 Voices of Resistance is a diverse collection of
personal narratives and prose by Muslim women whose experiences and
observations are particularly poignant in today's politically and
religiously charged environment. The contributors in this anthology
hail from Yemen, Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistan,
India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Canada, and the United
States.Sarah Husain conceptualized this collection as a means
of redefining the stereotypical depictions of Muslim women that
inundate current western discourse on the Islamic “other.” She seeks to
dispel the image of the veil as the age-old symbol of Muslim women's
repression and move beyond sterile representations and narrow debates
about the contemporary realities of Muslim women. These women engage in
discourses concerning their bodies and their communities. A woman
mourns the death of a cousin killed in a suicide bombing; a transsexual
remembers with fondness the donning of the veil he no longer wears as a
Muslim man; a woman confronts sexism and hypocrisy on a pilgrimage to
Saudi Arabia; and the experience of being judged on the basis of skin
color and political and religious affiliation that is far more blatant
and ubiquitous since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
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