie like that because one’s religion might be offensive or against the marital law? Layla’s aunt only revealed the truth to Layla, and when Layla relayed the story to me I could not stop crying.
Anyway, back to my article, the one that touched a nerve among the public, the one about marrying outside the faith. A renowned local cleric berated me on social media. He addressed me by name and tagged me, stating in his post: “Dunya, the reason the state interferes with the religion of the spouse is because everyone in the world should be Muslim. And that is that. Be careful, you are treading on the grounds of infidels.”
Suddenly Infamous
And just like that, I was famous. A popular local cleric was aware of my writing and had addressed me directly. He knew who I was. This was a man known for his radical views. And now his Twitter feed was flooded with comments liking what he said to me. I waited a couple of hours to respond and finally commented: “Thank you for your view. I appreciate your feedback.”
To which he responded: “I have a sermon on Thursday about the beauty of Islam. Please join us. It will enlighten you.”
And I replied: “Thank you for the invitation.” Although I did not add: “I can’t make it.” Or, “I won’t be there, not interested.” I did not need someone telling me about the beauty of religion. Especially not someone with radical views.
I got to reading emails. I glimpsed through some of them and read others intently. But the response that stood out for me the most was from someone who called himself Mr. X, who addressed his email as a thank you letter and began in a pleasant tone that swiftly turned caustic:
To: Dunya Khair
From: Mr. X
Subject: Thank you
Hello there Dunya,
I read your article regarding women marrying outside the faith. In your article, you also included that it was unjust that women who marry men from other countries cannot pass citizenship on to their children. I agree with you regarding the latter. My nephew is a victim of this prejudice. My sister married a Jordanian man and my nephew faces the stigma of having a local mother and a foreign father. Although his father is an Arab and a Muslim, he is made fun of at school for his accent and is bullied by boys outside of school for being different. And so I thank you for addressing that.
But the part about marrying a non-Muslim is blasphemous and I wish we lived in a country where you were charged with the appropriate punishment: death. You deserve to die. People like you should not be allowed to roam freely with the living. How dare you!
This is how it starts. First, people like you test the waters by saying it is okay to marry outside the faith. A little time passes, nobody says much, and maybe you will begin to tell people it is okay to have doubts. You might think that is not enough and start to invite others to leave the faith altogether. Finally, you could insult our faith, and what next? It keeps going on and on unless we put an end to it now. Better to kill the virus before it spreads.
Do not consider this a death threat. I value my life too much to threaten you. I value weapons too much to use them on someone as vile and as disgusting and as parasitical as you. I would never spend my time languishing in jail for someone like you, although I hope someone else feels otherwise and makes it his mission to ensure that you disappear from our planet. I hope that person kills you so we put an end to such a vicious attack on our culture. Still, I thank you for making people aware of how diseased we are. You have sparked debates in our country, you have divided us, but you have also made us aware that we are slipping away from our values. You are the tumor we needed to cure our society of the cancer of waywardness.
I know there are thousands like you and killing one person will not do much. But I hope you will become an example for others who dare to follow your footsteps. I hope through your death people will learn to keep their mouths shut.
Do you know what you are? You are a haboob, a dust storm. A destructive haboob that obscures vision. But even the most powerful haboob has no chance but to disappear in time. Even the most powerful haboob is forgotten. And I hope your time is up, Dunya Khair. And I hope that people will forget you, Dunya Khair.
I know the threat of eternal punishment does not terrify you because you do not believe in anything except yourself and your distorted mission to corrupt the minds of people around you. I know you must write to seek supporters and find safety in numbers. But you will never be safe. I hope you know that. Again, I am not threatening you, just expressing my wish to see you pay for what you have done by dying an ignoble death, rotting in the afterlife, you sick woman, you sick, dirty, ugly woman.
I can’t even believe I am taking the time out of my day to even write this to you. You do not even deserve a second of my time or anyone’s time.
I thank you again and again for reminding us that there is an illness we need to recover from fast.
From someone who hates you with a hatred that surpasses even his own capability for hatred,
Mr. X
I read and reread the email again and again. I checked my phone. Four missed calls from Adam. I called him back and told him about the exchange with the cleric and I read him the email from Mr. X.
An Understanding Partner
“Sick people out there. Sick. Try not to read your emails, baby. Just write your articles and forget about all the feedback.” That is what my Adam said to me. He added that I have his respect and support and, to me, that is all that mattered.
Adam and I were a team, fighting and making up, yelling at one another and calming each other down. It was an arranged marriage, which is surprising for someone as liberal as me — I know, I know. But I never tried dating, even though I got married fairly late for my society, a couple of years shy of my thirtieth birthday. A few guys had approached me before Adam and tried to get my number, but I ignored them.
I was too scared to have a boyfriend because I did not want to go through the stress of worrying whether or not a man was serious about marrying me. I also did not want to get caught by my parents.
