The Who & the What Curriculum Guide

AYA M. D AK BEV HT IN AR O’G AR A

F O RO F M DI T SG HE RA A DI RE CE UT CT D HO R ED BY

DR AM A

CU & T TH RR H E ICU E W WH LUM H O A T GU IDE PR OV OC ATI VE AN DM OV ING

TABLE OF CONTENTS Standards 3 Guidelines for Attending the Theatre 4 Artists 5 Themes for Writing & Discussion 7 Mastery Assessment 11 For Further Exploration 12 Suggested Activities 17

Š Huntington Theatre Company Boston, MA 02115 April 2017 No portion of this curriculum guide may be reproduced without written permission from the Huntington Theatre Company’s Department of Education & Community Programs Inquiries should be directed to: Donna Glick | Director of Education djglick@huntingtontheatre.org This curriculum guide was prepared for the Huntington Theatre Company by: Marisa Jones | Education Associate Alexandra Smith | Manager of Curriculum & Instruction Lisa Timmel | Director of New Work

COMMON CORE STANDARDS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

STANDARDS: Student Matinee performances and pre-show workshops provide unique opportunities for experiential learning and support various combinations of the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts. They may also support standards in other subject areas such as Social Studies and History, depending on the individual play’s subject matter.

Activities are also included in this Curriculum Guide and in our pre-show workshops that support several of the Massachusetts state standards in Theatre. Other arts areas may also be addressed depending on the individual play’s subject matter.

Reading Literature: Key Ideas and Details 1 • Grades 9-10: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

• Grades 11-12: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences from from the text, including where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Reading Literature: Key Ideas and Details 2 • Grades 9-10: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

• Grades 11-12: Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide and objective summary of the text.

Reading Literature: Key Ideas and Details 3 • Grades 9-10: Analyze how complex characters (e.g. those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the themes.

• Grades 11-12: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop related elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).

Reading Literature: Craft and Structure 5 • Grades 9-10: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks), create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.

• Grades 11-12: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.

Reading Literature: Craft and Structure 6 • Grades 9-10: Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.

• Grades 11-12: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view required distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).

Reading Literature: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 7 •G rades 11-12: Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g. recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist).

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

3

MASSACHUSETTS STANDARDS IN THEATRE ACTING • 1.14: Create complex and believable characters through the integration of physical, vocal, and emotional choices (Grades 9-12).

• 1.15: Demonstrate an understanding of a dramatic work by developing a character analysis (Grades 9-12).

• 1.17: Demonstrate increased ability to work effectively alone and collaboratively with a partner or in an ensemble (Grades 9-12).

READING AND WRITING SCRIPTS • 2.11: Read plays from a variety of genres and styles; compare and contrast the structure of plays to the structures of other forms of literature (Grades 9-12).

TECHNICAL THEATRE •4 .13: Conduct research to inform the design of sets, costumes, sound, and lighting for a dramatic production (Grades 9-12).

CONNECTIONS •S trand 6: Purposes and Meanings in the Arts — Students will describe the purposes for which works of dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret their meanings (Grades PreK-12).

•S trand 10: Interdisciplinary Connections — Students will apply their knowledge of the arts to the study of English language arts, foreign languages, health, history and social science, mathematics, and science and technology/engineering (Grades PreK-12).

AUDIENCE ETIQUETTE Attending live theatre is a unique experience with many valuable educational and social benefits. To ensure that all audience members are able to enjoy the performance, please take a few minutes to discuss the following audience etiquette topics with your students before you come to the Huntington Theatre Company.

• How is attending the theatre similar to and different from going to the movies? What behaviors are and are not appropriate when seeing a play? Why? • Remind students that because the performance is live, the audience’s behavior and reactions will affect the actors’ performances.

No two audiences are exactly the same, and therefore no two performances are exactly the same — this is part of what makes theatre so special! Students’ behavior should reflect the level of performance they wish to see.

• Theatre should be an enjoyable experience for the audience. It is absolutely all right to applaud when appropriate and laugh at the funny moments. Talking and calling out during the performance, however, are not allowed. Why might this be? Be sure to mention that not only would the people seated around them be able to hear their conversation, but the actors on stage could hear them, too. Theatres are constructed to carry sound efficiently!

• Any noise or light can be a distraction, so please remind students to make sure their cell phones are turned off (or better yet, left at home or at school!). Texting, photography, and video recording are prohibited. Food, gum, and drinks should not be brought into the theatre.

• Students should sit with their group as seated by the Front of House staff and should not leave their seats once the performance has begun.

