This month, more than a billion Muslims across the globe will observe Ramadan, a period of daily fasting to celebrate and reflect on the power and purpose of their religion. And while Islam is the second-most practiced religion in the world, it is still perhaps one of the most maligned and misunderstood faiths on the planet.
Spurred on by the growing intolerance and ignorance surrounding Islam and Muslim people, activist rapper-turned-writer Sister Souljah is using her way with words to give readers her view on the religion and its followers.
“I think the media image of Muslims is very flat and very one-dimensional. They have a tendency to be portrayed as people who are only interested in politics and revenge and nothing else,” Souljah says. “I thought it [would be] interesting to show those other dimensions and … [to show] the Islamic community as human beings that are trying to live their lives happily and trying to stick to their culture and save their traditions.”
Preserving culture and tradition has long been one of Souljah’s missions. In the ’90s, her Afrocentric raps and rabble-rousing speeches empowered listeners to know their history, embrace their culture and “fight the power.”
Now, her street-savvy books are encouraging readers to explore how history and culture shapes people’s values, lives and communities.
“The Coldest Winter Ever,” her debut novel and a New York Times best seller, tells the story of Winter Santiaga, the teenage daughter of a New York City drug kingpin who has to hustle on the streets to survive when her father’s incarceration leaves her family homeless and penniless. In the book, readers are introduced to the character Midnight, a young Sudanese Muslim man who becomes the main character of Souljah’s subsequent novels.
“A lot of people have culture, and when they come to the United Sates, they think that the object is to forget about the culture that they come from or the religion that they come from and just melt into whatever is going on in America,” she says. “But I think that the culture that we come from or that we had through our grandparents and our great grandparents really taught us a good way to live and a good way to love. So we should value them and remember them and practice the good parts of our culture.”
Midnight’s astute attention to following the will and word of Allah becomes an integral part of his ability to make decisions and take action. Despite living in and traveling to countries where Islam is neither law nor lifestyle, Midnight remains steadfast in his faith, making salah (prayer) daily, reading and quoting from the Qur’an, ruminating on Islamic values and principles, and fasting for Ramadan even while he zigzags Japan in search of his wife. The book even broaches the topic of polygamy — a practice that, though forbidden in America, is accepted in Islam — as Midnight discovers in his search for one wife that he may have, in fact, found another.
The Midnight books aren’t the first time Souljah’s written about Muslims or Islam. “No Disrespect,” her first-ever literary release, describes valuable lessons she learned through her relationships with seven individuals who played a key role in her life. In one chapter, she describes a romantic relationship she has during college with a Muslim man, who introduces her to some of the elements of Islam.
Souljah says her experience with Islam and Muslim students during college left an impression that has stuck with her throughout the years.
“I graduated from Rutgers University, and the great thing about Rutgers was that it was a huge university that had students from all around the globe. I met students who were Muslim, students who were Jewish, students who were Buddhist, students who were Christian, you know, [people] from everywhere in the world,” she recalls.
“My experience with Muslim students was that they were hardworking and conscientious. I’d even say very smart, speaking several different languages, and studying the more difficult disciplines in the university. And also just good people, period.”
