An audio book.
In Toronto, Khalid (mid-twenties, living with his widowed mother) watches a female neighbour drive off. He's had his eyes on her. She's Ayesha, single, 27, Hijab wearer, who's just starting as a substitute science teacher, though she loves writing poetry. She's never kissed a man.
Khalid, a programmer, has a beard and wears a robe to work. He doesn't shake hands with females. According to Sheila, the new director (who worked in Saudi Arabia for a while) this causes friction and is sexist. Clara, his supportive HR colleague, invites him to a social event. There she sees Ayesha perform. Clara's known Ayesha since when they were both new girls at school (from Newfoundland and India).
Khalid has a sister Zarina who's back in India. She was taken there 12 years ago by her mother. Khalid sends her money.
Ayesha's father was an English prof. She's unsure how he died - her mother doesn't talk about it. They were initially helped by a rich uncle. He's worried about his daughter Hafsa and asks Clara to check her out.
Khalid and Ayesha find themselves on the same committee, planning a "Moslems in Action" youth event in the mosque. She's initially unimpressed by him, thinking him "a beardy fundi". She wants gender equality among the speakers. She's invited to run a poetry session. Ayesha invite him round for a cooking lesson with her gran. Because of a misunderstanding that she doesn't correct, he thinks her name is Hafsa.
To make him fail at work, Sheila makes Khalid meet a new client - a lingerie maker. They choose him, though he points out his technical unsuitedness.
Thanks to mothers' matchmaking, Khalid's engagement to Hafsa is announced. Khalid's happy, because he liked the girl he knows as "Hafsa", and he's in favour of arranged marriages. When he learns to truth, he accepts, in order to keep his mother happy. Both Khalid and Ayesha try to find ways to get the arrangement called off. Is the Imam really embezzling? Was Zarina really made pregnant by Khalid's friend?
In the end Khalid calls it off, but Ayesha doesn't accept his proposal because he's too honest about her poetry, belief and honesty. Khalid is changing though - no longer does he believe in "no love before marriage". He gets sacked because porn is found on his machine, but it's not his fault. Using hitherto unsuspected skills he threatens Sheila with legal action and gets his job back.
Meanwhile, Clara's long-established living-together relationship is struggling. Zarina turns up, 7 months pregnant. She says she had an abortion at 17. She now hopes her husband will join her.
Khalid (who's changed) and Ayesha finally get together, united by having grieving mothers.
Had I not skimmed some reviews beforehand, I wouldn't have known it's a retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I like the idea, and it explains the contrived nature of some of the plotting. Brides-to-be aren't expected to work but should be good cooks. In what other ways does Islamic attitudes to match-making resemble those of Jane Austin's England?
Aspects of the name mix-up aren't convincing, and the story ends rather abruptly. Eyes do a lot of things that real eyes don't do - "his brown eyes pleaded silently"; "soft eyes"; "haunted eyes"; "eyes that flashed with anger".
Other reviews
- Kamrun Nesa (reads like an Indian soap opera with a dash of Shakespeare ... Despite the similarities in the premises, Ayesha at Last is more than just a Muslim retelling of Austen's work; Jalaluddin constructs a timely and enlightening narrative that validates the experiences of many South Asians and Muslims today, while weaving in universal themes of identity, class, and discrimination.)
- https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43124133-ayesha-at-last
- Piali Roy (Jalaluddin takes some liberties with the original, so that not every plot point lines up. Unexpected twists allow for mysteries to unfold as events culminate in a showdown at the mosque. While Jalaluddin pokes fun at the many hypocrisies in Austen’s novel, she also tackles serious issues such as forced marriage and addiction. )
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