4

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

ARTISTS PLAYWRIGHT AYAD AKHTAR For those familiar with Ayad Akhtar’s play Disgraced, his play The Who & the What, a bittersweet drama about family, love, and the Prophet Muhammad, will come as a surprise. Disgraced became a cultural touchstone in a way that very few plays do. From its world premiere in Chicago in 2012 to its Broadway debut in 2015 and subsequent productions across the country in 2016, including at the Huntington — the ground underneath the play shifted.

Speaking with The Los Angeles Times, Akhtar explained, “I wrote the play in 2010 and I didn’t think that that kind of degradation of rhetoric could exist anywhere but the theatre…. But now we’re living in a world where what’s happening on stage is not all that controversial.” It takes a unique openness and thoughtfulness to write plays that both ride the wave of the zeitgeist and center on the intimate life of Americans. How Ayad Akhtar came to possess that generous perspective and to write several trenchant, diverse American plays is a long and surprising story.

Akhtar’s parents came to the United States from Pakistan in the late 1960s; both were doctors and both hoped he would be a doctor, too. His mother told young Ayad that when a teacher asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he should reply, “A neurologist.” That changed at 15 when he had a literature

teacher who inspired him to become a writer. He spent his junior and senior years under her tutelage “reading everything under the sun,” including “a lot of very obscure modernist writers.” He left his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin for Brown University in 1988 with the goal of becoming a writer. There, he was drawn into the theatre scene after a friend cast him in a student production of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He loved it. After graduation, he left for Italy to work with renowned theatre director and theorist Jerzy Grotowski, eventually becoming his assistant.

After returning to the US, he taught acting with avant-garde director Andre Gregory, and by 2002 had earned a MFA in film directing at Columbia University. Striking an ironic note about his long apprenticeship, Akhtar once remarked, “I had this weird, avant-garde training that was all about process. And now I write these overtly audience oriented, well-made, traditional plays. It’s really weird how life is.”

All this time, Akhtar continued writing and growing. “There is an evolution that leads to the acquisition of craft and to the opening of oneself to the world. I think the big crossing for me was understanding. As a young man, I thought of art as selfexpression… As I got older — and as life started to beat me up a bit — I began to understand that it wasn’t interesting for the art to be about me. It suddenly became much more interesting to be observing others and to see what’s happening in the world; for art to be this creative engagement. … I actually don’t think I came to be an artist until I understood that.” Around 2008, he began to confront his conflicted feelings about his identity: “It was a slow process of coming to understand how much I wanted

t. charles erickson

Shirine Babb as Jory, Rajesh Bose as Amir, Nicole Lowrance as Emily, and Benim Foster as Isaac in Disgraced

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

5

to be European, how much I wanted to be white, how much I wanted to be things that I wasn’t. When I started to understand that, I had enough presence of mind to not do anything about it, but just observe. And as I observed, I metaphorically looked over my shoulder at what I had been running from, and it led to an explosion of creativity. I had been writing stories for a long time, so I think this inspiration manifested itself with craft built in — narratives, characters, textures, dramatic situations, and circumstances.”

Akhtar currently occupies a complicated space in the American theatre. As a first generation American he is pressured to represent his community in a positive light, but as an artist he is “interested in telling good stories and interesting audiences.” The Los Angeles Times writer Jeffrey Fleishman posited, “Akhtar’s work … examine[s], much like James Baldwin did for African Americans, the experiences, betrayals, and hopes of Muslim immigrants. He does not pretend to be the voice of such a diverse group… but he is shrewd and compassionate and understands the incendiary power of language both on and offstage.” Whether it’s the tragic downfall of a self-hating man or the bittersweet story of a woman and her father, Ayad Akhtar goes onward and outward, assiduously working to translate the untranslatable.

DIRECTOR M. BEVIN O’GARA

nile hawver

M. Bevin O’Gara is the Associate Producer at the Huntington Theatre Company where she directed Kirsten Greenidge’s Milk Like Sugar and Melinda Lopez’s Becoming Cuba. Other directing credits include Appropriate, A Future Perfect, Tribes, and Clybourne Park (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Brahman/i, Chronicles of Kalki, You for Me for You, Love Person, and The Pain and the Itch (Company One Theatre); Phedre (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); Translations (Bad Habit Productions); Matt and Ben (Central Square Theater); Two Wives in India and Gary (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); 2.5 Minute Ride (New Repertory 6

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

t. charles erickson

The result of this slow process was indeed a stunning burst of creativity revolving around reconciling contemporary life with traditional Islamic culture — looking at what it means to be Muslim in America. Over the course of eight months in 2010, Akhtar wrote drafts of three plays: Disgraced, Invisible Hand, and The Who & the What. It was also during this time that he wrote the first draft of his novel American Dervish. Akhtar explains, “All together these stories are a picture; but no one of them is the picture. I would finish one, and I would go into the other.

