The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism

by Deborah Baker

*A 2011 National Book Award Finalist*

 
A spellbinding story of renunciation, conversion, and radicalism from Pulitzer Prize-finalist biographer Deborah Baker


What drives a woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of permanent exile in Pakistan? The Convert, a finalist for the National Book Award and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2011, tells the gripping story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Religion, Islam, Pakistan, Middle East, Memoir

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2011

About the author

Deborah Baker was born in Charlottesville and grew up in Virginia, Puerto Rico and New England. She attended the University of Virginia and Cambridge University. Her first biography, written in college, was Making a Farm: The Life of Robert Bly, published by Beacon Press in 1982.

After working a number of years as a book editor and publisher, in 1990 she moved to Calcutta where she wrote In Extremis; The Life of Laura Riding. Published by Grove Press and Hamish Hamilton in the UK, it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1994. Her third book, A Blue Hand: The Beats in India was published by Penguin Press USA and Penguin India in 2008.

In 2008–2009 she was a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis C. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at The New York Public Library. There she researched and wrote The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, a narrative account of the life of an American convert to Islam, drawn on letters on deposit in the library’s manuscript division. The Convert, published by Graywolf and Penguin India, was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award in Non-Fiction.

In August 2018, she published her fifth work of non-fiction, The Last Englishmen: Love, War and the End of Empire.

She has two children and is married to the writer Amitav Ghosh. They divide their time between Brooklyn and Goa.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished this book several days ago and needed some time to think on it. My rating on the book is more a reflection on the book's content than the writing of the author. I think the author did a fine job with the topic's content, I am just finding that I'm having a very negative reaction to the subject of the book (Maryam Jameelah). I waited for a long time to receive this book from the library, there was a long waitlist. Which I find interesting, that there are lots of people wanting to read this book. So there must be some fascination with a western woman converting to Islam. After some thought, I'm thinking this must relate more to her leaving the United States and immersing herself in purdah in Pakistan than in her conversion herself, as there are reportedly some 20,000 women converting to Islam in the US every year at present and there seems little American interest in this fact.

So I received the book from the library with much excitement, ready to learn about Maryam Jameelah, about her life, her conversion, and her time in Pakistan. And to be upfront and honest, I am left extremely disappointed and, well, angry. Because I am amazed that the Muslim world embraced a (as I see it from the book) largely uneducated, probably insane woman as an "Islamic scholar" largely because she abondoned the US and the West to live in Pakistan or the Dar ul Islam (the land of Islam). Here is a woman abondoned by her American family, abandoned by 2 Pakistani families because she was SO psychologically disturbed.... writing numerous books on Islam as if she was a scholar on the topic. And Muslim publishers published her books and distributed them to the Muslim world without caring about her qualifications. Which were NOTHING. She was not an expert on the West. Either academically or in life. She had little real world experience. She hadn't traveled, couldn't speak about the diversity of the American experience or the western experience. Then she spoke as if she were a scholar of Islam. And yet she hadn't studied the hadith, didn't know ANY classical Arabic (and therefore couldn't even read the Qur'an). They all respected her ONLY because she was an American who rejected her culture and her country in favor of Islam. What a low bar to set.....

Perhaps things were different in those days and I should be grateful that things have changed. Today, American women converts are overwhelmingly highly educated, a large number having masters degrees, and are highly traveled both in the US and abroad. They also study Islam intensively and therefore end up quite educated in Islamic history, theology, politics, etc. And as such, they wouldn't dare to have the HUBRIS to write tracts instructing other Muslims on Islam. Which I think is what blows me away about Maryam Jameelah. Her sheer hubris.... The book even mentions the theological "ideal Muslim leader." He wouldn't dare offer up himself, because to lead other Muslims astray.... the sheer danger to his soul would be SUCH a heavy burden. That is the same for all religious Muslims. So to see Maryam Jameelah, with so little world/life/religious knowledge try and spread her "Islamic knowledge" is quite shocking..... it's incredibly unislamic for her to do so.

