The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam - Hardcover

"The Butterfly Mosque is replete with insights into faith, family, cross-cultural courtship and the inevitable 'clash of cultures, ' making it an absorbing read. . . . Wilson's memoir offers the reader valuable insights into the Islamic faith. . . . A remarkable journey, one that illuminates the humanity in us all."--The Seattle Times "Captivating . . . [An] excellent memoir . . . [that] deserves attention; not just for the clarity of [Wilson's] style and her shrewd observations, but for her sincerity and courage in following her own truth."--The Globe and Mail "Eloquent . . . A life-altering adventure in love, faith, and surrender . . . [Wilson] wins the reader over with her courage, her keen intelligence, her insatiable hunger for truth, and her fine writing. It is riveting to watch a liberal, fiercely independent young American transform into a Muslim and an Egyptian daughter-in-law. . . . Much more than a coming-of-age story, Wilson's memoir explores expatriates and anti-Westernism, economics and fundamentalism, Egyptian culture and feminism . . . [and] builds a bridge between the East and the West through her writing."--Charlotte Observer "Wilson's book, particularly in these treacherous times of mistrust and paranoia, is a masterpiece of elegance and determination. . . . Wilson has written one of the most beautiful and believable narratives about finding closeness with God that makes even the most secular reader wince with pleasure for her. . . . A natural-born storyteller."--The Denver Post "Wilson skillfully conveys the terms of complex sociological discord. . . . Her careful examination and forthright wit make her an ideal ambassador to those who haven't . . . separated [Islam] from its attendant terrorist factions and stereotypes. . . . Wilson has the objective sensitivity to understand the attitudes and arguments facing her; she's multicultural, eloquent and humbly persuasive. And even better, she knows how to tell a great story."--Paste Magazine "Wilson's illuminating memoir offers keen insights into Islamic culture. . . . An eye-opening look at a misunderstood and often polarizing faith, Wilson's memoir is bound to spark discussion."--Booklist (starred review) "More than one skeptical reader was thoroughly won over by [Wilson's] lack of preachiness or self-righteousness."--Elle (Readers' Prize) "A gorgeously written memoir about what it means to be human in a fractured world, told with warmth and wit to spare. The Butterfly Mosque is a book that will stay with you for years."--Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War "Satisfying and lyrical . . . [The Butterfly Mosque] proves a tremendously heartfelt, healing cross-cultural fusion."--Publishers Weekly "[An] honest and uplifting memoir . . . [that] embraces--not demonizes--both Muslims and the West as critical foundations for [Wilson's] spiritual journey."--The Huffington Post "Thoughtful . . . Wilson's gorgeously written, deeply felt memoir is more than a plea for understanding. It's also a love story and an exploration of life in a culture far removed from ours. . . . [The Butterfly Mosque] pulls aside the veil on a world many Americans judge based on thin, sometimes ugly, media stereotypes. Wilson's sincere love for her faith blooms on almost every page [and] that heartfelt desire to know The Other infuses the book with soul."--Boulder Daily Camera "Memoirs like Wilson's continue to be an important counterpoint to the tales of Mideast belligerence that fill the nightly news."--Winnipeg Free Press "What the reader takes away from [The Butterfly Mosque], besides an appreciation for Wilson's limning of Cairene life, is not the feeling that Islam and the West should never have been at odds. Rather, if there is a theological revelation, it's the approach Wilson models as a literary critic: she's a better one, capable of reading ironically, than fundamentalists of any stripe. . . . [Wilson] reveals not the correct or final interpretation but the value of interpretation itself."--Powells Books

The extraordinary story of an all-American girl's conversion to Islam and her ensuing romance with a young Egyptian man, The Butterfly Mosque is a stunning articulation of a Westerner embracing the Muslim world. When G. Willow Wilson--already an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East at just twenty-seven--leaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course that leads to her shocking conversion to Islam and sends her on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future. She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and submerges herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition. Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow records her intensely personal struggle to forge a "third culture" that might accommodate her own values without compromising the friends and family on both sides of the divide.