One work is a contradiction of the next, and is a response to the next, or takes the themes of the previous and develops them in a different way.”

Carolina Sanchez, Jasmine Carmichael, and Shazi Raja in Milk Like Sugar

Theatre); Othello and The Crucible (New Rep On Tour); Melancholy Play (Holland Productions); Tattoo Girl, Painting You, and Artifacts (Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop); and ANTI-KISS (3 Monkeys Theatrical Productions). She has also worked with New Repertory Theatre, the Gaiety Theatre of Dublin, and the Actors Centre of Australia, and is the recipient of the Lois Roach Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Boston Theatre Community from Company One Theatre. She has a BFA from Boston University in theatre studies. In July 2017 she will become the Producing Artistic Director at the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, New York.

QUESTIONS: 1. The Huntington Theatre Company produced another of Ayad Akhtar’s plays, Disgraced, during its 2015-2016 season. Compare and contrast the two plays in terms of their subject matter, characters, settings, and themes.

2. a. Director M. Bevin O’Gara’s directing resume includes a diverse group of projects, ranging from classic plays to contemporary works to world premieres. Examine the other plays O’Gara has directed specifically for the Huntington Theatre Company: Milk Like Sugar and Becoming Cuba. Are there any similarities among these works? How would you describe O’Gara’s overall body of work? b. In addition to directing The Who & the What, O’Gara is also the Huntington’s full-time Associate Producer. What does this job entail? What background and professional experiences make O’Gara a good fit for this role?

THEMES FOR WRITING & DISCUSSION

nile hawver

Aila Peck as Zarina and Turna Mete as Mahwish in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of The Who & the What

OLD WORLD PATRIARCHY VERSUS NEW WORLD FEMINISM Zarina and Mahwish are American-born sisters of Pakistani descent. At 32, Zarina is a Harvard-educated author working on the novel that could put her on the literary map, while her 25-year-old sister Mahwish is studying for the GRE exam required for graduate school. Both women strive to take full advantage of the new world opportunities their parents sought when they immigrated to the United States. Their father Afzal is an American success story, as the owner of a large taxi company in Atlanta.

His great pride in his daughters’ accomplishments is matched only by his high hopes for their futures, but conflict arises when Afzal’s old world customs intersect with the new world culture in which Zarina and Mahwish grew up. The patriarchal traditional values Afzal worked to instill in his daughters are sometimes at odds with contemporary feminist ideals, particularly when it comes to gender roles and romantic relationships.

In Pakistan, Zarina and Mahwish may have found themselves with little choice in who they married; suitable partners would have been identified by their father. As modern American women, the sisters grew up in a culture where dating was the norm, yet old world expectations are not far from their minds. At the beginning of the play, Zarina is single and content to remain so, while Mahwish wants to marry her longtime boyfriend. As the younger sister, Mahwish feels bound to their father’s traditional belief that an elder sister must marry first. “Z,” Mahwish begs her sister in Act I, Scene 1, “if you don’t start showing some interest, Dad is not

gonna let me—” Zarina cuts her off. “You don’t need me to get married for you and Haroon to get married,” she reminds Mahwish, before pointing out that Mahwish has already gone to absurd lengths to bend traditional religious rules when it comes to premarital sexual contact (I.1). But Mahwish is insistent: “I can’t get married before you do, Zarina… It’s not what’s done” (I.1). Zarina pushes her sister to disregard their father’s old world expectations, despite her own experience submitting to his pressure. While at Harvard, she fell in love with Ryan, a man of Irish Catholic heritage who asked Afzal for permission to marry Zarina. Afzal did not approve of his daughter marrying a non-Muslim, so Zarina ended the relationship at her father’s behest. “She broke up with him.

Just like the Prophet’s daughter did. Left the man she loved because he wouldn’t become a Muslim” (II.2).

Aware that this choice made his daughter unhappy, Afzal tries a more contemporary approach to helping Zarina find a love match.

He pushes her to try online dating, an idea which Zarina soundly rejects. “There is no universe. In which I start. Online dating,” she confirms when Mahwish advocates for their father’s idea. Zarina tells her family she is happy as a single woman, but Afzal does not let that impede his mission to find her a husband. He makes a profile on a dating site, pretending to be his daughter, so that he can connect with and prescreen some potential matches.

“We are a conservative family,” he says in an attempt to justify his actions when he first meets Eli, a man he contacts on the site while impersonating Zarina (I.2). Afzal is steadfast in his belief that he knows what is best for his daughter, taking great pride in his THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

7

mastery of a contemporary tool for a traditional purpose. “Your profile is amazing, behti,” he brags to Zarina. “Your old father is not such a fool after all” (I.3). Even after he successfully connects Zarina with Eli, Afzal feels compelled to provide unsolicited counseling with a decidedly old-school, patriarchal bent. “I know my daughter. She needs to feel protected, by a strong man,” he advises, despite Zarina never having expressed anything of the sort. “She has the power,” in her relationship with Eli, Afzal says.