And therefore that is, I think, what I find most upsetting about this book. That people are so fascinated by this woman. In 2011, people STILL want to learn from her. When we have people with SO much more religious knowledge, SO many more men and women with religious experience today from which/whom we can learn. The only true value I see in this book is that it shows who Maryam Jameelah truly is.... A woman who sought her own truth. And I hope, truly, God-willing, she found it. I hope, God-willing, she found peace. But I really hope, as well, that she did not bring along too many unsuspecting, uneducated people down the wrong path (extremism and false understandings of Islam) with her. And hopefully this book will shed light about her to prevent such misunderstandings from continuing to occur. For those who read this book hoping to better understand the actual religion of Islam, I advise seeking out those who have truly studied the theology of Islam for many years (i.e. Fazlur Rahman, Muhammad Asad, Seyyid Hossein Nasr, Jeffrey Lang), not simply those who expound on it without knowledge.

[Jennifer Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow,what a fascinating subject!
This book tells the story of a Jewish American woman Peggy Marcus who converted to Islam when she was 27,became Maryam Jameelah and left her comfy life in America and began a new one in Pakistan,she did this to live as a true Muslim as per her account.
The author Deborah Baker found archives marked as Maryam Jameelah on 4 boxes in NYPL archives,she was intrigued as this was the only Muslim name among may Christian and Jewish ones,she studied these 4 boxes,found countless letters Jameelah wrote to her parents about her life in Pakistan,also very harsh on western materialism and telling how Muslim world as large has fell prey as a whole to this materialism and only getting back to their Islamic roots will liberate Muslims from the western evil's grips!
Her manner is very grandiose,she was adopted by a very hardline Muslim in Pakistan named Mawlana Maududi-a founder of Jammat-E-Islami party in Pakistan who believed in restoring Sharia as a law for all of Pakistan,actually didn't want Pakistan the Muslim nation at 1st as he thought British should restore the Muslim kingdom whe they left on all of the India-undivided and Muslim should rule over Hindus as they did for like 800 years b4 the English came!!This was so insulting for some 1 who's from India like me!The subjugation of Indian Hindus by Islam is a horror story of rape and conversions by sword,a very violent shameful chapter i Indian history!Thank g-d these evil people left my country with the creation of Pakistan!!
Peggy/Maryam as it turns out was diagnosed a Schizophrenic!And was institutionalized in America for this!She tells about this in her letters to her parents as well,again his Pakistani family also made her institutionalized in Pakistan!Even they couldn't tolerate her nosiness in their lives!What's very strange is,even if she's a schizophrenic,her books and words are considered as authentic on the subject of Islamic rejection of the West and she is considered a best selling author in the Muslim world!I mean come on!She's a schizophrenic,means her brain is not in touch of the reality around us,that's both tragic and comic too,tragic for her works being seen as authentic and basis of Islamic rejection and many times baseless hatred of the West!Comic for the same reason as she's some 1 not being in touch with the reality yet she's accepted as some1 authentic on such a broad subject impacting Billion lives!
The format of the book is very interesting as Deborah Baker has published her letters almost as they were,its mostly in this format of Jameelah's letters and Deborah had to edit them a little to make some sense of them!I loved the subject,the book and I chose to read it as I wanted to understand a Schizophrenic mind,how a grandiose paranoid mind thinks,it was an excellent study on it!The book didn't let me down!!
5 Stars!

[Audacia Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately, The Convert was unsatisfying to me because it seemed like the big reveal was "Maryam/Margaret/Peggy is crazy*." Maryam Jameelah (born Margaret Marcus, Peggy to her family) is an American Jewish woman raised on Long Island who converted to Islam and moved to Pakistan in the early 1960s, when she was in her late 20s. The book is structured around Maryam's conversion, her struggles with fitting in (or not) in both Long Island and Pakistan and the possibility of her mental illness. Told through reconstructions/edits of Maryam's letters (edited by the author) and the author's investigative journalism, the book reveals after we read through a bunch of very articulate letters from Maryam that Maryam has spent time in a mental institution, in both New York and Pakistan. Surprise! People with mental illnesses can be good writers with logical trains of thought!

