On the Complexities of Faith, Myth, and Epiphany:

a review of Sarah Ghazal Ali’s Theophanies, by S.M. Badawi

Sarah Ghazal Ali’s long-anticipated Theophanies (Alice James Books, 2024) is simultaneously a revelation and an unraveling. In response to traditional narratives about women in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, Ali writes an intricate origin story, tracing matriarchal stories from Hawa/ Eve to the speaker’s own mother, all the while asking questions and resisting answers. It is clear that these questions stem from a place of yearning and curiosity, a place of wanting to know more about these women and their experiences, and an invitation to imagine our own lives as a continuation of their stories.

In an interview with Hera Naguib for BOMB Magazine, Ali says she is concerned with “considering the contemporary woman in tandem with the women of scripture. How do I do so without projecting, or erasing, or conflating? How do I situate myself within matrilineage without centering myself?” I was curious to see if any of these concerns were realized in the  book. However, instead of poems being a vehicle for ego, Theophanies reads as a rich palimpsest of womens’ stories and an homage to a community of women whose faith weaves their experiences into a sisterhood.

This sisterhood manifests in multiple speakers, or personas, where women are speaking, “seeing” (but never confusing seeing as a way of knowing) and very often listening. In one of the title poems the speaker is “straining/ for the bell in belief” and then in “Temporal” she says, “Faith a legacy/ of echoes– every echo/ a reflection of voice.” This attention to listening is arguably one of the most assured aspects of the book, that in listening to women tell their own stories we can disrupt and reimagine dominant (usually patriarchal) narratives.

In “Litany of al-Bayt” Ali brilliantly describes the ways in which the patriarchy asserts itself in response to women’s words and questions. In this poem, “each time a woman spoke [somewhere Sarah, elsewhere Hajar]” “the men laughed/ and the House laughed” despite “the Divine [who] spoke No.” I am fascinated by the personification of “the House”, a manmade structure, mimicking its makers, underscoring Ali’s attempt to document male-centric dogma, which at times seems to emerge in direct opposition to God’s word. 

I found this tension most clearly expressed in “Litany with Hair” where the father 

said it hides you

said makes you ugly

said not my daughter

said not in my house

said not anymore 

These lines follow the first half of the poem, where God

said veil

said pull it over your breast 

said O believing women 

said this is purer for you

said I am aware of all that you do

And context here is important. There is debate amongst Muslims about the interpretation of these verses. Many believe that this is God’s command for Muslim women to veil. Others interpret the word “veil” as a cover for one’s breasts. Ali is definitely not claiming one interpretation over the other, but rather reflecting the father’s refusal to accept his daughter’s choice, showcasing the ways in which women’s bodily autonomy must be explained and defended. As the speaker battles for choice she ends the poem on her own terms stating, “and I said/ but who heard?”

Indeed choice, even in imagination, is a central idea in multiple poems. In part one of “Daughter Triptych” Ali creates a wonderful metaphysical overlap between the speaker, Maryam, and Sarah, all facing the realities of their fertile bodies. The question she asks is not out of desire to change God’s plans, but rather a curiosity to see what “might have/ happened… if we refused what He offered.”  

There is no refusal of God in this book,  but there is a choice to refuse a worldview in which religion is weaponized. In “Apotheosis,” the speaker says of men, “their tongues are bare/ and motherless, lapping at the breast of brawn/ they mistake for a masculine God.” Here Ali confronts the harm of Partition, of using God as a means to war. Even though many aspects of faith are complicated, bearing witness to harm is not complicated and one can simultaneously recognize the pitfalls of faith in man’s hands and still remain a believer. In fact, the more I read this collection, the more I felt that this recognition is an integral part of believing. One of the most compelling lines in “Apotheosis” tackles this idea boldly and directly: “My faith in God was inevitable as an oil spill.” There is no looking away from the messiness, and often obscurity, of organized religion. One must acknowledge these difficulties in order to arrive at a genuine place of faith. 

This acknowledgement is iterated in the final poem, “Epistle: Hajar”, both as a warning and a reminder. The last line proclaims, “Every temporal sight either miracle or mistake.” Here, Ali (and Hajar) emphasize the fallibility of sight, of the potential to confuse “mistake” for  “miracle” and vice versa. It is fitting that a book that asks many questions, but gives no answers, ends on this note, that we must consider the stories we’ve been told and their potential to unravel. Only then can we arrive at revelation.