A woman’s Islamic journey
Tue Sep 24, 7:57 AM ET
Yasmine Bahrani USA TODAY
Taslima Nasrin often is called the female Salman Rushdie. In 1994, traditionalist Muslims placed a fatwa on her. They said her novel Shame, about Muslim violence toward Hindus, blasphemed Islam. After a $10,000 bounty was placed on her head, Nasrin, a doctor, was forced into exile.
Her autobiography, Meyebela (‘‘girlhood’’ in Bengali), is a richly detailed story of a traditional upbringing amid difficult change. Set when East Pakistan was gaining independence under the new name of Bangladesh, the memoir juxtaposes the cruelty of war and famine with the sweet friendships and games of childhood. As Nasrin grows older, the games give way to other, often darker, matters: the arranged marriages of her friends, a cousin’s death after a botched abortion and her own encounters with sex abuse.
When Nasrin describes life in the countryside, where girls must stay at home, her poignant words reflect her developing consciousness. ‘‘I had heard so much about the tender green beauty of the countryside,’’ she writes, ‘‘but here I was, unable to dance among the swaying rice stalks, to go wherever my fancy took me, to get lost in the distant fields and listen to the flute of a young shepherd boy.’’
It is when she describes the flowering of her curiosity, however, that she foreshadows the controversial woman she will become. Why, she asked as a child, must she learn Arabic to read the Koran? Doesn’t God speak Bengali?
To those who charge that the West celebrates Nasrin for blasphemy rather than talent, this incident might signal the early traits that would bring her notoriety and disrepute. After all, a believer must never question Islam or its holy book.
Yet to her admirers, the incident offers insight into the sources of her strength. Nasrin’s book, like her life, can and will be read in different ways by different people.
Because of her reputation as a critic of Islam, readers might think events recounted in her memoir are examples of Islamic injustice to women. There are many female victims in Meyebela, Nasrin among them. But it is at least debatable whether they are the victims of Islamic injustice or victims of constraints found in many traditional cultures, regardless of religion. Girls and women of other faiths who grew up in the same region as Nasrin faced similar problems, and men faced problems of their own: Nasrin’s brother was ostracized for marrying a Hindu girl.
Nasrin emerged from a strict society – one that is led today by a woman, Khalida Zia. Yet the family that kept her indoors as a girl made sure she had a good education. Her physician father, Nasrin writes in Meyebela, encouraged her to become a doctor and urged her to surpass him.
She became a woman both of controversy and spirit, seeking to heal not only physical but also social ills, regardless of their origin.
Meyebela: My
Bengali Girlhood
By Taslima Nasrin
Taslima Nasrin - USA Today