In both of the cultural contexts Maryam lived in, she was an outcast - in the U.S. she was seen as freakishly modest and sexually frigid (a la her Freudian psychoanalysts), in Pakistan she was too bold and outspoken. In both places, her quite-to-anger temper was a defining feature of her interactions with other people. I would have liked to read more about sexism in both of these contexts and how the mental institution solution was not necessarily about Maryam herself.

Throughout the book, the author alternates between using the names Maryam, Margaret, and Peggy, as if to underscore her crazy. I mean, really, what kind of woman uses three names? Only a crazy one!

There are lots of interesting things about this book, but I think the author could've gone deeper in interrogating the ways in which mental illness has been used against Maryam throughout her life.

*I use the word "crazy" throughout this review to capture the dismissive way in which mental illness is treated in our culture. It's not a word I condone the use of, because it frequently is used to delegitimize a person's experiences and ideas about the world.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book and understand why it was critically acclaimed in 2011. I do think reading it years later it was hard to think back to the political climate in which it was written. There are parts that are super interesting, but I wished for more about how Maryam Jameelah's writing impacted culture and how she became such an important figure. Maybe too much time was spent on if she was lying about things, which is important but ultimately less so, because her impact was so large (I think...again, wish there was more on this.)

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent read, somewhat of a mystery too. A detective story. The book is gripping and really heats up towards the end. It is fascinating history unearthed, and gives one an apercu into a radically different way of viewing the world.

I have argued with many friends over the causes of 9/11. Many say the problem is just unequal economic development, that if those countries just had a better economy, they wouldn't feel inclined to oppose or harm our way of life. I personally feel that the US has collectively brushed away this question of "why?" in an act of collective amnesia or post traumatic inability to revisit the root causes of 9/11. Why exactly did they attack the city where I lived? The common viewpoint is that they were just a bunch of crazies, a few bad apples.

This book illuminates much of that. It is even-handed, including views critical of Israel's role in the Middle East along with the self-delusion and obliviousness to facts, or call it sheer ignorance, of many fundamentalists. You will learn lots about the early rise of fundamentalism, just as one could in the book "The Looming Tower." Except that book focused more on Sayd Qutb and on Egypt, whereas this book is about Pakistan.

I have come to see our paradigm of more iphones and stores open 24/7, as inadequate. Many other peoples do feel the need for something more, for a respect for family and a for a place for more profound communal values in the body politic. Of course they hardly respect other faiths. But then in a way, economics rules all in the west, so we don't value faith and certain non-material values either, at least at a federal level.

Some people just want to opt out. The convert was one of them. But unlike its subtitle I am not sure it is a tale of extremism, in fact I wonder if the publisher added that to sell the book. Would her life have ended up more gratifying to her had she stayed in the States? And if as the book implies, it would not, then are we not the extremists?

A book guaranteed to be thought provoking.

[إيمان الشريف]

صعب جدا أن أقيم هذا الكتاب. كتاب مفيد ومتعوب عليه. في البداية سأقول إنني ولأول 40 صفحة وقعت في فخ لا أدري -ببساطة- من نصبه! فقد اعتقدت أن ديبورا بايكر مؤلفة الكتاب ستحدثنا عن قصة إسلامها، لكنني اكتشفت أنها تحدثنا عن "مريم جميلة"، والتي اكتشفت -أيضا- أنها داعية شهيرة إلى حد ما ولها العديد من المؤلفات.
إذا ما هي مآخذي على الكتاب؟ هم ثلاثة في الحقيقة:
أولا: عندما تقرر أن تسرد سيرة غيرية، يفترض القارئ أنك مولع بهذا الشخص لدرجة رغبتك بقص حكايته لكل الناس، وهذا ما بدا في النصف الأول من الكتاب فعلا. لكن بعد ذلك تغيرت وجهة نظر المؤلفة، حتى أنها رددت كلمات "ضيق"، "ملل"، "نفاد صبر" أكثر من مرة. فكيف للقارئ أن يستمتع بالكتاب إن كانت هذه مشاعر المؤلف نفسه؟؟

ثانيا: قلت في البداية إن الكتاب متعوب عليه وهذا صحيح، فليس أقل من أن الكاتبة تكبدت عناء السفر من أميركا لباكستان على سبيل المثال. أيضا كان واضحا ثقافتها في الشأن الإسلامي وقراءتها لكتب عديدة جدا على رأسها القرآن الكريم والذي حرصت على اختيار أفضل ترجماته. الكتاب تأرجح بين المتعة الملل،و كانت بعض صفحاته ثقيلة جدا.

