A Stranger Becomes a Friend

I had to take my 3 year old daughter to the hospital for blood work and and x-rays associated with a sprained knee today. She's been limping for a week, so we figured it was time to make sure it wasn't something serious. She did great, especially since we ended up spending over three hours just waiting. We also received a good report, no inflammation and no break. Hurray!

While we were there, though, we met an amazing lady. "Miss Betty" came over to say hello after Elianna started grinning in her direction. Betty is probably in her early 70s. I was nervous when she came over. I don't feel like I measure up to the moms of my grandma's generation. I had nothing to fear, though. She was an absolutely lovely lady. When, in embarrassment, I mentioned that the blanket needed washed, she graciously replied that blankets aren't nearly as special when they're clean. As we continued our conversation, she shared that she worked for 17 years with the City of Denver as an advocate for women filing lawsuits associated with workplace discrimination. At the time, she needed to work as her husband was unable to support the family. She told me that she prayed that if she needed to work, she wanted to do something she was passionate about. She obviously found just that. Betty told me about what an amazing time it was working in that office; of the successes and the difficulty in some of the cases that didn't go so well.

We continued talking for a while. A stranger became a friend, if only for a few minutes in a hospital waiting room.

A Woman of Egypt

I just finished reading an autobiography by Jehan Sadat, A Woman of Egypt. The book is the story both of her and her husband, Muhammed Anwar el-Sadat, President of Egypt from 1970 to his assassination in 1981.

It was a very interesting book. Both members of this couple have been heralded for being "ahead of their times." President Sadat began to seek peace with Israel on November 9, 1977. It was this day that Sadat offered to go to Jerusalem. The offer, an acknowledgment that Israel existed, was the beginning of the road to peace, one still unfinished. It was also the point at which ties with Egypt and other Arab states became strained. Ultimately the fundamentalist response to peace with Israel, added to other policies put in place by Sadat, culminated in his assassination in 1981.

Sadat was part of the revolution of 1952 in Egypt. He and the Free Officers peacefully overthrew the Egyption government under King Farouk. As Jehan reports in the book, it was at this point and in the coming months, that Egypt gained its independence for the first time since 522 B.C. when the Persians invaded. It was an amazing time for Egypt.

While the politics of Egypt, including those of her husband, guided much of the story of the book, Jehan Sadat has a quite a story herself. She was born in 1933 to an Egyptian father and British mother. She grew up in what would be considered middle class Egyptian society. As she grew, she developed two great loves. The first was for her faith, Islam. The second was her country.

It is these two loves the influence Jehan Sadat as her story unfolds. With a husband exhibiting similar passions, she is wholly supportive of her husband. She also develops her own areas of influence in the care of the needy and the rights of women. She feels strongly that both these areas are spoken of in the Quran and are essential for Islam.

Jehan saw first-hand the effect of the subjection of women in the rural villages of Egypt. The laws allowing the men to easily divorce their wives, along with the allowance of multiple wives, created an environment for women that was difficult at best. In order to assist women in supporting themselves, she founded the Talla Cooperative. Here women were trained to sew to support their families as well as to support one another. Jehan also established Madinat el-Wafa' wal Amal - The City of Faith and Hope. Originally established as a training center for the rehabilitation of soldiers wounded in fighting, its vision expanded to include special housing, office buildings, a hospital and a school for handicapped children. Jehan raised funds from around the world for this project. Even the United States contributed 6 Million Egyptian pounds after Jehan informed Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State at the time, that it was the American's support of Israel in the war of 1973 that wounded so many of the Egyptian forces.

It was the chapter on "Women in Islam" that most captured my thoughts. To her, the difference between moderate and fundamentalist Muslims is linked primarily to interpretation of the Quran. Jehan believes that the the inception of Islam was revolutionary towards women. The Quran forbade killing infant girls, gave women the right to equal education, to work and open their own businesses and the right to initiate legal action and buy and sell property. She evens states that limiting a man to 4 wives was a significant improvement for the point of time in which the Quran was written.

These beliefs led Jehan to fight for reformed Status Laws, laws the govern how family life happens. These reformed laws required men to notify their current wife if they were to marry another woman, required men to pay alimony and to leave the family home with the wife and children if they were to divorce her. It also provided an easier process for women to divorce their husbands, a process that was next to impossible without this change.

Islam fundamentalists felt that the changes in the Personal Status Laws was an attack on the family, the heart of Egyptian society. Sound familiar? Let me be clear, I think the fight for women's equality in the US is a whole different scenario than the same fight in the Middle East. Sadat does not speak at all about honor killings and only briefly about genital mutilation. What submission means in the US, for the most part, is wholly different than what it means in most Arab countries. I do think that it's interesting that those who interpret the Quran most conservatively have similar arguments for the subjection of women as do those who interpret the Bible most conservatively. Jehan Sadat interprets the Quran as liberating and uses this view to meet the needs of the least in society; the poor, women, children, the wounded. The fundamentalists, taking a conservative view of their religious text, worry about the letter of the law and in the process miss meeting the real needs of the people around them.

The question I can't help but ask myself is this, "When fighting for our beliefs becomes more important than loving people around us, do those beliefs mean anything at all?"

Funny Bumper Sticker

I've been doing a lot of driving lately with 1st grade for my oldest and preschool for my middle kiddos. Thursdays are by far my most tedious driving days.

Some other minivan driver made all the driving much more bearable today. The van was plastered with numerous bumper stickers (just imagine the entire back-side of the van full). The one that made me laugh out loud said the following:

WHEN THE RAPTURE HAPPENS
CAN I HAVE YOUR CAR?

Not quite sure why it was so amusing, but I laughed for about 20 minutes straight!