Muna Saleh - Stories We Live and Grow By: (Re)Telling Our Experiences as Muslim Mothers and Daughters

Stories We Live and Grow By

Stories We Live and Grow By

(Re)Telling Our Experiences as Muslim Mothers and Daughters

Muna Saleh

Stories We Live and Grow By
(Re)telling Our Experiences as Muslim mothers and daughters

Muna Saleh

Copyright 2019 Demeter Press

Individual copyright to their work is retained by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Stories we live and grow by: (re)telling our experiences as Muslim mothers and daughters /

Muna Hussien Saleh.

Names: Saleh, Muna (Muna H.), author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana 20190048042 | ISBN 9781772581751 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Mothers and daughtersCanadaReligious aspectsAnecdotes. | LCSH: Muslim womenCanadaSocial life and customs. | LCSH: Muslim girlsCanadaSocial life and customs.

Classification: LCC HQ755.85 .S25 2019 | DDC 306.874/3088297dc23

BismAllah Al-Rahman Al-Raheem

For Malak, Ahmad, and Maya.

May the stories we plant together

root and sustain you

the way they sustain me,

and may Allah (SWT) grant you innumerable blessings

in this life and in the next.

I love you.

And in loving memory of Sittee Charifa (Um Hussein) Bekai, Jiddee Mahmoud (Abu Hussein) Saleh, Sittee Khadijah (Um Ahmad) Tarshahani, and my dear cousins and brothers Billal and Yehia Al-Bekai.

Allah yirhammun wa yija3l mathwahun al Jannah ya Rubb. Ameen.

Acknowledgments

Safaa, Rayyan, Ayesha, Zahra, Layla, and Maya

Being alongside you as a friend and co-inquirer has been one of the greatest honours of my life. Thank you for your love, time, friendship, and for trusting me with your storiesI love you all.

My incredibly loving and supportive husband Wissam El-Haj

Words cannot express how much your love and encouragement have meant to me over the last several years. Thank you for the early morning and late-night Tims coffee runs, letting me sleep in after countless sleepless nights, and your unparalleled patience. I love you so much.

My beloved parents, Nadia and Hussein Saleh

May Allah (SWT) bless and guide you and keep you in His mercy now and forever. Thank you for your love and everything you continue to do for me. I am who I am because of you.

My beautiful grandmother, Sittee (Allah yirhama), the strongest woman I know

I have been so blessed to have grown up in your light. May Allah (SWT) reunite us in Jannah.

My best friends and sisters Suha, Fatima, and Eman Saleh

Thank you for being mothers to my children and for everything else you do. There is no way I could have engaged in this work without you. I am so blessed by your presence and love.

My brothers Mohamed and Walid Saleh

Thank you for always being just a phone call away (I know you both will understand the reference to the inside joke). Love you both.

Jean, Janice, Vera, and Florence, four incomparable scholars and friends

Thank you for all your time, love, and support during my doctoral program and beyond. I have been so blessed to grow as a scholar alongside you and am forever grateful.

Jinny and Hiroko, the most amazing friends, sisters, and response community

Thank you for your love, the laughs, and for the breakfasts, lunches, dinners, desserts (especially the ones in Toronto!) and of course coffees. I have been so blessed to be alongside you both. I know we will continue to be friends/sisters wherever our futures take us.

My wonderful friends and extended family

All my wonderful friends, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins, Alhamdulillah for you all. And especially to A3mty Fatima and A3my HassanI am honoured to still think of myself as Muna Abu-Ka3kee. Allah khaleekun wa yizjeekun kul khair ya Rubb. Ameen.

My dear sisters of the heart (in alphabetical order)

Amanah, Amany, Angie, Charifa, Cristina, Deebe, Elham, Esra, Fatima, Hiba, Janine, Kali, Linda, Marina, Mariam, Nahla, Nanna, Nariman, Nawal, Nouhad, Rana, Rodaina, Saja, Samar, Siraj, and Zahra. I love you all so much and look forward to many more years of love, laughter, and friendship inshaAllah.

I would also like to acknowledge the generous funding of this research by Killam Trusts

Receiving the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship allowed me to focus upon researching alongside co-inquirers for over two years, and I am eternally grateful.

Finally, I would like to gratefully acknowledge the University of Albertas Faculty of Education for its support in my doctoral studies (this book is a revised version of my dissertation), and Concordia University of Edmontons Faculty of Education for its support as I continue my love of teaching and research.

Contents

Chapter 1
Rooting (Autobiographical) Stories to Live By, With, and In

Chapter 2
Rooting and Growing (Chosen) Narrative Inquiry Communities

Chapter 3
A Narrative Account of Living and Growing Alongside Rayyan and Safaa

Chapter 4
A Narrative Account of Living and Growing Alongside Zahra and Ayesha

Chapter 5
A Narrative Account of Living and Growing Alongside Maya and Layla

Chapter 6
Composing Our Lives in the Midst of Arrogant Perceptions

Chapter 7
Planting, Living, and Growing Stories of Relational Resistance

Chapter 8
Imaginatively Composing Our Lives in relation

Chapter 9
(Re)telling Our (Own) Stories

Preface

Spring 2014

I t was a busy after-school day. Noor, Yehia, and I had just finished supper, and I was trying to persuade baby Hannah to eat so that we could go cheer Noor on at her soccer game. My cousin Billal (Allah yirhamu ) was co-coaching her team this year, and he usually drove Noor and his daughter (Noors friend and teammate) to the field in time for pre-game warm-up. Yehia, Hannah, and I (and Wissam if he was able to leave work early) would join them later.

I was calling out to Yehia to get the bug spray ready while trying to feed an uninterested Hannah when Noor rushed into the kitchen to fill her water bottle for the hour-long game. She was in full soccer gear, including her team jersey, shorts, shin pads, and knee-length soccer socks. Looking at her I thought, for the umpteenth time since she was a baby, about how fast she is growing (she will be in grade six next year!). A few days earlier, the children and I had visited my childhood home and I told them about the time their Jiddo, Khalto Suha, and I planted my grade one Arbor Day tree seedling some thirty years ago. I thought about how some plant roots can grow deeper/wider than the stem and branches grow tall/wide and I wondered what stories are alive in Noor. What stories are being planted in her, what stories is she planting, and what stories sustain her as she continues to compose her life?

Unaware of my musings, Noor rushed back out of the kitchen. Before she left the house, however, she yelled out, Bye Mama, make duaa for us!