ثالثا: في الربع الأخير من الكتاب صارت الكاتبة تطرح ��سئلة بشأن بعض القضايا الإسلامية، وظلت تلك الأسئلة حائرة ومعلقة. السبب في رأيي هو أن الكاتبة مهما بلغ مستوى ثقافتها في الشأن الإسلامي فهي لم تقرأ سوى قطرة من بحر.

يُترك بدون نجوم :)

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the sad story of Margaret Marcus, an American of Jewish descent who fixates on Islam. She connives a sponsorship to live in Pakistan with Malwana Abdul Ala Mawdudi, an advocate of fundamentalist Islam and an active advocate for the Jamaati Islami Party. Taking the name of Maryam Jameelam, she becomes a recognized writer and advocate for conservative Islamic values and jihad and remains in Pakistan for over 40 years. Author Deborah Baker stumbles upon her letters in the New York Public Library and follows her life, eventually meeting her in Pakistan.

This is not a conventional biography. It strays from the story of Margaret Marcus to the story of the author tracking Margaret Marcus. It has snippets of information on Jamaati philosophy and 1950's psychiatry. The chronology is not linear, which is confusing in the first initial part of the book. For instance, the mental health issue is brought up in the course of Maryam's second hospitalization, but that diagnosed schizophrenia informs everything to that point. We learn at the end, that the letters upon which a lot of the story is based, are not just bogus ramblings of Maryam, but appear here in an edited fashion.

Besides the weaknesses above, the book is incomplete. There are no pictures. If the strict Islamic code makes photos of Maryam and her family unavailable, there could be pictures of pamphlets, manuscripts or facades of homes, institutions or streetscapes. There should be at least one interview of one of Maryam's four surviving children.

I had high expectations since this is a National Book Award nominee for 2011. I don't see how this one is placed above books like Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking- A Memoir, Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, or From Splendor to Revolution: The Romanov Women, 1847--1928, all of which, I expect will stand in their field as definitive for years to come.

[Amari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very unusual biographical style, weaving the subject's letters over many years into the first-person narrative of the author. Well worth the time I invested, and probably very important as I move ahead in the process of articulating my own informed "version" of recent history and the interaction of Islam and the West as well as that of religion and secularism in general.

Maryam Jameelah, the biography's subject, is fascinating, at times elusive, and probably crazy. It doesn't show at first, but as the narrative unfolds -- in such a controlled way that I would almost say it's contrived, not to mention manipulated -- our sympathies shift inevitably from Maryam, originally portrayed as the misunderstood, maligned, courageous religious heroine. This surely mirrors the disillusionment that gradually registered with the biographer as she put the pieces of her research together.

A great read, gripping and informative, and giving a good amount of important background history (beginning mainly with the independence and partitioning of the Indian subcontinent in 1947) presented in a clear and pleasantly objective manner.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was this even really a biography? I'm not sure. At the end, I'm not sure at all of what is true and what is made up--whether it is the subject or the author speaking. Disjointed, and then at the end the author confesses to essentially manipulating the letters and changing what she wanted. I'm unsure whether this was a story of an ultimate loner with no place in a regimented society, or a story of an essentially untreated mental illness, or something else altogether. Confusing.

[maha · Rating 3 out of 5]

---عذرا على عدم ترتيب الأفكار.. سأكتب هنا ملاحظات سريعة ومبعثرة--


رغبت في قرائته بعد قرائتي السريعة لتدوينة
http://sobersecondlook.wordpress.com/...
بالنسبة لنا نحن المسلمين، غزت أفكارنا صور نمطية معينة عن الكونفرت الذين اعتنقوا الدين، غالبا ما تكون هذه الصور المقولبة سطحية.. ولكنهم اشخاص أعقد من ذلك، خصوصا اولئك الذين قضوا زمنا طويلا في الدين..
لمن يهتم بقصص المتحولون للدين (وعنه) المدونة أعلاه أيضا جيدة..

