War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims

9. Willow

N I N E Willow But those who believe And work in righteousness— No burden do We place On any soul, but that Which it can bear— They will be the Companions Of the Garden, therein To dwell (forever). And We shall remove From their hearts any Lurking sense of injury— Beneath them will be Rivers flowing—and they Shall say: “Praise be to God, Who hath guided us To this (felicity): never Could we have found Guidance, had it not been For the guidance of God: Indeed it was the truth That the Messengers of our Lord Brought unto us.” And they Shall hear the cry: “Behold the Garden before you! Ye have been made Its inheritors, for your Deeds (of righteousness).” —QUR’AN, AL A’RAF (THE ELEVATED PLACES, OR THE HEIGHTS), :– Well I left my happy home to see what I could find out I left my folk and friends with the aim to clear my mind out Well I hit the rowdy road and many kinds I met there Many stories told me of the way to get there. —YUSUF ISLAM (FORMERLY CAT STEVENS), “ON THE ROAD TO FIND OUT” In that brief moment between dialing the last digit and hearing the first ring, I began to sweat.That moment is always just a little bit longer on international calls, and on this particular call it seemed interminable.There was really no good reason for me to be so nervous,but I was.Perhaps it was the fact thatWillow was thefirstpersonwhomIwouldn’tbeinterviewingface-to-face,orthatshewasaconvert , orthatshelived inCairo,orthatsheworehijab. Whatever the reason, I had managed to conjure a formidable sweatstache by the time her husband picked up the phone. I was glad he picked up because when I asked for her, my voice cracked. What was I, twelve? I imagined that this was what online dating was like and immediately thanked God that I got married before that whole phenomenon got so big. I wiped my sweatstache off with my sleeve and tried to chill out. I had heard about Willow through a friend at Parabola, a sort of artsy quarterly religion journal devoted to“the search for meaning.”An editor there had decided to publish an excerpt from this book for the magazine’s Winter  edition, and since then, he and I had become friends. So when I was looking for more“subjects,”I immediately thought of him.When I asked if he knew anyone who might be appropriate, he at once recommended Willow. He sent me her e-mail address and wrote this above it:“You should contact G.WillowWilson.She is an uber-cool young woman (?) from Boulder,CO (whitey convert) who is now a journalist living in Cairo. Her graphic novel called‘Cairo’is coming out onVertigo/DC comics next year and has the artist who inks ‘Sandman’ comics [M. K. Perker], therefore she is and will soon become very cool. Oh she’s a hijabi [wears hijab]. She had an article in the latest PARABOLA [Fall ]. Tre good.” Tre good indeed. Maybe that’s why I was sweating. I had read her article in Parabola, along with a piece she had published not too long before in the Atlantic Monthly and several other pieces she had linked to on her Web site. After googling her and reading absolutely everything she had written that I could get my hands on, I had come to the conclusion that she must be some sort of high-brow academic,sitting in some Egyptian ivory tower with an office full of Ph.D.’s hanging on the walls. She just sounded so damn smart in all of her writings. Not in an inaccessible, pretentious way, but in a way that made you think that this was somebody who lived in the realm of ideas and was consumed by meaningful thought. And who pays for that these days besides academia? This was the misguided logic I used in presuming her professorship . I really should have known better, though, having come across so many Willow  ignorant academics and brilliant“civilians”in the course of obtaining my higher education. Whatever the case, it was clear that, at the very least, this woman had her wits about her. She sounded just as smart over the phone as she did in her writing, and I finally had to mute my stereo to give her my total undivided attention...