Devout Muslim mom conveys message of faith

Iwas sitting at the immigration office this week with a client, fuming because the officer was taking what seemed like hours to fill out one form, stamp it and send us on our way. First World problems are my specialty, including worrying about not being able to find a good latte, missing the bus and running out of my favorite brand of shampoo.

I say “First World problems,” because I was sitting with a woman who had undergone one of the most barbaric practices known to man: female circumcision. She was waiting to find out when her next immigration hearing would be scheduled, and she was surrounded by other people who were victims of their own hellish histories, refugees from war, famine, religious persecution and the brutal consequences of political dissent.

So, while I waited, I engaged “Salimata” in conversation. We spoke about her daughter, a 6-year-old dynamo who is fluent in English, French and her mother’s native Mandingo. It was primarily for that child that Salimata filed for asylum in the first place. She did not want “Aicha” to suffer the same barbarism she had been subjected to as a 5-yearold. She remembered being taken by her grandmother to a room, along with seven or eight other girls, being held by neighbors, having her legs pushed open and watching as her mother’s mother used a dull knife to cut into her genitals.

Salimata could not bear the thought that this could happen to her daughter, and if she were forced to return to the Ivory Coast, it would. According to the 2015 State Department Reports for Human Rights Practices, “Female Genital Mutilation was a serious problem in some parts of the country. The predominant form of FGM was type II-removal of clitoris and labia … more than 50 percent of FGM is done before the age of five.”

To calm my client, I tried to turn her attention away from past and future horror and asked about Aicha. She smiled and told me all about how bright she is, how much she loves Disney princesses and how happy she is in school. To my amazement, that school is a Catholic one.

And in an almost surreal moment, I listened as a devout Muslim woman in a hijab and full-length dress explained to me, a Catholic woman in leggings and an oversized sweater, how wonderful my own faith is, how good the nuns are and how she appreciates the way Aicha is learning respect and obedience.

“They take good care of her,” she said.

That led to a discussion of how children today lack respect for their elders. Salimata said many of the children in her village were taught by nuns, and it was very common in Frenchspeaking Africa for the first and most important educational experiences to be imparted in Catholic school rooms with crucifixes on the wall.

On the way home, I thought about the anomalous beauty of hearing a Muslim woman in a hijab tell me how much she appreciates my faith. A woman who is fighting to protect her daughter from certain torture felt that my faith, above all others, offers the best hope to that child.

And so I posted a comment on Facebook. And waited. It didn’t take long.

The first few comments were kind, fist pumps of appreciation and solidarity for an anxious mother. There were also some mini-history lessons.

But then, like the fetid humidity after a summer rain, comments started rolling in about Islam not being “a true religion,” about “apostasy,” about “violence,” about “deviation from the pure faith of Christians” and about “terror.”

Indeed, the cutting of a little girl to keep her “virtuous” is terrorism. But it is not uniquely practiced by Muslims in Africa.

I’m not immune to the anger that rises from the gut, engulfs the heart and enrages the brain when I hear about a jihadist attack. I am not stupid enough to believe religion is irrelevant to those incidents of blood and revenge. I despise the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the knee-jerk protectionism displayed by Muslims who refuse to march in the streets and condemn the killing. And don’t tell me they do it. If they do, it’s a whisper, not a roar.

But for every terrorist, there is a woman like Salimata — mothers who love their daughters as much as any Christian or Jew and have the grace and clarity of vision to know that when it comes to a child’s welfare, tribal loyalties are toxic. Aicha’s mother wears a hijab but respects and even adores other women who wear the veils of another creed.

Deliberately failing to appreciate that is a sin, in any faith.