-- أكتوبر 2013 ملاحظات سريعة بعد انهاء قرائته--

الكتاب يحكي قصة مريم جميلة، والتي كتبت كتب اسلامية كثيرة.. ربما هي معروفة عند معشر الدعويين المتصلين بالدعاة الانترناشونال، مكتوب على صيغة رسائل بين مريم جميلة وأهلها بأمريكا.. مريم من اسرة يهودية علمانية وأسلمت في أواخر الخمسينات وأرادت أن تعيش في دولة اسلامية، ولأن العيش في السعودية كان متعذرا بسبب اجرائات بيروقراطية فإن باكستان كانت البديل..

كانت مريم أيضا تعاني من اضطرابات عقلية وعدم قدرة على التعايش الاجتماعي، مما جعل طريقة الاسلام ونظامه جاذبا لها..

تخللت هذه الرسائل تعليقات المؤلفة والتي لم تشعر أبدا بأي نوع من التقارب أو التعاطف مع شخصية مريم جميلة، وحتى في الأخير عندما زارتها كانت تحكم على منزلها بأنه في حارة رديئة وترتدي شبشب رخيص.. كررت كلمة
“cheap”
ربما عدة مرات في الفصول الأخيرة..

وريثما تبرر المؤلفة بأن دافعها لدراسة شخص مريم جميلة هو حاجتها لفهم أسباب حدوث 9-11 إلا أنني لم أجد الرابط قويا.. ربما كان الأمر الوحيد الرابط هو أن مريم كانت تحلم باليوتوبيا الاسلامية ككثير من المسلمين، مهما اختلفت تصوراتهم عن كيفية حصول هذه المدينة الفاضلة العادلة..

***

لأني مستعجلة فسأكتب عن المقطع الذي استوقفني، علاقة مريم جميلة بالرسم، فقد كانت تعبر عن مشاعرها بالرسم، وكتابة رواية.. ولكن الحكم الاسلامي بتحريم الأرواح واقتضاؤه بتدمير هذه الصور جعلها تتوقف عن العمل مقتضبة

مع أنها لم تشق الصور بل تبرعت بها لأحد المتاحف..

ولكنها أكملت في آخر حياتها الرواية عن ذلك الرجل المؤمن الذي لاقى أنواع العذاب والاضطهاد، على نهج الأنبياء، في سبيل تحمله للدين.

كانت الرواية مزودة بالصور، وكانت الصور تحوي آيات قرآنية وأحاديث وكأنها تكفر عن اقترافها لهذا العمل المحرم “الرسم ومضاهاة الخالق” بأن تذكر آياته في كل صفحة..

---غير مكتمل---

[Dimitra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, I have to say that this book was not what I expected, but not in a bad way. I liked the objective point of view and how the author doesn't automatically place judgment on Margaret/Maryam. Baker's take on Islam was also refreshing, nothing like the media; she differentiates the political aspects and leaves the Qur’an alone. Margaret/Maryam is a truly hard character to grasp, and the world she attempted to become a part of in Pakistan is almost unreal for an American, or perhaps any Westerner for the matter, but it's interesting to see how the other half thinks. I would recommend this book not only for people with interest in politics and world affairs, buts also for others to explore a realistic view on middle-eastern culture --not romanticism-- and Maryam's enigmatic yet puzzling personality.

[Roxane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book just did not grab me. While well written, I just did not care about anything Baker covers in this book. I thought it was a bit of an indulgent stretch to try and frame the narrative, in some way, around, 9/11. I question biographies where the writer offers self-reflection. I don't really care about the writer. I care about the subject. The most interesting parts were the subjects letters even though the subject of this bio was, often, grating in her extreme religiosity and self-righteousness. That a book does not make.

[Tyra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given that I knew nothing about the subject of the book before I read it, I can still say that I know very little about her.

The book was well written and very readable and it did help explain a little bit about why radical extremism in Islam exists. I found the history of Pakistan very interesting and the search for the utopian government of Islam.

