Book Review
Book Review 2: ‘Children of Dust’ by Ali Eteraz
Background Introduction
The book ‘Children of Dust’ by Ali Eteraz focuses on his narrative regarding his religion centered childhood. He grew up in a deeply religious Islamic family, and like most children, he follows in the same religion pathway as his parents. However, Abir Eteraz’s relationship with the religion identity is far way complex than his peers and age mates in his neighborhood in America. With time, the young boy becomes fanatical and obsessed with Islamic faith with the limited comprehension of a child. Largely, his parents are a huge influence on his views as they entrench the centrality of religion in their home deeply. On the Mecca visit, Eteraz had his chest rubbed against the Ka’aba stone’s black corner. He was then named Abir U Islam after the experience at Ka’aba (dwelling place of Allah on earth). Children of Dust explores the experience of the young Eteraz as he grapples with embracing Islam and understanding his role, self and relationship with his environment in Pakistan, America and a modern day the Middle East.
Summary Review
In his formative years, Abir Eteraz is a deeply religious Islam student embracing its strict principles, prayer rules, and social compulsions without questioning the expected compliance. For example, he believes and embraces the compulsion that women wear a niqab and chador to cover their beauty. At the madrassa, where he is taught how to read/recite the Quran, a new rebellion takes root in him. The boy rebels against the harsh physical abuse meted on boys who fail to recite the Quran to the adult’s satisfaction. Eteraz even questions how the Quran is taught challenging the rote memorization of the entire book with little or no meditation on the content.
Religion and reality seem to have clashing encounters in the young boy’s life. Early in his childhood, Eteraz falls sick with a very life-threatening high fever. On his part, he interprets it as the work of a jinn devil (Eteraz, 2010). The reality, however, is that his family lives in some very squalid conditions where human waste and human excrement flow in open sewers around the neighborhood. At one time, the boy had stepped into such a sewer ditch pointing at the possible cause of the typhoid bout.
Reflection
Environmental influences are critical in the religious standings of a developing child. Eteraz’s life changes when in 1991, the family moves to America after his father gets work. The medical residency sees Eteraz admitted to high school in Alabama where his Islamic faith appears to him as weakening after interaction with the American culture through boys and girls schoolmates. A mental radicalism seems to be taking root in his mind as he is confronted by what he was brought up to know as damnation or filth. Girls from his school walk around with exposed body parts where the niqab should be covering.
Even adults are not immune to environmental influences on one’s religion leanings. His mother is also undergoing a different form of fundamental Islamic principles perspective. Before their moving to Alabama, his mother was more agreeable and flexible in her religious interpretation. However, she now becomes fierce against any Western secular culture, form entertainment, arts, household décor such as portraits, and dressing mode. In fact, she categorically says that women who do not cover themselves with a scarf are “not true Muslims” (Eteraz, 2010). In the college years, Eteraz returns home to Pakistan to look for an appropriate woman to marry and calm his strong sexual urges. At this point, he has concluded that Islam is the superior religion in the world. He believes that mankind can only be saved in Islam and that he has Allah’s special favor from the Mecca experience and name given to him. These sentiments are shaken upon new experiences in Pakistan.
As an adult, he hears about atrocities and crimes committed in the-the name of religion. Bombings and murders carried out and justified as acts of suppressing tyrannical regimes, and oppressive powers are some of these crimes. Sadly, they are committed by the very Islamic fundamentals that consider themselves agents of Islam. All these go against the Islamic philosophies, and he turns his anger towards the perpetrators of terror acts such as the 9/11 while empathizing with the victims. The twist comes when he becomes a target of the fundamentalist who believe he is a CIA agent spy in his local Pakistan home. He is escorted back to America under guard after escaping the abduction plot by the radical locals and Taliban youths. At this point, his life is at cross roads as he tries to find a middle house between the two extremes of fundamental Islamic and American Islam.
Eteraz’s Shortcomings
Eteraz is not entirely without blemish even as he plays the role of the reconciliatory base between fundamental and American Islam. On his part, he grew up as a stubborn, pious and adamant Muslim faithful. At campus, he became a leader of Muslim students as he is seen as the ideal agent of the Islamic faith. However, he is inconsiderate and selfish where other people’s interests are concerned. The resident Rabbi at the campus had helped him in establishing a Kosher/Halal food court. Despite the goodwill and friendliness extended by the Rabbi, Eteraz returns the favor with dishonor. As the leader of the college Islamic students’ group, he allows a radical Islamic speaker to give an extremist speech against Israel in an anti-Israel rally. While the rally in itself is within his freedom of expression, the anti-Semitic position taken against the Rabbi’s people and a nation is uncalled for, and Eteraz knows better. What is, however, admirable is that he is honest. He agrees that despite finding the ‘uncovered’ girls in high school and college offensively displaying ‘filthy,' he agrees they are charming (Eteraz, 2010). After all, he is a normal human prone to temptations, human error of judgment and other mortal shortcomings. He also experiences strong sexual urges and acknowledges them honestly.
A clear illusion of how Islam is a superior religion and mankind’s saving grace had prevented Eteraz from seeing the real world. In reality, there is no superior religion in the world as it all depends on the individual actions of the specific members. The disillusionment comes after the 9/11 attack, which reveals the individual flaws, pretenses, religious bigotry and hypocrisy carried by the fundamental Islam faithful in his home country. The same concept can be applied to other religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Jewish and other organized religions.
Religious Hypocrisy
Having strong fundamental or radical religious declarations does not mean congruent conviction in genuine belief and faith. It is interesting that a high level of hypocrisy thrives in many religious beliefs as most people have selfish and other personally motivated interests in the religious application. In my reflection, therefore, genuine and informed religious leadership remains the safest way to avoid some of these personal interpretations of religion. It is the absence of truthful, informed and positive religious leadership that causes voids such as those Eteraz tries to fill in his later life. Also, religious tolerance can never be over emphasized in any place where a multi-culture population thrives such as the Eteraz’s college environment to ensure peaceful coexistence.
Reference
Eteraz, A. (2010). Children of dust. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publisher.
