This week I’m hosting Susan Page Davis with Love Finds You in Prince Edward Island, Kathi Macias with People of the Book, and Allie Pleiter with Yukon Wedding. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (April 10th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from People of the Book by Kathi Macias:
1. Farah, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I am a young Muslim woman, faithful to Allah and obedient to my family. I want only to draw closer to Allah and to have a deeper faith in him. I have devoted myself to pursuing that end throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
2. What do you do for fun?
I am very serious about my faith, more so than most young women my age, and my parents and brother think I am far too serious. While others my age enjoy shopping and chatting about prospective husbands, I resist that sort of activity in favor of prayer and fasting and reading the Koran.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
The thing I dread most is dealing with these dreams and visions I’ve been having of the Prophet Isa (whom many call Jesus). I feel as if He is drawing me to Himself, and though I try to resist, I fear I cannot do so for much longer. I also fear the consequences from my family if I give in to His calling.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
I am terrified of the crossroads I have come to, where I must choose between remaining faithful to Allah and Islam and therefore pleasing my family—or choosing Isa and knowing I will be marked as a traitor and an infidel.
5. What do you want out of life?
I want to know God personally—in my case, I always believed that was Allah; now I question that perhaps it might be Isa.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Finding the Truth and following it, whatever the cost. My family is also very important to me. I love them deeply and do not want to betray or deceive them, but I wonder if soon I will have no choice.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I have always read the Koran and approved Muslim books, but lately I have been hiding out in my room and reading The Book online—the one that tells of Isa and that is forbidden for me to read. I know that if I’m caught the consequences will be terrible, but I cannot seem to resist.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
At times I would like to change the moment I first saw Isa in a dream. My life was so much easier before that! Perhaps if I weren’t so serious and instead more playful and frivolous as other women, I would not now find myself in such a difficult predicament.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
I do not have a pet. That is not something our family has ever considered important.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I believe—if I could do so with a guarantee of not being caught—I would travel back to the time when Isa walked the earth. Perhaps if I could see and hear Him in person, I could better decide whether He was simply one of the prophets as we Muslims believe—or the very Son of God Himself, as the “people of the Book” claim He is.
