A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds by Safi Abdi

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Potential conflicts are piling up in this story about a relationship, which, at the outset, has all the ingredients of failure. Anisa is black, hails from Rako Island, a place in the East, and is raised in the Islamic faith. Mike is white, a warm American, but he has no particular religious feelings.

Anisa starts out life in the US as an exchange student, and her first encounter with the West is disturbing, but a year down the road and she soon begins to adapt, and short while later forgets all about her roots. Far away from the constraints of family, Anisa flows with the tide of Western liberalism, and it is in this hedonistic environment that she meets Mike. She’s pretty. He’s available. And neither ponders the big questions of life, or give much thought to the hurdles that others like Faiza, Yusuf, or even her best friend, Floor, see coming. The two tie the knot, and it’s only after the birth of their second child that the cracks are truly felt outside the walls.

But while the book beats drums about the pitfalls of a mixed marriage, a new window opens out into a totally different world, and the reader is ushered into Safi’s world, where people are people, and a spade is called a spade, and the reader is left to shake hands with friends and foes that jump off the pages of this brilliant novel. Inspiring, educating, delightful.

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• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

May God steal from you all that steals you from Him (Doorkeeper of the heart –Versions of Rabi’a)

The front door stood ajar. Anisa pushed through the narrow opening. As the gray metal door clicked shut behind her, her mother’s voice grounded her to the hot asphalt.

"Are you saying what I’m thinking you’re saying?" her mother was saying to someone. "Not that I’ve any regrets about being a homemaker, but, I’d rather Anisa went on with her studies."

Eventually, when she found enough strength to move on, Anisa tottered to the farthest corner of the open courtyard and flopped onto a cement bench underneath the cool shade of a cluster of palm trees garlanding the kitchen entrance. This was the family’s favorite spot a leafy corner in an otherwise austere patio. Anisa’s fingers caressed the batches of orchids, oleander and periwinkle blossoming freshly beneath the smooth trunks. These were her late father’s pride before death claimed him last summer. She had just turned fifteen then, and her brothers, the twins, Hassan and Hussein, were not yet three.

Anisa’s eyes moistened with apprehension, dreading an unknown adversary. She was transported to a time, not long ago, when all she did was patter around the patio, being the-right-hand-lady of her father, helping him with this or that, doing small jobs here and there. She was, in fact, there when her father single-handedly painted the wall around their house all white, and she remembered chiding him for not waiting for her to hold the ladder for him. She had scolded him in the same way for coating his new white shirt green while painting the kitchen.

"Did you hear me say that Anisa must quit her studies at once?" said a new voice, stifling Anisa’s reverie. This must be Aunt Huda, Anisa thought and flinched.

"I merely reiterated Rahma’s wishes. Jibreel’s not any other young man. He’s the state secretary’s son, and a humble, intelligent young man at that."

The speaker paused. Anisa‘s dark hazel eyes squinted at the blinding brilliance of the turquoise sky as she waited for the speaker’s next words.

"Moreover," Aunt Huda continued, "Rako Island’s no longer Rako Island. Fatima, take a good look around you girls much younger than Anisa are being spotted everyday in the company of young men, sometimes even in the arms of the kafir. Here’s a good chance for you to steer her away from such foolishness."

"I hate to say this to you, Aunt Huda, and I know you mean well," Anisa’s mother replied, "but I know my daughter."

"What mother doesn’t know her daughter?" threw in Aunt Huda.

"Well, I know my daughter and the last thing on my mind is to put into her head any ideas that might conflict with her schooling. Her uncle and I would rather she went on to further studies. And I do have high hopes of her spiritual growth. I put my trust in Allah and hope that she won’t betray that trust."

"But, dear Fatima," butted in another voice, this time Aunt Rahma’s, "we’re not here to curtail a young girl’s life, nor are we prophets of doom."