When I graduated from university at the age of 21, I asked my mom to find a husband for me. Mom, in turn, asked her friend, who asked her friend and after seven years — yes, seven! — of searching for a suitable life partner, I was introduced to Adam, the son of my father’s business partner’s cousin’s acquaintance. Mama’s friends and relatives had introduced me to many men throughout the years, but I rejected each of them, even though many of them were eager to propose. My mother warned me that I would be a spinster if I continued being picky, but I wanted a life partner, not social validation. And it was this patience that led me to Adam.
Adam and I clicked at first sight. Our mothers left us alone in the living room of Adam’s family home, and we spoke for two hours with our chaperones sitting patiently in the adjacent reception area. The marriage was rushed. I was 28 and he was 35. We were not in love, but we were drawn to each other. We spent hours on the phone and never ran out of things to say. And as a result, I do not think anyone saw any reason for delay.
I remember him confessing he was an atheist during our engagement, half expecting me to break it off. And though at that point I had privately renounced my religion too, I was a lover of God, and so I tried to convince him that God exists and he tried to convince me otherwise. At some point during the courtship, we grew tired of debating and agreed to disagree, avoiding the topic altogether.
When we first got married, I was surprised to learn that my atheist husband was a devout worshipper in public who walked to the mosque every Friday with our neighbors. But instead of criticizing him, I woke him up half an hour before the call to prayer.
For a few months, he stopped going to the mosque altogether. But he resumed going after my article defending local women who want to marry non-Muslims. I suppose he did not want people to know he agreed with me.
After writing about gender equality, and about why women here cannot marry non-Muslims, I wrote about the roles of men and women. I wrote of men behind closed doors and in the public eye. I wrote about why men will not defend their wives in public, how they are afraid to be referred to as steering wheels, and why it is important that men stand up for us, so we are no longer subjugated. I hit the send button and woke up the next day to my cell phone ringing. It was Adam. I wanted to read the emails before answering his call. I was sure he was angry and I wanted to distract myself. There were many unread emails. I scrolled down and saw an email from Mr. X. I did not open it and reported it as spam. Goodbye Mr. X. I randomly picked emails to read and spam. I was tired of the hate. Why even bother getting in touch if you hate me so much? One man verbally harassed me in his email, calling me vulgar and inane, there was an email from a woman who said I do not represent the fairer sex (is that not considered a derogatory phrase these days?), and an email from a famous local marriage counselor who said that, as a wife with duties and responsibilities, I was not honoring the sanctity of marriage.
Adam called back again. I answered this time.
“It sounds like you are talking about me in your latest article. Dammit D,” he said.
“Well,” I responded, “I have to start my op-eds from something that affects me personally, and yes, in some cases, our conversations, recent and past, inspire me.”
The reaction to this article got progressively more intense. I lost count of the emails that arrived all day and all night. Several people declared me a feminist, as though it were an insult. I did not consider myself one, far from it. And though I had written back-to-back articles defending women, I did not deserve the label.
And because they called me a feminist, I started changing the subjects, as I did not want to be confined to a label. I wrote among other things about road rage, censorship, youth activism, political correctness, cultural appropriation, our invisible caste system, the far left and the far right, distribution of wealth, democracy, and finally, I wrote about apostasy. Two years after establishing myself as a somewhat controversial writer who always left room for loopholes, for no, I didn’t mean that, it’s open for interpretation in every piece, I finally wrote about leaving religion. And you cannot find a loophole in that.
One by one, each of the papers to which I had submitted the article rejected it, saying it was offensive or too sensitive, even dangerous, aren’t you afraid this will get you in trouble? But I was not afraid. Not one bit. I held no claims over the right path, but I knew the path that was right for me. And I wanted to defend myself, and others, who were on this path. I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless.
“Apostasy is a crime, and you will be persecuted. It is a duty for them to persecute you,” one editor said to me over the phone.
“Well, this is my viewpoint,” I retorted.
“Your viewpoint is filled with contempt,” he said, right before hanging up on me.
How rude! I felt afraid, not for my life, but that I was being judged for hating a religion I did not hate. I had nothing against Islam. It brought me up, it took care of me, it held my hand, and it sheltered me when storms were raging within and without me. How could I hate it? It would be like hating a nanny who raised me. But I grew afraid of my nanny. There was the constant threat of abuse and a lifetime of agony if I did not obey. I noticed all the other nannies were the same, so I could not hire another one, nor did I need one anymore. Each one, in her own way, had a set of rules: Iron your clothes, lay them out on your bed in the morning, go to sleep early, brush your teeth, take a shower at this time, go out on this day, and do not ever complain. Ever. “And don’t worry,” the nanny whispered in a menacing tone, “if you obey me, I will make your bed and cook for you. If you do not obey me, though, I will throw you out of the house to sleep on the streets and then cook you in a boiling pot. For eternity.”
