Sabeeha Rehman – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING. ONE OF BOOKLIST'S TOP TEN RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY BOOKS. ONE OF BOOKLIST'S TOP TEN DIVERSE NONFICTION BOOKS. Honorable Mention in the San Francisco Book Festival Awards, Spiritual Category A 2019 United Methodist Women Reading Program SelectionThis enthralling story of the making of an American is a timely meditation on being Muslim in America today. Threading My Prayer Rug is a richly textured reflection. It is also the luminous story of many journeys: from Pakistan to the United States in an arranged marriage that becomes a love match lasting forty-five years; from secular Muslim in an Islamic society to devout Muslim in a society ignorant of Islam, and from liberal to conservative to American Muslim; from bride to mother; and from an immigrant intending to stay two years to an American citizen, business executive, grandmother, and tireless advocate for interfaith understanding.Beginning with a sweetly funny, moving account of her arranged marriage, the author undercuts stereotypes and offers the refreshing view of an American life through Muslim eyes. Sabeeha was doing interfaith work for Imam Feisal A. Rauf, the driving force behind the Muslim community center near Ground Zero, when the backlash began. She recounts what that experience revealed about American society and in a new preface discusses Islam in America in the time of Trump.

For readers of The Faith Club, Sons of Abraham, and The Anatomy of Peace, a call for mutual understanding and lessons for getting thereWe Refuse to Be Enemies is a manifesto by two American citizens, a Muslim woman and Jewish man, concerned with the rise of intolerance and bigotry in our country along with resurgent white nationalism. Neither author is an imam, rabbi, scholar, or community leader, but together they have spent decades doing interfaith work and nurturing cooperation among communities. They have learned that, through face-to-face encounters, people of all backgrounds can come to know the Other as a fellow human being and turn her or him into a trusted friend. In this book, they share their experience and guidance. Growing up in Pakistan before she immigrated to the United States, Sabeeha never met a Jew, and her view was colored by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his youth, Walter never met a Muslim, and his opinion was shaped by Leon Uriss Exodus. Yet together they have formed a friendship and collaboration. Tapping their own life stories and entering into dialogue within the book, they explain how they have found commonalities between their respective faiths and discuss shared principles and lessons, how their perceptions of the Other have evolved, and the pushback they faced. They wrestle with the two elephants in the room: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and polarizing material in their holy texts and history. And they share their vision for reconciliation, offering concrete principles for building an alliance in support of religious freedom and human rights. As members of the two largest minority faith communities in America, we must stand together at a portentous moment in American history. Neither of our communities will be able to prosper in an America characterized by xenophobia and bigotry.'Sabeeha Rehman and Walter Ruby

From the author of Threading My Prayer Rug, an eye-opening view of life in Saudi Arabia.It’s Not What You Think is a wry, incisive account of working in Saudi Arabia that offers insight into that insular patriarchal society, what is so attractive to expatriates living there, and what was contradictory or confining about it for a naturalized American who is a woman and a Muslim. A hospital executive in New Jersey, Sabeeha relocated with her oncologist husband to Riyadh, the most conservative city in the country, intending to remain two years. They ended up staying for six. Her book takes the reader on a journey of discovery that mirrors her own. Offered an influential position at Riyadh’s most prestigious hospital, she first has to obtain her husband’s permission to work. In public spaces, she quickly encounters the morality police but also learns the freedom of the abaya. Salesmen staff the lingerie department. Women in Riyadh do not work in public places, yet they hold positions of authority within corporate culture; and outside Riyadh, she discovers that women-owned-and-operated businesses flourish, and Bedouin women could drive in the desert decades before Riyadh’s ban was relaxed. Through Sabeeha’s eyes, we see how Saudi and Western expat cultures coexist within the boundaries of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” how traditions define the identity of the Saudi nation, and how to discern what is “culturally appropriate” versus what is required legally. As she dons pilgrim’s garb, we join her on the hajj, to discover the intensity and spiritual high of the devout.