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Amina al-Sirafi Q2: Motherhood and family
Motherhood and family are major themes in the book, both blood family and found family. Amina loves her daughter Marjana but has a strained relationship with her own mother. Salima will do almost anything for Jamal/Dunya. Amina has a found family with her shipmates, both "co-parents" and "children".
How are these families different and what makes them the same? What do these different relationships say about motherhood and perceptions of what mothers should be like?
Contrast how Amina and Salima treat their children. Salima is cruel for keeping Jamal/Dunya trapped in the home, but Amina does the same with Marjana. Is Amina cruel? Is either parent justified in their actions?
Comments
I agree about the various types of family in the book. Blood families are put together through necessity. Some blood families are gigantic - I have sixty-six first cousins of the same generation - others are small. Found families are put together by choice. Yet there is choice in blood families - we generally choose our mates - and there is necessity in found families - initially perhaps thrust together regardless of our choice.
Salima is cruel only in that Dunya is much older than Marjana. Dunya is a newly adult child. Marjana still has some years until she is at that point. It is a mother's job to guide their child, but when that child is adult, guidance can reasonably only be advice. The letting go is a difficult thing, and almost impossible for some. Then again, Salima is Dunya's - now Jamal's - grandmother, not mother, and that is different too.
Granted, much of the above does not focus on women and their relations (Freya does, to some dregree) but even so, I really don’t think either historical or regional context was the goal here, and that represented a huge missing piece for me.
@Apocryphal , can you please give an example (or two?) of things you found jarring? What was it about these characters that said "modern" to you, and what would have been the "medieval Arab" alternative?
Amina's nephew was attending a school, IIRC. I don't remember what type. I may have assumed jurisprudence incorrectly, or without evidence.
Also, it was not a "complete lack of acknowledgement for religion". Amina was Muslim, although a fairly lax Muslim, and often explicitly prayed at the appointed times. Dalila was Christian, Nestorian I believe. Tinbu was a Hindu, which the others teased him about, and his boyfriend was a Jew. Majed was a devout Muslim, a Hajji, who did his best to live according to the Prophet's guidelines. This sounds more or less typical of the time and place. Should they argue incessantly about whose religion was correct? Should they persecute each other? Islam acknowledged that Judaism and Christianity were correct religions, and incorporated their prophets and saints into itself. It was Isa - Jesus - who judged the souls after death, because he would judge with love and be merciful. Muslims believed that they were MORE correct, but the others were still People of the Book who should be allowed to follow their ways. This is explicit in the Koran, though often ignored today. A Hindu? Now Tinbu was an idolater and technically should be encouraged to convert, but these people were old friends, and such a thing would have been given up as a lost cause by then. So long as he did not attempt to convert others to his religion, he was free to practice it. I saw religion acknowledged often but it was never central. Islam at the time was very tolerant. So what I see is people practicing their religion without it bothering other people which is what happened all the time in south Arabia at that time.
While poking around I found this on wikipedia:
"Writing for the New York Times, author Tochi Onyebuchi noted ... that 'what is most refreshing about [the novel] is how concerned Amina is for the state of her soul.' Despite the fact that she often drinks alcohol and misses prayer, he feels that 'Amina's religiosity feels intimate and lived-in'. He also praised the 'adroit commentary on class conflict, piety, warfare and gender politics, particularly how these things are perpetuated through myth and storytelling'"
I would agree though I would say she is often tempted by alcohol, but only drank in flashbacks. She was once a terrible Muslim, but is consciously trying to be better.
Thanks!
Clash has talked about religion. For jurisprudence, the action is away from civilisation for most of the time, and for the rest the characters are in places frequented by sailors rather than landlubbers. When they are in Aden, they have a run-in with urban society; I've no idea if the portrayal of the "police" and the jail was accurate to the period, but it seems plausible. The Marawati's crew were held in prison until the corporal punishment could be arranged.
The dialogue, yes, as been "translated" into modern vernacular, but that's fine by me.
One thing that did grate was how Amina was offered a large pile of cash, with no consideration of how that would be delivered, stored, or spent. That seemed very modern, where money can be moved easily. I'd have expected the reward to Amina to be offers in kind: the transfer of ownership of assets like the house in Aden or ships, a cut of customs profits in Aden, a pension to support Amina's family, that sort of thing.
The cosmopolitan and tolerant society of the sailors and those at the ports. That widows were allowed to be independent agents, but younger women were expected to be with their parents or a husband. But as I said above, much of the book is set outside the "normal" society. There's the jailbreak at Aden, and the interlude with Majid's family. Apart from that, they're in the wilderness most of the time.
That bothered me too. that is an immense amount of money for those days, and those few who HAD that kind of money would not have it in liquid form. It would be as Neil said. mostly deeds, leases, promissory notes, annuities, and that sort of thing. It would astonish me if a tenth of it was liquid, and it all would have to be interpreted as to its valuation.
It's also been interesting for me having just read The Sinbad Journey which I have rattled on about in our Nights discussions. That had quite a lot of discussion of the maritime cultures around the Indian Ocean and their sundry religious and social interactions. Also how island X was known as being good at occupation Y, or had lots of commodity Z and so on, so you wanted a ship crew with specific individuals from specific locations. And, indeed, the routine practice, sanctioned by Islam, whereby sailors could legitimately marry wives in more than one location so long as they were able to financially support them all - and conversely if such a marriage failed then no shame was attached to the women involved.
I liked it that Amina was presented as someone who practiced religion in a genuine - though frequently imperfect - way. It is refreshing not to have religious individuals not portrayed as zealots or hypocrites. Indeed, Amina is IMHO very ably presented as failing to keep many of the tenets of her faith without thereby becoming a hypocrite - simply someone who fails and knows she's falling short.
The Sinbad Journey? I can find nothing but references to old movies, a game app, and a Disney attraction with a search in Google.
Ah! Thanks! That was also brought up by google.
That's the one! I read it before Christmas and really enjoyed it. Tim Severin is one of those guys like Thor Heyerdahl who wants to try things out in practice, constructing ships in as authentic way as possible to see for real how journeys might have been experienced in earlier times.
I own his Brendan Voyage, and it's excellent!
I’m thinking of making The Jason Voyage my next pick…
I'd be up for that - I really enjoyed his writing style and attention to detail