But, I was really hoping to see what would cause a culturally Jewish girl from suburban NY to convert to Islam and move to Pakistan in the early 1960s and from that angle the book didn't really deliver.

[Umar Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I converted to Islam in 1992 the books of Maryam Jameelah were very popular and a few of them were gifted to me. I remember being impressed with her writings at the time, but not spending too much time on them as a younger generation of writers were gaining in popularity. The first Islamic class I ever took used Towards Understanding Islam by Mawdudi as the text. I say this in order to give some personal reference on my initial encounters with these two Muslim writers.

Regarding this biography let me just say it's awful. The first third was decent as it dealt with the life of Maryam Jameelah in New York. However, even then, we get a very light treatment of her time at the Islamic Mission and with Sheikh Feisal Daoud. If I know people who were around at that time, including teachers of mine, it surely wouldn't have been that difficult for Deborah Baker to do some interviews in Brooklyn.

Once the book comes to Pakistan the book goes south fast as we see that Baker has a very minimal understanding of Islamic politics, theology, and history. How do you write a biography an a Muslim writer and thinker without even basic literacy of the subjects she explored? Mixed in with Baker's snarky and dimwitted observations are FOX News style stereotyping and outright lazy writing- this book was not well-researched at all.

In the final chapters we are treated to the moralizing of Baker and her pathetic interviews with Jameelah. This person either doesn't know how to conduct interviews or is lying about the encounters. It's hard for me to know what to come away with because I'm not sure what is and isn't accurate in this book. After all, the author admitted she fabricated the letters in this book.

In closing I'll just make a note on mental health. Even among certain American demographics that tend to be enamored by psychiatry I found it hard to believe a family and mental health professionals would seek to diagnose a 19 year old as ill, or in need of therapy, just because they're a virgin. That is absurd. Plenty of 19 year old virgins and older today and we are talking about the 1950's! It's also true that Jameelah was an idealist and nonconformist and today these things are celebrated on social media and in decades past got young women sent to mental hospitals. I'm certain Jameelah had some issues, but any analysis of her writings shows she also had a very sharp mind.

[Michelle]

The subject matter of The Convert is absolutely fascinating. What causes someone to convert to Islam? Better yet, what causes a young woman to convert to Islam and then move to Pakistan? Unfortunately, Deborah Baker never truly answers these questions, and the execution of the subject matter falls flat.

While Ms. Baker uses Maryam's own correspondence, she admits to rewriting it or changing it to help the flow of her story. This, to me, fictionalizes the story and makes the entire concept more difficult to accept. Maryam never fully explains why she converted or why she felt compelled to become one of the most vitriolic, outspoken anti-American correspondents. Yet she admitted to withholding the truth in letters to her parents. Combine that with the alterations by Ms. Baker, and the reader quickly loses the sense of authenticity and truth that symbolizes a quality biography.

Ms. Baker does her best to make Maryam as sympathetic a person as possible, but here too she fails in her attempts. Maryam is utterly unsympathetic in her demeanor and righteousness. Her inability to even consider a world where the two cultures (Muslim versus any other) could coexist is simply unfathomable and rather scary. With her stints in various mental hospitals, one gets the impression that Maryam was a very miserable woman, and she put the blame for her existence on the United States. It is a difficult attitude to comprehend, but the fact that Ms. Baker is unable to truly explain it makes it worse.

While I was anxious to read The Convert, get a better understanding of the Muslim culture and understand what would prompt a woman to convert, I was ultimately left with as many questions with which I started. Maryam's words, not matter how altered, left a bitter aftertaste, and I was horrified at her inflexibility and intractability. She justified her behavior and attitudes with a sense of morality that was uncompromising and harsh. The Convert is the type of novel that removes any sense of hope that the two cultures will ever be able to get along, which, given the unending nature of the conflicts in the Middle East, is not the right message for this day and age.

Thank you to Graywolf Press for my reading copy.

[Caitlin Constantine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very informative and thought-provoking and also very relevant to our current geopolitical situation, as it is about an American Jewish woman who disavows both her American citizenship and her Jewishness, converts to Islam and moves to Pakistan. Oh, and she does this in the 1960s, and along the way, writes a series of tracts and essays that help form the ideological underpinnings of the modern jihadi movement.

