Silent Complicity
The Disregard for Domestic Violence in SWANA Communities
It was her nonchalantness that struck me. How easily she let this piece of information fall from her lips like some meaningless crumb, as we ran our plastic forks through our $15 poke bowls. “I met her. She actually teaches my younger siblings Quran every week.” [insert airhead chuckle]
The conversation centered around my divorce, its ugliness and aftermath—the third wife my ex-husband managed to secure long before our divorce papers were processed, her audaciousness to get my number and call me, and the conversation she comfortably carried with me about her plan to marry him. She vacuumed out the remnants of compassion I could have potentially mustered for her in the future with every word before she hung up.
I’m not here to rehash my past experience with domestic violence—though doing so would forever remain justified, considering the courage it takes to necessarily transform trauma into teaching tools. I am here to reassert the weight domestic violence carries, and how our SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) community continues to purposely ignore it.
It’s no secret I have been hypercritical of how our communities handle domestic violence, perpetrators, and victims. I witnessed my people hand me a sugarcoated abuser, celebrate what they prayed would be the downfall of my feminism when we got engaged, and then turn their backs when I escaped and spoke out.
While I have grown accustomed to the older generation’s chronic ability to disappoint, I am consistently baffled by my generation. How so many of my friends and peers still deny my (and others) DV experiences or belittle its magnitude. Like this “friend” who so lackadaisically informed me that my ex-husband’s third wife is employed by the Syrian community to teach their young children the word of God. (Ironic much?) Or another “friend” who willingly invested in my ex-husband’s side project. Or the many “friends” who easily befriended wife number three and her relatives.
It’s this persistent lack of support and validation that makes many of us question the authenticity of our community’s “sacred and divine” values. Witnessing the atrocities unfolding and worsening in Palestine, Syria, Congo, Sudan, and plenty of other places, meanwhile our communities here uplift, sustain, and erase the histories of all types of abusers: imams, scholars, educators, professors, and the many many many laymen who have yet to be held accountable. How do we expect peace and liberation for our people globally when internally we dismantle one another? We do not take care of our women and girls, but instead silence and shame them when they come forward. Disrespect them by dismissing their courage to speak up and reward the abusers with forgiveness and a blank slate.
Can I also point out the strangeness of how the community reacted 15 years ago when secret and undisclosed evidence surfaced about Sadullah Khan—the once upon a time imam at the Irvine mosque—who was immediately fired and basically sent back to South Africa. Meanwhile the community was not given a single explanation except “inappropriate conduct” and a few news articles speculating sexual misconduct.
Yet here we are, numerous cases surfacing that include publicized pieces of evidence and/or firsthand narratives and little to no legitimate action taken. Instead we reward perpetrators, restoring them to their former positions, allowing them to remarry three or four times without first enforcing rehabilitation, inviting them to contribute and produce religious content, and berating any victim who works in advocacy. And please, enough with the narrative that these women are spewing fiction. Look at how we are treated for speaking up. Trust us, not a single woman, in a single era of time, ever wants to be in this position and face this communal hostility. Choosing to speak up is a duty that some of us find the courage to do for the sake of this community that continues to betray us.
When I’ve asked other women—some of whom were victims of abuse themselves—why they support people like Nouman Ali Khan or invite other abusers within the community to their events, they shrug their shoulders and say, “What’s done is done. Let it go.”
To be honest, I cannot and will not accept the “activism” of any of these people. You cannot welcome my ex-husband or his third wife to your events and into your home, to help your children better understand our scripture that calls for accountability and community healing, and then expect me (or any other victim) to believe that you care about humanity. You cannot actively follow the YouTube channels of religious leaders exposed for their abusive tendencies, share their videos, and then expect us to call you our people. You cannot diminish our experiences and then expect us to sustain our friendships.
The saddest part of all this is that any of it even has to be said, especially to my “closest” friends and community members I’ve grown up with for 35 years. None of us should have to be reminding you to stand in support of our survival. How to properly set boundaries with abusers and hold accountability. How to be humane.
Personally, I am learning to shed myself of hope in my generation and shift it onto the next one that has shown us what fearlessness for speaking the truth looks like.