I’m a little late posting this. Here are a few excerpts:
Clad in his Sunday sweatpants and a long blue Pakistani-style shirt, Ali, a 59-year old African American Muslim elder, popped in a DVD of “Big Love” – the HBO series about Mormon polygamists in Utah.
“Dude’s not handling this well at all,” he says as he watches Bill Paxton play an overburdened husband with three wives. “You know, I feel sorry for dude.”
Ali – who prefers to only use his first name – faces the challenges of polygamy every day. For 10 years, he’s been religiously married to two women, and lives with them under one roof in a working-class neighborhood of San Diego. Tuesday through Thursday he sleeps with his wife Hasanah on the first floor, then Saturday through Monday it’s upstairs with his second wife Asiila. That leaves his office, cluttered with photocopies of Quranic sayings and dusty pictures of relatives in hijab, as his only private room in the house.
“We get our time off, we got a sisterhood thing going on,” chuckles Asiila, 50, Ali’s wife of 15 years. She crosses her ankles underneath her overhead khimar, a black dress that covers her from head to toe. “To me, polygyny (polygamy) is for the woman. It’s really for the woman.”
This San Diego family’s life is part of a small but increasingly visible phenomenon of African American Muslims practicing polygamy, according to Debra Mubashir Majeed, associate professor and chairwoman of philosophy and religious studies at Beloit College in Wisconsin. For her research, she surveyed more than 400 Black Muslims and interviewed more than 15 polygamists.
“Most African American women who are into polygyny do so by choice,” says Majeed, adding that their reasons range from their interpretation of the Quran, to desire for independence, to needing a father for their children.
She says that a shortage of marriageable black Muslim men may be one reason polygamy is embraced.
“With the high number of African American men in prison, on drugs, out of work, or unavailable in some other way … the options are limited,” Majeed said.
I’m not sure if this is an offensive statement or not! It may explain the male POV but not the female.
Mohamed El Sheikh, executive director of the Islamic Jurisprudential Council of North America, said that many American converts to Islam, of all races and ethnicities, are already accustomed to having multiple sexual partners.
“After accepting Islam, some have continued this practice by giving the status of spouse to their sexual partners using the Islamic law,” El Sheikh said.
I remember when this sister was blogging.
Thirty-eight-year-old Azeez of upstate New York says the current shortage of eligible African American men justifies his plural Islamic marriage. The former Olympic wrestler converted to Islam 18 years ago and works as a technician.
“You have all these women out there,” he said, “and Allah has given a remedy to a situation.”
Azeez splits his week between two wives, who live half an hour away from each other. He fully supports his first wife, and is a father to his second wife’s son from another relationship. He says he didn’t consider taking on more than one wife, until he got a raise and the second wife agreed to help financially support herself.
“If it’s for you,” he said, “then Allah will make it easy for you.”
His 22-year-old first wife, who refers to herself as Miz Azeez, recently published diary-style writings about her marriage in “Polygynous Blessings: Musings of a Muslim Wife.” Her love for Allah, she says, frees her from dependence on her husband.
“With passionate love, and the whole concept of love in American culture … They put (their husband) up to a status like Allah. Like this is their life source, like if that person leaves, they’re dead – that’s it, life can’t go on. I don’t have that type of love for my husband.”
Miz Azeez says sharing her husband brings her closer to him and to God. After a year and a half of living in polygamy, she says she would never live any other way.
This story is pretty typical.
It wasn’t as easy for one anonymous 53-year-old American Muslim woman in the Washington, D.C., area to share her husband. After they had five children together, he took on other women, a total of four on separate occasions. When the international entrepreneur married a woman in a Muslim country, the first wife found herself financially insecure and alone for months at a time.
“I was just not prepared to include another family in that struggle,” she said, about her decision to divorce her husband after 10 years of polygamy. “I felt forced to rise to the occasion, and I felt I as the current wife had some rights.”
You can read the entire article here
Very interesting indeed. I must put up a link on my own blog!
Ok totally an unrelated topic but back to maid issues…ok if you had a house just as big in the US, would you have less cleaning to do? and if so, how?
The reason i’m wondering is that every other saudi blog I happen to read mentions needing a maid. Is it mainly because its affordable and obviously people with a couple of kids could EASILy need the help, or is because you SERIOUSLY need the help?
Cuz for instance, im thinking of families with 4+ kids in the US who normally do not have any nanny/maid help. And they are ‘expected’ to survive and having a maid is a luxury here obviously. (Actually scratch that slightly..i see a lot of babysitting ads with stay at home moms needing a nanny).
I guess for people w/ that many kids, not everyone homeschools so daycare and carryout and mommy working and school takes care of the maid need. Cuz yur not home cleaning all the time. Instead yur out earning.
am i answring my own questions
?
Anyway, u get what i’m saying right? I’m just trying to understand life there a bit better.
Interesting to look at the different problems some others are struggling with isn’t it? And yet as the above comment points out there are similarities as you look for them.
Yes, that comment of his was an insult. It’s always interesting to me to see how SOME eastern “pure” muslims can talk about how much fornication converts from the west commit, yet most of them come from places where shirk is rampant! As if zina is any worse than shirk. Fornication is forgiven, shirk is not.
That is, assuming this is the same Mohammed Shaikh in the DC area.
Forgot to add…the one that’s from Sudan?
“With the high number of African American men in prison, on drugs, out of work, or unavailable in some other way … the options are limited,” Majeed said.