Yeah, an American woman's writings helped inspire the 9/11 terrorists. Let that marinade for a while.

But the book goes beyond that and explores questions of what it means to count oneself among the religious faithful and what it meant to be a woman in 1950s American and also in Pakistan, but along the way turns into something more than that, like an exploration of the field of biography, the way biographers contrive theories and ideas about their subjects using source materials that might also be contrived, and how even the most voluminous collection of letters and essays can only give exposure to the tiniest slivers of a person's real identity.

This was a quick read and I'd recommend it for anyone with an interest in these things. As to why I didn't give it four stars...I'm still trying to put my finger on exactly why I liked but didn't love it. But still, a good book.

[Quratulain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good.
“This is not complicated. Muslim youth are killing their sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers. This is social disintegration. “

“...all of this is to be understood in terms of
a people who have lost their way, whose heritage has proved unequal to modernity, whose leaders have been dishonest, whose ideals have failed...the new Islamic upsurge is a force not to solve problems but to intoxicate those who can no longer abide the failure to solve them...”

“...the war had its own life now..”

“The evils of western civilization amounted to no more than a stage drop to her private travails.”

“How well did Maryam’s pronouncements on the true Islamic way of life serve her as a wife and mother?...Why were you intent on preserving a way of life you never managed to live yourself?...In your book you extolled an Islamic ideal that proved no practical use in your life...How could you continue to denounce science..while you were asking your mother to send book on infant nutrition?...To whom should your sisters in faith direct their appeals?...How carefully have you weighed what you have written with how you have lived your life?”

[Tuscany Bernier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a hard read for me as a convert of Islam myself. Of course, going through this process myself I noticed the parts where she started to change into an Anti-West figure. The people she loved at home were not supportive at all, and so she moved to Pakistan. When she got there, she devoted her life to Islam. The people in Pakistan encouraged her change to be what they wanted, and there she was an unknowing victim of her own wishes and desires being played by everybody around her. I do wonder how much the author added in as Deborah Baker has admitted to adding parts of the story to make it roll better on paper. When the author was finished writing this book, she sent one to the (real life) main character, and I can not help but wonder how she felt seeing her story on paper.

[Susan Ritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unexpected biography that made me feel like I was following author Deborah Baker on her puzzling journey to discover the real story behind Maryam Jameelah, nee Margaret Marcus an American Jewish girl who converted to Islam, moved to Pakistan and wrote the books that inspired the Islamist movement that contributed to 9/11. Baker reveals her story slowly, kept me wondering who this woman really was all the way to the final pages.

[Karandeep Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

i was a young boy of age 13-14 who recently got into reading books, went to book fair with his beloved mother. and when i picked this up, my mom saw the burkha on the cover and was kinda concerned. im just kidding ya'll with my personal anecdote. it's a book about a girl who came to pakistan to live a life as a convert, dafuq im gonna do? judge her life? nah. acchi kitab hai, pad lena time lage toh, she does point out the obvious hypocrisy of a religion. that was fun.

[Corinne Wasilewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than a little unsettling to know that a woman with major mental health problems has been a prominent voice for conservative and fundamentalist Islam for some fifty years and will continue her influence through her writings for years to come.

Baker did a great job portraying this very complicated and enigmatic woman.

[K C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never quite figured out why this woman should be worthy of a biography and why she should rate her archives being kept at the NY Public Library. Was she really that influential, or just another poor misguided soul?

[Hameed Muhammadian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad..

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main (and very interesting) benefit I got from reading this book was a very brief history lesson on some of the characters who seem to be behind today's current Islamic extremist movements. (Not the main character, but some of the secondary ones.)

Unfortunately, the structure of the book meant that it was often just a little difficult to understand what was going on, and the biggest reveal , Maryam Jameelah is crazy, had already been revealed in a number of places through goodreads synopses and reviews.

This seems to be in the pop-biography/memoir/story genre, not quite what I standardly think of when I think of a biography. (The author spends a while talking about herself and her journey to learn about the subject.)

