Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged by Ayisha Malik
Sofia is like many other thirty-year old working women in the big city. She suffers the daily indignities of a horrendous commute. She’s a publicist at a London publishing house currently flogging a book about hippos; she has a tight knit group of girlfriends who share everything with each other, analyzing the men in their lives and seeking support and guidance that is just a text away. Sort of like Sex and The City, without the Sex…. or the Cosmopolitans. Did I mention that Sofia is Muslim? So there’s no sex and no alcohol. Oh, and she’s a hijabi.
Author Ayisha Malik has acknowledged the inspiration of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones for her debut novel and, as with many authors, Jane Austen’s influence looms large too. After deciding to break up with her boyfriend Imran because he wants to them to get married and live in a house with his family, Sofia Khan somehow gets corralled into writing a book about Muslim dating. Ayisha Malik used to work as a publicist where she was also encouraged to write a book about Muslim dating, so Sofia’s life has some grounding in reality.
At first she thinks it’s a ridiculous idea, but it’s clear that her colleagues have a one dimensional view of Islam that she might be able to help change. “This is good, Sofia: this is very good.’ I could see the vein in Brammers’s forehead protruding. ‘We could think of all types of things – forced marriages, honor killings.” Maybe she could do something to educate people, and even make it funny? “Perhaps this is God’s way of saying, here, you might not have a man, but have a book instead. I was, after all, looking for something meaningful, and this is like volunteering my literary services to help people have a better understanding of the Muslim world; a bit of light relief in the face of chronic darkness.”
At a time when Islamophobia is on the rise, it’s wonderful to read a novel with a Muslim protagonist that is funny and real and eye opening. Set in London, Sofia Khan is what is known as “British Asian” over there. Her parents are Pakistani immigrants and she and her sister are definite Londoners. She though, unlike her parents is a hijabi who prays five times a day. Her parents are wary of her scarf wearing, concerned that it will make her a target of abuse and attacks. Indeed, early on in the novel Sofia is called a terrorist by a fellow traveler on the tube. Her retort doesn’t come fast enough “Oi,’ I shouted. ‘Terrorists don’t wear vintage shoes you ignorant wanker!” but the doors were already closed. The retelling of this incident and her recent breakup (her own choice) is what leads to the idea for the book.
As part of her research she interviews her friends and signs up on the website Shaadi.com, Shaadi means wedding by the way. She calls it Shady.com and starts looking for love (for research). The book proceeds as you would expect, interesting/funny encounters with men, there’s a wedding about to take place for her sister, one girlfriend is divorced, the other is about to become a second wife. All in a day’s work when you are planning to write a book about Muslim dating.
What works for me particularly in this book is that the picture she paints of the Asian community in London is very authentic. There is a gaggle of aunties who want to know how she could walk away from a marriage, especially someone she chose herself. She is only 30 but in Muslim years, you know, she is past her sell by date. There is an awful lot of tea being made and drunk, far flung relatives pass judgement and meddle and, of course, many gatherings revolve around food. Shady.com is interested in data for your profile like your blood group, how many married siblings you have and whether your skin is fair or wheatish. Sofia’s mother hands out tubes of Fair and Lovely, a skin whitening cream that is hugely popular in South Asia. There's also a tattooed white neighbor that they haven't spoken to but are suspicious of. This is all so familiar to me as an Indian British Asian. Yes, Pakistani and Indians do have a lot in common culture if not religion.
What I wish Malik had explored a little more was Sofia’s decision to become a hijabi, or scarfie as her parents call it. They feel it makes her a target and are unhappy about it. A potential suitor she meets is a “beardie” unlike his parents, they worry about him being seen as a “fundo” (fundamentalist).
We learn that Sofia started to wear a scarf after 9/11, moved by an imam’s call that the events are a test from Allah “One of the greatest things a person can face on earth is the test of separation. Separation, in any form, is loss, but remember the greatest separation is that of hope. Ignore people who blame us for the actions of a few because a person who has faith is never separated from hope.” We don’t get much more insight than that. The fact that this is such an important part of her identity, and it is so at odds with her parents’ outlook, it would have been an interesting vein to tap narratively. We get the laughs about the oddity her colleagues see it as (“Can I touch your hair.”) but what about the deeper conversations with her parents and peers?
This is a book that is, in some ways, so particularly British, I don’t know that it would have been published first in the States, but it is now available in paperback on Amazon. The UK has had a history of immigrant Muslim populations, particularly the ones from the sub-continent, who are part of the fabric of British life, along with the national dish chicken tikka masala. There are now first and second generation British Asians in prominent roles in politics, media, business and entertainment, something that you don’t really see in the States yet. The fact that London elected its first British-Asian-Muslim Mayor last year, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver speaks volumes.
We probably only hear about young British Muslims when there is a story about radicalization. This book is the perfect antidote to that one dimensional picture and you will come away having been thoroughly entertained and perhaps also enlightened. And good news, Sofia Khan is back, the sequel is available this spring.
Before You Read:
Length: 455 pages
Genre: Humor, Fiction
Themes: love, marriage, faith
Commitment: a breeze to read, funny and engaging
