STANDING ALONE IN MECCA

As President Bush prepared to invade Iraq, a Wall Street Journal correspondent for fifteen years, Asra Q. Nomani embarked on a dangerous journey from Middle America to the Middle East to join more than two million fellow Muslims on the hajj. On a journey perilous enough for any American reporter, Nomani was determined to take along her infant son, Shibli, living proof that she, an unmarried Muslim woman, was guilty of zina, or 'illegal sex'. She returned to America to confront the sexism and intolerance in her local mosque and to fight for the rights of modern Muslim women who were tired of standing alone against the repressive rules and regulations imposed by reactionary fundamentalists. Standing Alone in Mecca is a personal narrative, relating the modern-day lives of the author and other Muslim women to the lives of those who came before, bringing the changing face of women in Islam into focus through the unique lens of the hajj. In this book, she shows how many of the freedoms enjoyed centuries ago have been erased by the conservative brand of Islam practiced today, giving a false image of Muslim women as veiled and isolated from the world.