[Danial Tanvir · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is a true story about how Margaret marcus of Larchmont became the Maryam jameelah of Lahore.



this is actually about a jewish women from new York city who leaves her life in America and comes to Pakistan and becomes a muslim.

this is based in the 1950's and the 1960's.
it is actually based in Lahore,pakistan.
it is about muslims and about islam.

she is put into the paagal khanaah .

she suffer from schizophrenia and is not well.


in then end there is talk about Benazir bhuttos murder.



it took me a couple of days to read this book but I did not like it much , and that's why I gave it two stars.

[Noha · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب جميل جدا.

لا يحكي الكتاب عن السبب الذي جعل مريم تختار الإسلام و تنبذ حياتها السابقة حيث كانت يهودية أمريكية.
بل يحكي عن قصة فتاة وصراعتها الداخلية وتناقضتها تفتح زاوية على نشئة فكر المنظمة الإسلامية و أثره فيما بعد في تغذية الفكر المتشدد عن طريق غير مباشر
تحاول فيه الكاتبة فهم شخصية مريم و أبو الأعلى المدودي من خلال رسائلهما و أحداث حياتهما كما أورداها في كتبهما.

الترجمة جميلة استمتعت بها

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is about Margaret,a Jewish girl based out of New York who converts into Islam.I found the book to be very confusing..it speaks of the challenges she faces and also about her mental state..in the end I was left with wanting to know more about the main character..

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was interesting but I wanted more about the main character. In the end, I felt the accuracy of the letters both from the author and the main character herself were suspect.

[Renaissance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially, this biography appears to be how and why a young Jewish woman from New York converts from Judaism to Islam. And this is exactly what the story is about, but also how this woman (Margaret or "Peggy" Marcus) becomes Maryam Jameelah, how she struggled with mental illness, was institutionalized on various occasions, and moved to Pakistan. Despite her significant mental challenges, Maryam is an articulate and effective writer. She condemns Western materialism and advocates for Islam to be lived purely and strictly according to the letter; namely, she is a fundamentalist and also a reactionary against Western civilization. Some of her work was reading material for extremists who practiced violence, although she denies she ever advocated such violence and condemns those who use such means.

The book also gives light to the political situation regarding the Middle East (Pakistan in particular) from the 50s to the current time. The author even traveled to Pakistan to interview Maryam. The interview process was awkward and the author's comments lead one to believe that the author's own opinions/prejudices/perception colored her fact-gathering.

Unconventionally, since this is a biography, the author manipulates much of the material and admits to moving passages from one document to another with the explanation that she never alters the facts, but arranges them in a logical and meaningful way. I find such a tactic understandable because of the uncertain integrity of available documents, but not necessarily justified.

Also, the last sentence of the book confused me and I have been unable to decipher its meaning.

In all, the book is well-written and worth reading or listening to. A few parts dragged a bit, and sometimes it is unclear who the speaker is (despite the change in voice tones).

[Lily Childers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me on a rollercoaster of emotions. The main character Margaret Marcus is a young girl in the 1960's living in New York. What drove me to read this book was how curious I was as to why a Jewish girl who was raised in free America would want to covert to Islam, and live an orthodox Islamic life in Pakistan. The story is based off of a series of letters the author, Deborah Baker, found in the New York library addressed to the parents of Margaret. As I previously states Margaret was living in a mostly Jewish part of New York so she had no experience to Muslim people and could not even speak Arabic but the man who Margaret was being given too assured her she would pick it up along the way as she watches his wife teach her the wifely duties of a Muslim woman. The authors characterization of Margaret who later changed her name when she arrived in Pakistan, really stood out to me throughout the book. The author allowed the reader different parts of the attitude of Margaret, and I feel as If the author held back more of her knowledge on Margaret. What plot stood out to me the most is that Margaret was not the only person in America doing this. At the beginning when Maryam (Margaret) was on her way to Pakistan on boat their were other people just like her. I would recommend this book the anybody who is interested in extremism and learning about the Muslim religion like I am. I would mostly recommend this for an older audience but I believe any English or history teacher would specifically like this book due to the Islamic history included in this book.