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discussion.”
    â€œYou converted before?” Worry became surprise. “When? Can I ask why?”
    A gnawing sensation began in my stomach. I felt like I was back in fifth grade health class, when they separated the boys from the girls and taught us the Latin names for our anatomy and the mechanics of sex, all with a grim detachment that seemed Kafkaesque in retrospect. I could never quite shake this reaction to the question “Why religion?” To me it would forever feel like health class; like condensing something ineffable into a series of
events.
Iknew, also, that I wasn’t really being asked to explain my conversion, I was being asked to defend it. It was this that unsettled me most.
    â€œI tried to be an atheist,” I said plaintively. “It didn’t work.”
    â€œOkay, yeah, but why Islam?”
    â€œI discovered I was a monotheist. Believe me, I was as unhappy about it as you are. That rules out polytheism. I also have a problem with authority, which rules out any religion with a priesthood or a leader who claims to be God’s representative on earth. And I cannot believe that having given us these bodies, God thinks we should be virgins unless we desperately feel a need to reproduce. That rules out any religion that’s against family planning or sex for fun rather than for procreation. Islam is antiauthoritarian sex-positive monotheism.”
    â€œIslam is sex-positive?
Come on.”
    I fought back my frustration. “In Islam, celibacy is considered unhealthy and unnatural. The best way for a Muslim adult to live is in a committed, sexually joyful relationship with another Muslim adult. That sounds about right to me.”
    â€œYou see the way women are treated here. You walk in the streets. It’s like being a hunted animal! If that’s sex-positive I’m the freaking pope.”
    â€œI’m not arguing with that. It’s disgusting and hypocritical and wrong. And I don’t think there’s a single Muslim cleric out there who’d disagree with you. This is not Islam. This is a society in freefall. This place is a
mess.
Egypt is at alower point today,
today,
than it has been in its entire history.” Tirade over, I realized my hands were clenched.
    Jo looked out the window, into the street where we were harassed on a daily basis. Cairo was crawling with unemployed, furious, infantilized men who were still sleeping in their childhood beds and taking orders from their mothers. Parents of girls were demanding more and more in bridal settlements and real estate, putting marriage—and therefore adulthood—out of reach for many in this poverty-stricken generation. As the middle class shrank, marital expectations rose; by marrying well, a working-class girl could help her family climb back into a “respectable” social stratum. There was no higher goal than being
ibn i’nas
or
bint i’nas,
the son or daughter of genteel people. The stress this put on working-class men was almost unfathomable. These were the men who hunted us and hated us. In their eyes, they had been betrayed by female social mercenaries and denied their dignity by a class-obsessed society. I was marrying into a country on the verge of a meltdown.
    Jo turned back from the window and studied me, sunlight illuminating her thick blonde hair. “Are you happy?” she asked.
    â€œI’m happy,” I said. It was a lie; I was terrified. There are few things more overwhelming than love in hostile territory. Despite my anxieties, I couldn’t show any hesitation. My confidence was the only thing that would convince my friends and family that this was a good idea. I had to be disciplined about my own anxieties and focus on calming the fears of others.

Ramadan
    And know that victory comes with patience, relief with affliction, and ease with hardship.
    â€”Prophet Muhammad
    I TOLD J O ABOUT MY CONVERSION JUST IN TIME: THAT YEAR, THE fasting month