Really loved this. It's a good balance between academic thoughts and conversational tone. There are some really, really poignant statements and thoughts dispersed throughout a personal narrative. You can tell the author is brilliant and has thought a lot about these things; I kind of want a physical copy so I can go through and highlight those various sentiments! Highly recommend this.

A profound and moving memoir written with clear, striking prose. A book that's both heartbreakingly sad and tenderly funny.

How much of a role does colour play in your life?

Chauvinism. A term that describes a group's feeling of superiority over others.

Humans have a wide history of fighting within ourselves. Do we want a fight? Are we forced to participate due to an obligation towards our community? Neither of these questions matter if the superiority complex of a so called 'leader' comes into play.

'The Colour of God' is an insightful, beautiful and informative book on race, religion, diaspora, gender and discrimination. It's the author's account, or rather her memoir on life events that shaped her and made her into the empowering woman she is.

It brings into perspective various misconceptions we come across in daily life, and why it is important to question religious/community practices if it doesn't appeal to us. As a person living in a country that is in constant war with a Muslim country, people are indeed very outright in throwing around allegations and accusations against the very Muslims who live around us.

There's so much more for us to learn and understand. If we see the world in a singular mind without allowing room for thought and improvement, we might as well declare war on people who seem different to us.

Read this book. Please.

The Colour of God is Ayesha S. Chaudhry’s memoir on God, family, and feminism. She is a child of Pakistani immigrants who move to Canada and become fundamentalist Muslims. This book openingly discusses patriarchy in Canadian and Islamic societies, Western and Islamic ideals and expectations of women, and racism against Muslims in the backdrop of 9/11 and beyond.

I found some of Chaudhry’s statements and experiences eye-opening, especially the portions about different levels of coverings and the hair removal expectations for women. I found myself questioning my own ideas of how I view and perceive others with strong binding religious faith.

Unfortunately, this one was not for me. She included simple restatements of what she experienced instead of bringing her readers in and showing what happened. Her arguments and observations, although insightful at times, were also somewhat contradictory. I didn’t question so much her choice to practice her religious the way she does, but more why she continues to justify it in her book to the extent she needs to.

The Colour of God is the story of a Canadian Muslim girl who is brought up in a fundamentalist family.

Overall, I enjoyed this book but I feel it could have been structured a lot better and it raised more questions than it answered. The author goes off on many tangents which can make it confusing for the reader as you sometimes have no idea what the ramble has to do with the original point being made. It reads as if the author realises that the original point needs to be made and she swerves back.

Despite this, the book is very interesting, showing why the family chose fundamentalism and how they deal with the prejudice they faced. The book firmly has one foot in the past and one in the present. It smashed some preconceived notions I had about why families turn to fundamentalism.

The author explains certain things which ring a bell with me, for example, growing up in the shadow of colonialism and how the patriarchy stops women from achieving everything that they can.

Parts of the book did cause me some confusion, however, the author states at many instances how strict her upbringing was and how they were not allowed to mix with "outside" kids but then there is no barrier to her moving out to carry on her studies.

The biggest positive about this book is that the author does not bow down to a Western "white" audience. I really like the way the book is full of Arabic and words that brown people would understand. I really really like this about this book.

Despite the negative aspects noted above, I did really like this book. It opened my eyes to a world I had never seen (Muslim fundamentalists) and it shattered many of the ideas that I had in my head as to how people "fell" into fundamentalism.

The Colour of God is about bravery, personal story, and testimony. It’s a beautifully written exploration of faith and self — highly recommended.

Chaudhry’s memoir traces her family’s roots in Pakistan and her parent’s two-ing and froying from Canada as they try and assimilate into the white western settler environment. Ultimately they (rightfully) reject, assimilation. They choose instead to align with fundamental Islam and a puritanical view of a religious life. From her she regales stories of wearing niqab, interacting with white feminists who want to ‘free her’ and men who want to take advantage.

Woven throughout are Quranic verses, historic retelling and present-day stories, combined it is compulsively readable in tone, reminding me the memoir can teach much more than a family history.

Most notable was her smart look at patriarchal systems in both her fundamentalist Islamic upbringing and white western culture, she’s clear on that. Patriarchy has infiltrated almost all facets of human existence, it is impossible to escape and is not inherent to one religion or group. It must be abolished as a collective. Her writing shines with humility as she delves into her own mistakes and looks back on a life that feels like many.

It is a book of multitudes, simultaneously Chandhry interrogates her position as a woman, a daughter of immigrants, a sister of a grieving sibling, a member of Islam, a wife of a Muslim man. Here she is, case and point, demonstrating why we must take each story as a singular and each person as an individual. There is no us and them.

When @sofiareading mentioned that Ayesha S. Chaudhry is going to publish a book, I immediately check it up and it turned that the book is not an academic text but a memoir! It is always compelling that the scholar that you used to read their works for education purpose is writing something less theoretical but more personal one. So I was enthusiastic to read it.

I was hoping to find out how she became a Professor of Islamic Studies and Gender Studies. Yet book is beyond Ayesha S. Chaudhry’s personal memoir. This book is not only a South Asian descent woman’s memoir. This book is Muslim woman’s memoir. I could highlight every page as they all resonates with me.

She recollects her and her family’s lived experiences: as a Canadian Muslim woman from Pakistani parents who embrace puritanical Islam after failed attempt on assimilation because of racial discrimination. She explores the desire of belonging to the community where she lives in with her hijab and niqab on, patriarchal tyrants, her ideal of state & citizenship, taking ownership of one’s own body, typical (South) Asian mother-daughter relationship, and the loss of her loved one.

The book is fiercely honest, it lays bare the bitter truth of being raised in the fundamentalist Muslim household. Her voice here is many women’s voice out there which sometimes seen as oppressed by the West when it is actually their rejection to these people that then they decide to amplify their religious identities. She uncovers the stories of resistance to the patriarchal Islam and Islamophobic society and institution.

I was repeatedly heartbroken and entertained as she tells the stories eloquently from beginning to end. Could you imagine how a story of body hair could move from personal, philosophical, religious to political? She places Qur’anic verse, Prophetic and Urdu sayings making them relevant to the story she is telling, making the historical universal.

Behind her intellectual state today lays a long chain of distinctive spiritual events that is heartening to learn from. There no denying it goes into my Favourites List 2021, a very memorable one!

Thank you @oneworldpublications for sending me the e-ARC through @netgalley. If you reading a memoir from Muslim woman is on your #ReadingToChallenge list, then this book is unquestionably for you. It will be published on May 11th 2021 so you can pre-order now.