Customer Reviews

Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan

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4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I think it's a pity that this book is being marketed as a memoir of Pakistan. That's far too limiting. Yes, it gives an inside glimpse (and sniff) you won't find anywhere else of life in a desert town in Baluchistan before and after the region began to be terrorized by militant fundamentalists. But you must realize that when he was sent to a harsh madrassa in that desert hometown of his relatives by uprooted parents seeking the anchor of piety, Ali Eteraz had already lived in Saudi Arabia as an infant and in the Dominican Republic, where his father attended medical school, as a small child. This is really a memoir of the postmodern condition of displacement, the quest for a home and a self through multiple identities, the diametrically opposed temptations of absolutism and absolute freedom. It is as much about America, an America seen through the looking glass of Islam -- a stew of opportunity and spiritual danger, from Wallah Wallah to Allah-bama -- as it is about Pakistan or about Saudi Arabia, where Eteraz's life's trajectory is conceived at the beginning and movingly consummated, in a way he himself did not expect, at the end.

While this book will give you a very particular, unsparing, sometimes very funny inside look at Islam, it also takes on universal issues: the antagonism between religion and sex; the secret collusion between zeal and ego; the profound difference between a top-down intellectual synthesis and an upwelling spiritual unity. What may be most unusual about this book is that rather than mainly satirize the follies of others, Eteraz flays himself first, mercilessly anatomizing the mixed motives that powered his precocious achievements as a scholar, lawyer, activist, writer, and reformer. He never utters Baudelaire's words -- "Hypocrite lecteur,--mon semblable,--mon frère!" -- but his honesty unmasks the insecure vanity, and the tenderness and longing, that we all share.

Kafka said "A book should be an ax for the frozen sea within us." This book shattered my defenses and softened my heart. I laughed and cried.

Enchanting. Thought provoking. Sad and yet hopeful. Roller coaster.

Those words come to mind when I think of Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz. I enjoyed reading this book. From the first pages, to the last...I was not sure where Ali was taking me. And trust me it was a journey.

The enchanting part...the descriptions of his life in detail...the colors, the shabbiness of the old clothes, the scents surrounding his life...the language...took me into his world and I felt a part of his life. His child's eyes saw everything and with his eyes, I saw a life of poverty and yet full of love and joy at times. Ali's eyes also saw great sadness and horrors that we in the West cannot imagine and gratefully so.

Through Ali's eyes, I saw Islam. Ali saw both the Islam that is peaceful and an Islam that can be brutal. To read of a child learning Islam (the faith) was inspiring. To read of a child learning Islam (the religion) was saddening. I have to say some of the more violent parts were hard for me to read. In fact, I had to set the book aside and meditate. No one wants to read of abuse. However, read I did and I learned the difference between faith and religion.

Ali writes with a sense of humor and such an openness that it is hard to believe he has seen many acts of violence in his life. He gives everyday people another reason to believe ...to know they have a voice and have a right to live in peace.

During his metamorphoses, the book was hard to follow. It seemed Ali had lost his focus. Yet wouldn't you and I lose some focus while changing? We would. The one thing that remained was his love for Islam.

Ali Eteraz's Children of Dust is an enjoyable, interesting memoir. The book's beginning focuses on his childhood in Pakistan, which is some of the best writing I have read from this author. Eteraz deftly makes use of magic realism to bring the culture and myths of Pakistan alive. For those whose only exposure to Pakistan is headlines regarding Taliban and nuclear weapons, the perspective brought by this memoir will be an eye-opening experience.

Eteraz's dark humor is subtly woven into the text, and there were several places where I found myself laughing out loud. The honesty with which Eteraz explores his development and efforts to make sense of his relationship with Islam is striking. His willingness to be open about this struggle, combined with his signature lyrical and humorous writing, is truly what makes this memoir a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I give this 3.5 stars.

The book was interesting, thorough and well-written. Though this might seem like a sexist assumption, it seemed more like a "man's book" to me. I have read books of this type and enjoyed them, but for some reason as a woman, I didn't really relate to Ali Eteraz as he shared his life from early adolescence through young adulthood, told through the lens of a very-hormonal (aren't they all) adolescent.

However, for those interested in the Muslim religion, he was quite thorough and even-handed -- expressing his ups and downs as he delved into fundamentalism at times, became an activist, and shied away from his faith and roots at others.

His changes in philosophy are marked by changes in his name as well, as he goes from his given name Abir ul Islam (perfume of Islam) to the more American Amir, to Ali Eteraz (Noble Protest).

The most appealing part of this story to me was the coming-of-age angle. I chuckled in recognition as the teen and young adult Ali Eteraz was always convinced that whatever viewpoint he held was THE right viewpoint and the one that everyone should hold.

