Things That Shatter

Book excerpt: "I couldn't put it down until I read every last page... I saw a universal traumatic experience that most people could never be brave enough to put on paper for the world to read..." - Kaitlin, The American Muslim Mama "An awesome and honest account of the perils and minefields Islamic converts can face. Brave and inspiring, a lesson that new converts should get a welcome book (like this) that illuminates how vulnerable we can be to the less-than-scrupulous people in ANY community when we don't know the warning signs." - Jenny Lynn Jones, Author of All Roads Lead to Jerusalem In 2009, Kaighla--a young, single mother from the Midwest, and a fresh convert to Islam--married the Egyptian sheikh of a mosque in Brooklyn. Unbeknownst to her, he hadn't divorced his wife back home and was about to be deported. Two years later, she moved with him, her son, and their baby girl to his hometown in rural Egypt, where she was abused and neglected--along with his first wife--for the next four years. A much-beloved speaker and imam in Brooklyn and Dearborn, the sheikh lectured and taught at mosques and Islamic centers around the country in the early 2000s. But across their six-year marriage, Um Dayo's identity and cultural heritage were systematically shattered by him, all in the name of making her the ideal "wife of the sheikh"--and she wasn't the first or last convert to be abused by him. A story about what happens when Muslim women are broken by Muslim men and find the courage to heal themselves through the real Islam, Things That Shatter, aims to shed light on abuse and healing within the Muslim community and to help vulnerable women protect themselves from men like him. More than anything, this story is a Muslim convert's re-declaration of faith that there is no God but God, and it serves as a reminder that women have intrinsic worth in God's eyes, beyond and outside of their relationships to the men in their lives.