Love and Spiritual Journey: ‘Butterfly Mosque’ by G. Willow Wilson
Butterfly Mosque is one of the novels by G. Willow Wilson that was sufficient and released in 2010. This novel tells the story of the life of the author herself, namely G. Willow Wilson who grew up in a staunch atheist home in Colorado, she writes about her move to Cairo. After college, met a Cairene man, fell in love, changed religion, got married, and chose to make her home there. The house in question is both physically and spiritually. This memoir follows her journey from her initial interest in Islam to her full embrace of the religion, culture and people who make up his community.
Most of this book deals with the clash of civilizations, a theory that is supported not only in the West, where she was born and raised, but also in the Muslim world, where many see Islam as contradicting Western values. Even more focused is the author’s inability to explain to her loved ones at home what her conversion meant to her and why she chose the path she followed. On a regular basis, she works to defend the people she embraces to those she left behind in America and vice versa. Cultural barriers hinder its progress.
The genre of this novel is Woman lives and Relationship. These genres are stories written by women, and they explore the lives of the female protagonists while they focus on the protagonist’s relationships with family, friends, and lovers. According to Joyce G Saryck this genre has characteristics such as the protagonist of the story is a woman, like the writer. Secondary characters, especially women, are also important. The protagonist may have a support group consisting of female family members and friends. The storylines reflect issues that affect women’s lives, and they usually focus on one issue, thus depicting women facing difficult situations.
A distinctive feature that can be found in the novel The Butterfly Mosque is the memoir of an American woman raised in an atheist family who discovered the value of religion during her trip to Egypt to work with her determination to study Islam from a cultural perspective. This book follows her encounter with one of the Egyptians and with her own spirituality when she converts to Islam. That’s why this story can be said to be in the Woman Lives and Relationships genre. The journey of the main character is certainly not easy to find a home physically and mentally in Egypt. Considering he is a newcomer from a country with a culture and belief that is very much different from Egypt.
Wilson was raised by atheist parents and didn’t know much about Islam growing up, and as she says, her seemingly “liberal” upbringing at Boston College says little about the 1,400-year-old religion. Wilson is curious and intends to explore Islam. Shortly after she was diagnosed with a serious illness, Wilson began to explore her newfound interest in religion, particularly Islam, by engaging in meaningful conversations with her friends and reading books on Abrahamic traditions.
In college, Wilson who today divides her time between Seattle and Cairo was enrolled in Islamic Studies and the Quran. But it was the disease that made her secretly adopt the Muslim faith. This she did without the knowledge of her friends or even his family, who had raised her as an atheist. A close friend of Wilson’s who is strongly against religion decided to ask her why she chose Islam.
In 2003 when Wilson was 25 years old, she accepted an offer to teach in Cairo and accepted the position. Wilson’s daily life in Cairo was difficult. Cairo is very different from the country of his birth, America. The city is beset by poverty, pollution and lack of sanitation. People are tired of oppressive military rule. Many of the facilities that Wilson had taken for granted were nowhere to be found.
Amidst his struggles to adapt to her new home, Wilson meets Omar, a young Egyptian man who teaches at the same institution and offers to show her around. Omar is a sensitive and polite young man, he is as well acquainted and well acquainted with Shakespeare as in her own cultural literature. He is also very familiar with the city, which is still a mystery to Wilson.
Wilson feels good and has great faith in Omar. Not only is she ready to move and make herself adaptable to her new culture, Wilson is also ready to become a Muslim and Omar’s wife. They finally decided to get engaged and get married. At the beginning of Wilson’s meeting with Omar’s family and parents, Wilson was afraid because she was from a different culture and belief than Omar. But Omar’s family welcomed her warmly and accepted her into their family. As his faith deepens, she searches for meaning in everything he encounters. In a beautiful ceremony on the banks of the Nile, in the presence of his American family, Wilson finally officially married Omar.