What do readers want from a memoir about Pakistan? Political commentary? Religious inspiration or denigration? A rational explanation of a different way of life? An expose of the many different facets of Islam? For this reader, the latter possibility shines forth in this memoir about Ali Eteraz tracing his life from birth to mid-twenties. His family takes him to the sacred shrine at Mecca, rubs him against a heavy black stone at the Ka'aba and pledges his life to the service of Islam. Indoctrinated from a very young age, Ali struggles at the face of Islam he meets. We never know precisely what he learns at the madrassa (Islamic school) other than the sadistic cruelty of child-abusing teachers, not very inspiring for sure. But as Ali grows older, he wrestles with conforming to the expansive laws and rules that require unbelievable discipline.

Ali then wrestles with the challenges of a normal, healthy teenage male, experiencing temptations that clearly conflict with the fundamentalist practices of his family. In the midst of this struggle, Ali must pass from being taught about Islam to exploring, embracing, challenging and seeing what he owns through experience and what is just custom that doesn't always fit in with his high school and college education. To many, Ali learns, Islam is a political or cultural habit, like a piece of clothing one can embrace or discard at a whim, but he wonders where are those who live Islam out of love of its teachings and laws and not just ritualistic practice. Who is right and who is wrong, the fundamentalists or liberals? Can one really truly call one's self faithful to Islam by living a middle-of-the-road practice of this demanding religion? Is reform needed? Ali studies his religion in a thoughtful manner that, albeit lacking substance for the reader as to the content of his studies, makes one's respect tangibly grow for Ali in his scholarly immersion.

Funny, tortured and profound, Ali very briefly abandons it all only to realize he has no identity without Islam and that it is his mission to be a conduit of reform, fighting terrorism and lackluster attitudes with equal and vivacious zeal. Rejecting the type of practice that leads to abuse with the ascendancy of the Taliban to power and control, Ali arrives at a momentous realization, finding beauty in a "we" moment of serving others rather than continuing to search for what this religion can do for or give to him. Freedom just might be a word that means one loses one's truest spiritual identity.

Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan is written in a highly intelligent, wise, humorous and straight-forward manner that will appeal to many readers searching in their own journey or wanting to understand and appreciate the journey of this particular people's religion and nationality.

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on October 15, 2009

I just finished reading it. It was thoroughly enjoyable. I found it was very well written and brutally honest. I was either gasping in disbelief, or crying with laughter the whole way through. I even have a favourite chapter which I had to read 3 times over before I eventually came out of my laughing fit. Being able to make use of the term `khajjal' in a book deserves a standing ovation in itself! A grand masterpiece from a truly gifted writer.

"Children of Dust" is a compelling story that will command the attention of a wide range of readers. A well known young voice in the Islamic "blogosphere," Ali Eteraz is clearly a thinking voice that is not to be confined to any of the cliché tableaus that seek loudly to speak for all Muslims all the time and to define monolithically the "Muslim experience." Even before his birth, Ali Eteraz was committed to the path of Islam. Hoping for the birth of a son, his parents had offered their child while still in the womb to the lifelong service of Islam, if they were granted the blessing of a son. As an infant Eteraz made his first Hajj to Mecca where this covenant was renewed and his body was rubbed on the very surface of the Ka'ba walls. The body of the work deals with various phases of Eteraz's life where he embraces Islam as he finds it, and then rejects it in various forms as his frustrations illustrate to him that nothing in Islam is as it appears on the surface. Some readers will find this disillusionment sad as he turns away from the most obvious, visual and literal manifestations of the faith. Others will find this disillusionment the natural evolution of a young man who grapples with secularism and its empowering joys and dangerous pitfalls as he comes of age as a young man in the grips of all that young manhood entails in any culture. Readers looking for a peek into the backrooms of fundamentalism at its most raw and vital fount, will enjoy this clear taste. And those seeking some basic understanding of the ravaging chaos that is tearing Pakistan apart will glimpse this as well.
Eteraz is first and foremost a strong and bold storyteller. But he is a gentle one as well, knowing when to touch lightly upon the elephant in the room of colonialism without mounting the soapbox and alienating readers who need to be coaxed into that pool if they are to understand the world we live in. But for this reader, it was the relentless race through the inner minefield of religious seeking that was most compelling. The moments when Ali seems to be beating a dead horse, melt suddenly away in the most wonderful and unexpected places and he attains new understanding that can be called nothing short of mini-enlightenments. And these are often drowned in a laughter and good humor that sweeps all else away. Ali Eteraz is clearly guided by an inner compass that seems never to have steered him wrong, if at times that journey has taken a circuitous route. The eventual description of his understanding that what has bared his way towards a deep and meaningful encounter with the essence of Islam, is his idolatry of the form of Islam, is worthy of the great Persian poets, the Rumis, the Hafezs, and all the rest. But here it is offered in a hip new robe that reminds the questing reader that the journey Ali Eteraz has undertaken is a universal one, shaped to the unique contours of the individual soul, not to be embraced as a one-size-fits-all template that never descends beneath the surface of the skin. This book is an absolute delight.

