Just Like Khadijah, I Will Be That Girl

Recently, Muslims for Progressive Values received generous funding from the Fetzer Institution to be used specifically for the spiritual development of our team. We concluded early on that a portion of the funding would be used to send interested individuals for Umrah. Four members of the MPV team, including Board Members Dr. Tita Gray and Yasmeen Rana, MPV’s part-time staff, Kelsey, and myself, made the pilgrimage to Mecca and then to Medina in mid-December.

As someone who has publicly stated that a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia only facilitates the continuation of an authoritarian regime rife with human rights abuses, the decision to embark on Umrah felt like a betrayal of my own values. At the same time, I wanted to see what’s left of the historical sites, and to potentially feel some form of spiritual experience like millions of others have.   

Unlike many Muslims, I wasn’t raised with an image of the Kaabah hanging on the walls of my family home or the constant reminder that the Kaabah is the House of God. I therefore wasn’t expecting any emotional reaction upon seeing the Kaabah for the first time. As a matter of fact, in the group of my 45 fellow pilgrims led by Professor Omid Safi, I  openly declared myself a bit of a skeptic, not in the existence of the Creator, but in some of the rituals of the pilgrimage itself. 

I was uttering personal prayers in English when I looked up at the Kaabah, and as I did, I felt the God in me surge, moving me to tears. 

The trip included visiting historic cemeteries, including Jannat al Mualla, which is home to the remains of notable Muslim figures like the Prophet’s wife Khadijah. Jannat al Mualla was previously home to her shrine, built and cared for by Muslim rulers throughout the centuries, most recently by the Ottomans, only to be bulldozed in 1925 by Ibn Saud and his emerging Saudi state.  Today, all that remains is a gated courtyard of dirt marked by stones and accessible only to men.  

Other than that spiritual nourishment, Mecca felt more like Vegas with its glamorous hotels, a clock tower looking down on the House of God that Prophet Abraham built, and anything historic bulldozed or intentionally left unmarked. To compensate for the capitalist contradictions that had invaded the space around the Kaaba, I practiced spiritual care by spending a few evenings feeding the stray cats of Mecca and Medina with cat food that Kelsey and I brought from the U.S.

21 years ago I wrote the song “Just Like Khadijah” to remind Muslims that had it not been for her financing the early Muslims, there would not be a Muslim community today. The chorus goes:

Just like Khadijah, I want to be strong

Stand up for what’s right and fight what is wrong

Just Like Khadijah, I will be that girl

A super Muslim woman in this world

Forever inspired by Khadijah, and with God closer to me than my jugular vein, I’m in it for the long haul.

Onward and upward…

Ani