Chapter 1
That was the moment when Ferdous understood she didn’t know God. All her life, she thought she knew Him—His nature, His desires, and exactly what was necessary to remain in His favor. But in that moment, she realized she knew nothing.
Ferdous is a 44-year-old housewife living in a small town in Texas with her husband, Hasan, their 19-year-old daughter, Ayesha, and their 14-year-old son, Ahmed. They are immigrants from Bangladesh, who came to this distant land 15 years ago when Ayesha was 4, to join Hasan in his journey through graduate school. A year later, they welcomed their son, Ahmed.
Ferdous and her family are a traditional Muslim family who were born and raised in Bangladesh. They came to the USA, the land of opportunity, seeking a better future for themselves and their children.
Once Ferdous began living here, she couldn’t help but wonder why people were so eager to come to this strange land called America. How could people fall in love with such a place? There wasn’t a single day she didn’t think about going back. But her lack of courage to start over kept her here. It’s not that she disliked everything about this country. There were plenty of things she appreciated—like the law enforcement system, many facilities for low-income families, a decent educational environment for children, and more. Yet, she constantly lived with the fear that she might not be able to raise her children with proper religious and traditional values and that they might go astray, like many other immigrant children she had seen.
What concerned Ferdous most about the USA was its liberal lifestyle. A country where children don’t live with their parents after a certain age, where they can disobey parents and elders, where it’s acceptable to drink alcohol whenever one wants, to wear whatever one wants, and to live with whoever one wants. If that wasn’t enough, now people can marry someone of the same gender and identify as any gender they choose. She wondered, what’s next? Marrying siblings or relatives? And her suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Recently, in a religious discussion class with other ladies, she learned about a TV series promoting relationships between brothers and sisters, uncles and nephews, and other inappropriate connections. Soon, she thought, they’ll be teaching it in schools, and before you know it, it’ll be legalized nationwide.
