Zaatar Days, Henna Nights
Maliha Masood, Seal Press, 2006
Reviewed by Linda Carlson, May 2008
Two weeks before New York’s Twin Towers were brought down by Middle Eastern extremists, Maliha Masoud, a 28-year-old techie from Seattle, flew safely back into Sea-Tac after 18 months of traveling. She’d begun in Europe, and then spent a year living in and exploring Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. She’d been befriended, aided and abetted at every turn by average, non-extreme (except in generosity) Middle Eastern people.
Maliha’s book, Zaatar Days, Henna Nights is a journey through cultures, languages, and her own identity. Masood was born in Pakistan, but left at the age of 12 with her family. So a return to the Middle East was both going home and leaving home.
Besides exploring Cairo’s old souk, the Egyptian desert, and a bit of Kurdistan that reminded her of Tuscany, Maliha spent months exploring her own soul. The story of her self-discovery is as exciting as the tales of her adventures which include not quite falling in love in Syria, being mistaken for a spy in Turkey, and being accidentally imprisoned and nearly missing her flight back to Seattle.
Some people love this book as a travel book; others enjoy the search for identity; still others are intrigued by the descriptions of Muslim women’s lives. Its timing is especially interesting to me; Masood waited eight years to have it published, in part because of the disaster of September 11th, 2001, and the ensuing “War on Terror.” She felt that the timing wasn’t right for her book until recently; yet to me, a book about the normal, everyday lives of Muslims and Arabs is long overdue.