The Muslim Mother challenges the essentialised concepts of Muslim motherhood. Using political and critical theory to unpick how structures of power, ideologies and cultural perception have otherised and shaped the public imagination of the Muslim mother. Symbolically a voiceless entity whose identity has been usurped by others determined to define and keep her in the outer boundary. This book attempts to lift the veil providing a critical commentary on the weight Muslim mothers have to endure in public domains.

In this author Q&A, Umma Miah from MWN Hub discusses with Mariya Bint Rehan about her book exploring the social and political scrutiny of Muslim motherhood, how certain passages can be interpreted negatively and what she hopes for the reader to take from the book.

UM: Generally, books on motherhood offer practical advice and support, although in more recent times it has shifted to exploring the emotional and psychological impact. However, I found your book takes a different approach, conceptualising motherhood as a social and political tool that is more critical of the Muslim mother. Why did you decide to write about motherhood from this angle?

MBR: I started practising my faith when I was around 28, possibly younger. Prior to that I had a veracious appetite for critical theory. I loved pop culture, political and critical theory - any theory was an obsession of mine.

I found there was a conceptual gap between the Muslim female, in particular maternal experience and theory. For instance, I would be reading really contextualising information, but would have to bridge the gap between that and my experiences as a Muslim woman. When I did find critical and cultural theory on Muslim women it was either very obscure and academic, so not very accessible or it was from a very anthropological viewpoint, so it was very much otherising.  

I remember the media storm Marks and Spencer created when they started selling the hijab as part of the school uniform. They had articles on this and nobody had thought to ask a potential customer, someone who bought the hijab – a Muslim woman, a mother for her opinion. No one had thought to ask the Muslim mum and that had sparked my initial writing.

My writing from the very beginning has always been bridging a gap, filling a vacuum: trying to create a conversation, where the conversation doesn’t exist.

UM: The book explores motherhood through the different prisms beginning with self and motherhood, the digital mother, the political mother and the culture mother. What were your reasons for structuring the book that way?

MBR: The intro to the book is not something that I had created for poetic effect or value, there were certain things that I was feeling about my own daughter and being a mum, that I was reflecting upon. Thinking about what weight do I bear as a Muslim woman and a Muslim mother. Personally, I feel a certain way about how I have to present myself, how I’m deemed human in society and then there is the political pressure – you can’t talk about the Muslim mother without talking about the politics of it.

The book is structured in a way to break you into it – the personal is quite accessible, the cultural to be relatable, particularly how the digital culture impacts on Muslim mums - we underestimate this and then there is the political, which is the kernel of the book.

UM: There were a couple of passages in the book, which struck me. In chapter 3 you wrote, ‘Muslim mums are perceived as though we are on borrowed land, on borrowed time with a kind of expectation that suggests we must seek permission to parent’ and the other point, ‘Muslim mother herself, has no defined public face, when we try to think of one in the media, politics and the arts, the mind draws a blank.’ The take away from those two points for me was that the Muslim mum is invisible and does being a mother have to be part of how a woman identifies her achievements in life. As we do see Muslim women in the forefront of politics, we have seen that in the UK and even in the media too. Why did you make those points?

MBR: The whole book isn’t so much as to say that we don’t have ownership of it; it’s saying that there is an attempt to usurp that identity. I don’t know if you agree with that, but I feel that quite strongly. Some of the feedback from the book suggests that this is the feeling that a lot of Muslim mums do have. I totally understand and accept that is not the experience of all Muslim mums, and rightly so. This book will not be what every Muslim mum will relate to on every page and that is how it should be.

The book is a deconstruction of public imagination of the Muslim mother. It’s to say that there is a very specific role that the Muslim mother plays in the public imagination. That statement, there are no Muslim women in public life, it’s saying there is a gaping hole in public imagination - we don’t see Muslim women.

Those passages in particular, in no way suggests that the Muslim mother does not exist. As Muslim mothers, we are not really given a language in public discourse. If you turn on the BBC news there is no language that is representative of the Muslim female experience. Therefore, we are using borrowed language when we speak of our experience – the way we perceive ourselves is on those borrowed terms.

Naturally there are criticisms to be made about the book, but we’re not monolithic and that’s the whole point of the book.

UM: I found this book heavily critical, so what are you aiming with this book? Is it to provide a space where Muslim mothers can have that conversation?

MBR: The book is entirely aimed at Muslim women. I’m trying to create a safe space of conversation between Muslim women. The reason I wrote it, like I’ve said, certain things I felt that I didn’t have the language to articulate. For example, when we go to the park and my child says ‘Allahu Akbar,’ how people around us might react; and how that then changes the way I perceive my faith and how my child perceives their faith as well. So, there is a lot of that in the Muslim female experience. The book is trying to deconstruct those feelings about understanding why those feelings exist; should they be legitimatised or not; why is there shame around aspects of the Muslim experience and how do we overcome that as Muslim women.

UM: At the end of every chapter, you also weave in the spiritual angle was that to kind of bolster some form of confidence in the way Muslim women perceive motherhood?

MBR: We are spiritual beings, we are religious women and as it is aimed at Muslim women; it would be amiss not to mention Islam.

UM: The way the book is written, I don’t think it is specifically for Muslim mothers, all can relate to it. Therefore, what are you hoping for Muslim women to take away from this book?

MBR: I want to market this as a book that every Muslim should have on their bookshelf. You are either born of a Muslim mother, you know a Muslim mother, you are either planning or hoping to become a Muslim mother or you have shunned Muslim motherhood entirely. We have women across all spectrum, either way, the Muslim mother is relevant to the Muslim world.  

I want to emphasise that the Muslim motherhood is not a qualifying feature of womanhood and it is no way more qualifying to be a woman. But naturally we cannot avoid the fact that the Muslim mother plays a central role in the Muslim home and in the ummah. 

I do hope that this is seen as something broader, not just for the older Muslim mother, the millennial Muslim mother and not just now the GenZ Muslim mother that is coming through.

The book is for everyone and I hope it gets that sense of readership, Insha’Allah.

The Muslim Mother is out on paperback, available to purchase from Kube Publishing.