Before Ali Eteraz aka Amir ur Islam aka Abu Bakr Ramaq aka Amir aka Abir ul Islam was born his father promised God that he would be a great leader and a servant of Islam. Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz is a memoir of the author's coming to terms with that accord or mannat.

The Table of Contents reads like a map of Eteraz's geographical and personal journey. In Book One: The Promised -- Abir ul Islam (Perfume of Islam) he is a child living in Pakistan attending a religious school (madrassa) to memorize the Quran. In Book Two - The American - Amir, he is a teen living in the Bible Belt trying to blend in with his new American peers. In Book Three - The Fundamentalist - Abu Bakr Ramaq (Spark of Light) he is attending college in Manhattan and embraces Islamic fundamentalism. Book Three follows his disappointing return to Pakistan where his old friends reject him as "too American." In Book Four - The Post Modern - Amir ul Islam he inwardly adopts anti-Islamic ideas at his new university while outwardly feigning Islamic piety. The final book, Book Five details the author's transformation to Ali Eteraz (Noble Protest) in which he becomes an activist against the violence committed in the name of Islam.

Eteraz is a gifted writer covering a wide swath of emotions in Children of Dust. When describing an unexpected emotional awakening at party in Dubai with Pakistani laborers, Eteraz lyrically writes:

It [a song] melted away my skin and sinew and made me a part of the men around me. These men who were raised from dust, lived in dust, and would eventually rest in dust. I felt one with them. I was not alone. We were many. We were all children of dust.

At other turns, Eteraz hones a light comedic touch such as this passage:

A Muslim leader [he was president of his university's Muslim Students Association] . . . had to be what others thought a perfect Muslim should be. The trouble, of course, was that I was far removed from piety . . . and therefore the only solutions were to genuinely achieve piety or fake.

As a true postmodernist I opted for the latter and called it art . . . .

The only disappointment came at the end of the book when Eteraz leaves loose ends concerning his family.

Overall, Children of Dust is a riveting story of one man's quest to fulfill his pre-birth covenant.


Publisher: HarperOne; 1st edition (October 13, 2009), 352 pages
Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the publisher and FSB Associates.

I have not been moved by a book in a long time, but I was touched by this book. It portrays Muslims as humans, who have the same problems as everyone else - money, education, employment, struggle of an immigrant, and then they have additional struggle of finding a balance between their religious identity and the culture of their adoptive country. It provides insight into that struggle, and how it would be so easy to loose that battle. The book touches some raw nerves in the Muslim Diasporas, it airs some dirty laundry, which no doubt will irk a lot of Muslims especially the one inclined towards fundamentalist ideology, and it highlights the conflict that Muslim youth face.

The book is amazing because it makes no apologies, and there is no negativity. Ali Eteraz does not demonize the religion or his personal conditions. He makes us all realise that even when things are bad, there is beauty and normalcy. The book is beautifully written. It is not about black and white, it is the story of various shades of grey. It is a sad book, but it is also joyous book. The book does service to Muslims in America that many scholars and fist thumping Muslims have been unable to do. Children of Dust, is a story of humanity, and it makes Muslims human, again.

Ali Eteraz was born in Pakistan but raised also in the United States where his family moved to when he was ten years old. His father prayed to Allah that if God granted him a male offspring, he pledged that son would be a servant of Islam. As a child he is taken to Mecca where is further pledged to God and attends the Madrassa Islamic school where teachers abuses the children in the name of Allah. Ali rebels as a teen, but also begins to embrace his religion. However, as he grows into adulthood, he begins to understand his religion is also a culture, but struggles with how strict should one adhere to scripture in a shrinking world?

This is a fascinating intelligent memoir that focuses on the author finding his identity in a western culture that thrives of individual freedom that on the surface seems contradictory to the dogma of religion, in Ali Eteraz case Islam, but could have been the other major religions too. Mr. Eteraz feels his niche is to fight from the pulpit the two extremes of Taliban-al Qaeda deadly extremism and the uninspired event worshiper. How he reached his conclusion is a terrific personal journey of the soul that is easy to follow and admire.

Harriet Klausner