The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson Page A

throw an ostentatious party between a couple’s engagement and their wedding. Omar and I decided to register for a different reason: we wanted to travel together, which was legally impossible unless we could present a
kiteb
at military checkpoints and hotels. If I married Omar as a Christian, I would have fewer rights as his wife. If we wanted to travel together, we had to draw up a marriage contract; and before we could draw up a marriage contract, I had to “legally” convert. It was a numbingly complex set of requirements, as only an Islamic police state can demand or deliver. And it necessitated the discussion of my name.
    â€œCall her Zeinab,” was Uncle Sherif’s suggestion, because he liked me. His mother, Omar’s grandmother, was another Zeinab, and his daughter another. It was a somewhat old-fashioned name, after a magnetic and fearless granddaughter of the Prophet, and unusual in a generation of Laylas and Yasmines.
    â€œWhen Zeinab was a baby, the Prophet Muhammad would carry her around during prayer,” said Omar when the name was offered. “He would put her on the ground as he knelt and pick her up again as he stood.” Standing nearby, Ibrahim cradled a newborn cousin, so the scene was not hard to imagine. Though Omar was trying to be helpful, the subject of my Muslim name made him uncomfortable.
    â€œThe name Willow is not anti-Islamic,” he said, with a protective glance in my direction. “It’s a kind of tree. She cannot leave her name, too . . .” The
kamen (too)
gave him away; that sentence was supposed to end,
because she left so
much to be here, she should not be asked to do this as well.
Since I was not Egyptian, it wouldn’t quite be as bad as all that—I wasn’t legally required to change my name, as an Egyptian convert would be. And like the other discreetly Muslim expatriates I knew, the world would go on calling me by my English name.
Zeinab
would become my name only to those who found
Willow
too difficult to pronounce.
    â€œZeinab is a tree as well!” Uncle Sherif pointed out. “A small tree, fragrant—”
    â€œA tree in Heaven,” said Omar.
    Though I was touched by my future in-laws’ eagerness to help, I was not enthusiastic about the idea of formal conversion. It felt insulting, as though the
shaheda
I recited with God as my witness was not good enough for the dry old men in turbans who oversaw the intersection of religion and state. Whether one’s Muslim name is made legal or not, formal conversion requires the convert to choose one. While the idea of taking a new name was symbolically satisfying, it also made me feel divided. I already had a second name.
Willow
was an adolescent derivative of Gwendolyn, my legal name, which was too long a word to attach to a child in conversation. Willow stuck. Adding another name seemed redundant.
    â€œI have too many names,” I said to Omar.
    â€œGod has ninety-nine,” he said, smiling and squeezing my hand. “You’ll have three. That’s not so bad.”
    The next morning Omar and I tried to make our way through the extensive campus of Al-Azhar. We shuttled between buildings in which we could and could not wearshoes, looking for one
Ish’har al Islam
labeled el Aganeb, “foreigners declaring Islam.” We were both on edge. I was irritated by the whole process; it was more Egyptian bureaucracy. Had I taken a step back, I might have felt privileged to formally declare my faith in such a historic place. Instead I felt vulnerable. By the time we found the right building, I was close to panic. Conversion is a personal process, and to bureaucratize it is, I still think, a little cruel. The hours between my arrival at Al-Azhar and when I slept that night are hours I still find hard to explain.
    I was ushered into a room with a sheikh in it. He seemed inanimate, smiling on a couch, a creature with the spiritual gravity of a small sun.