Willow was raised as an atheist in Colorado, but was attracted to Islam and Arabic in college. Post 9/11, Willow went to Cairo, Egypt for a semester to teach English. She stayed and immersed herself fully in Cairene culture. Willow fell in love with Omar and the two began a relationship and later married. The Butterfly Mosque is Willow's memoir of her physical and spiritual journey in Cairo. I was particularly struck by her conversion to Islam; a choice she made before meeting Omar and one that was expressed personally and internally more so than externally.
Here are a few quotes I liked:
Prior to announcing their intended married to her mother-in-law: "I don't like just showing up like this. 'Hi, I'm your white American in-the-closet-convert future daughter-in-law. I've brought you some flowers and a catastrophe.'" (50)
On her conversion: "Looking back, the way I chose to "come out" taught me something vital: anything undertaken with honest intentions can be justly defended. I never by word or action claimed to possess a higher or a universal truth, only a very personal one; i think this was one of the main reasons I was able to slip quietly into "ordinary" Islam, without the fanfare that accompanies conversion. I never tried to become a mascot; I was just a person, with the usual quirks and faults, who was now Muslim" (107).
On engaging with native and other cultures: "The reason I had stayed in Egypt and invested myself in it so thoroughly was simple: this was the place I found myself in and the people I found myself among, and I wanted to do right by them. I had gone to Egypt to see what Islam was like as a practice and to find out whether the Arab world resembled the one portrayed in the media; I had stayed not to see, but to participate. I had discovered that both Islam and the Arab world were far from ideal--that the religion I loved was becoming steadily warped and was the source of many excuses for violence and ignorance and misanthropy. Yet I was not disappointed. This was what was so impossible to explain to the satisfaction of the people back home: I was not disappointed" (230).
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