Ummu Rahma, I believe this is the statement that she was questioning if it was offensive or not.
I think it is. For some reason some black think less of minority women, especially black women. In essence he’s stating that black women ought to be happy with half of husband because we can’t do any better.
I thought she was offended by El Sheik calling us sluts?
I may have misunderstood which quote Umm Adam was referring to, but nevertheless, I do take his statement as an insult. Although I am sure that he did not intend it that way, since he’s an old and dear friend of my father’s (an Africanamerican), and has known my siblings and me since we were little ‘uns. But my point is that some easterners often view themselves as superior to converts, and often use zina (as if all converts even committed zina in their pasts) to prove it. Just look at some of the comments on Musleemah’s post about the brother (Allaah yarhamuh) with the two wives.
I was refering to the the western whore/player mentality. They really do beliee the hype. ask any convert and they will tell you how interested some Arab women can be for details of your juicy (in their dreams) jahiliyah. I can partially understand, as I have a rule now to never ask female converts how they met their Arab husbands.
That’s a good rule ,masha Allah, as a lot of Muslims have difficulties covering their sins and that’s nasty to want to hear it!
I have wondered what would be the etiquette about that, I mean I know the sins of jilhaliya are forgiven-but it seems we shouldn’t glorify them and at best continue to cover them-though this is sometimes nearly impossible, like children out of wedlock and visible tattoos!…also, we know some of the jilhaliya of the sahaba.
I’ve seen sisters be weird on both sides-the ones who converted and married their Muslim boyfriends, subhanallah many seem to practice better than their hubbies!…as well as sisters disgusted by brothers dating non-Muslim women when there are so many Muslim women to marry-um, but why would a practicing sis want that???
Anyhoo…my key point here is…Allah (swt) guides whom he wills…and how he wills.
Oh, and about men that “convert” to marry sisters-I have yet to seen that scenario end well…
“Mohamed El Sheikh, executive director of the Islamic Jurisprudential Council of North America, said that many American converts to Islam, of all races and ethnicities, are already accustomed to having multiple sexual partners.”
Oh okay. Well, you know, I dont know about the convert sisters, because many Ive met were indeed pretty chaste before Islam. But for the revert men, especially the minorities who are more apt to polygyny than white Muslim, I think the brother hit the mark on the head. Many black men are accoustomed to “having” many women. Indeed I said “having” not supporting. And I definitely think this is the main reason why they enter Islam and automatically feel entitled to polygyny, regardless of their status.
Umm Adam, c’mon now girl. You know an old school playa who enters Islam from the correctional institute usuallay will have no problems finding 2, 3 or even four wives in a five year span. My cousin has a saying, game doesn’t change, it gets repackaged. May Allah help our families.
As Salaamu Alaikum:
“Many black men are accoustomed to ‘having’ many women” …
Who are these women that the black men are ‘having’? I think the same goes for some black women. It is not uncommon (in Philadelphia, near where I live) to see converted AA sisters who have a history of having been divorced and remarried multiple times. Some as many times as the brothers. Sometimes it is not the brother’s fault.
Just hate to see the AA brothers get ALL the bad press.
Sister Brooke: I know of two Arab women who converted Caucasian brothers to marry them. It does not go well for either of them. It’s like “What else do you want? Oh, you want me to pray, etc.?” Don’t even want to know how they met these men. My husband and I went to an Eid dinner at one of their homes. My husband had to lead the salaat while the husband sat in the kitchen talking. Very sad. The sister also feels very sad, believe me. What will she tell her daughter, who she is raising as Muslim, Alhamdulillah, when she gets older and asks why daddy doesn’t pray? I say dua that Allah (swt) will bring these brothers to the Straight Path. After all, He did bring them to Islam, albeit through a strange door. Allah (swt) is so powerful and can increase the imaan of whomever He pleases.
It is true that some love the juicy details of a convert’s pre-Islamic life. And even their Muslim life if they are new to Islam and naive enough to tell. To make a long story short, I started attending a masjid in a new town after my husband and I were separated, many years ago. At the time, I really didn’t know any better, being a new Muslim and all. So I “shared” with my sisters … ALL my marital woes. I was in so much pain. I was looking for the comfort and support I was used to in my former life. Girls … they were on the edge of their seats!!!
the juiciest details of ones jahilyah is to be kept secret. That was teh practise of teh sahbbah and as far as I know covvering our sins includes them. there is something that might have been from their jahilayah that the sahabbah radi allah anhum would take and benefit from but its not like telkling hood stories with name drops. If you read teh story from pre islamic makkah regarding teh man and his daughter ( whom he buried alive) then you benefit from that teh darkness of shirk and jahl that teh Arabs came from into teh light of Islam.
As for this article then its a joke. it offers a sensational look at teh revert community, focus on the multiple marriages not on the struggles to free themselves of Shirk and Bida’h or the plkaythings of that such as drugs or their struggles to forge ahead with masjids and schools with their own har earned cash.
Polygany for the press offers the chance to accuse even those who choose Life in the after Life of being nothing more than chasing women/men types. The Kuffar even accuse teh beloved prophet sallahu alayhis wassallam of being a sensualist. Thats why they bring up the issue of polygany with revets as if to show that all the people who chose Life after death and not punishment didn’t do so out of knowing that what they were raised upon ( christainity in most cases) is wrong. They try to use it to say that really they just players in a new grament.
Lies. Polygany is a part of Islam and those reverts who have wholly submitted to Allah and become Muslims may or may not practise it as a solution for themselves.
period.