“She has the power she shouldn’t have” (II.2). Furthermore, when Afzal learns that Zarina may not want to follow a traditional female path to motherhood, he takes a dismissive attitude. “Women don’t always know what they want,” he claims. “What’s an advantage in a man isn’t always in a woman. It can be an impediment to a woman’s happiness” (II.2).

Afzal believes that there is an innate cultural wiring that will win Zarina over in the end because, he explains, “Zarina’s not an American girl… she is, in some ways. But not in others” (II.2).

Afzal sees the egalitarian relationship between Zarina and Eli as problematic. “You need some breaking, too. You’re too passive,” Afzal advises Eli. But Eli has a different point of view about how he and Zarina should relate to one another, telling Afzal that “women don’t need to be broken. They need to be heard…

Seen. Respected” (II.2). As tension builds between Zarina’s new world feminist perspective and her father’s old world patriarchal expectations, she must determine how much sway tradition will hold in her life.

QUESTIONS: 1. At the beginning of the play, why does Zarina advise Mahwish to go ahead and marry Haroon? Why does Afzal approve of Mahwish’s relationship with Haroon but did not approve of Zarina’s relationship with Ryan?

2. Although he has traditional views when it comes to romantic relationships, Afzal is supportive of the new world freedoms that allowed him to become a successful businessman and his daughters to pursue their education. What motivates Afzal’s interference in his daughters’ lives? What does he ultimately want for them? Compare and contrast Afzal’s vision for his daughters’ futures with what Zarina and Mahwish each want for themselves.

3. W ould Zarina’s marriage to Eli be characterized as an arranged marriage? Why or why not?

4. H ow would you feel if your parents tried to fix you up with a potential love match? Do you and your parents agree on what qualities to look for in a partner?

THE PERSONAL NATURE OF FAITH According to a 2015 report by the Pew Research Center, Islam is the world’s second largest religion. More than 1.6 billion people, or 23% of the global population, call themselves Muslims, a number that is projected to grow into the planet’s dominant faith by 2070 if current trends continue. However, interpretations of key 8

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

Collection of West African Islamic tablets with examples of Quranic Arabic writing, privately purchased at auction.

scriptures can vary widely from denomination to denomination and person to person, and in Ayad Akhtar’s The Who & the What, all of the characters grapple with the impact from the ways their own Muslim faiths overlap and diverge from each other.

Born into a devout Muslim family, Mahwish and Zarina grew up reading the Quran, praying to Allah, and learning to be observant Muslim women. “My father thinks I have fifteen biographies of the Prophet ‘cause I love him so much,” Zarina acknowledges, aware that the reality is far more complex (I.4). Neither Zarina or Mahwish wear a hijab or other veil, nor did their mother, and while Zarina can respect other women’s choice to do so, she believes it is important that they “understand they’re turning themselves into metaphorical wives of the Prophet” (I.4). Mahwish also has a complicated relationship with her faith and is preoccupied with fears that her physical relationship with her boyfriend treads on Islamic moral values and that she may go to hell as a result. Zarina dismisses her sister’s concerns; while Mahwish believes hell is a real, physical place where the souls of sinners are sent after death, Zarina’s interpretation is abstract. “I can’t be scared of something I don’t believe in,” she explains. “It’s a metaphor… For suffering. For the cycle of human suffering” (I.1).

Meanwhile, Eli is a convert whose understanding of Islam is grounded in a strong belief in salvation. Raised in a home that was secular but dedicated to public service and “making lives better, [communist theorist Karl] Marx was the real prophet in [Eli’s] house.” He jokes that perhaps his conversion was rooted in some subconscious desire “to piss [his] folks off” (I.4). The reality is that

Eli was something of an outcast who found a home in Islam. “First time I ever went to a mosque, I was in high school,” he recalls in Act I, Scene 2. “I’d never experienced anything like it… the sense of community. The call to prayer. Watching folks praying? It just — it opened me up. I wanted to be a part of that.” He even found ways to marry his service-oriented upbringing with his self-proclaimed faith. As an imam, he chose to institute “outreach [that] is more about serving others than bringing people to the faith” (II.2).

Afzal profoundly respects the personal path Eli took to find his Islamic calling, and remarks that it is “a very special thing” for an individual to “come to the faith of their own will” (II.2).

Afzal’s positive regard does not extend to those who leave the faith of their own will. He scoffs when he learns that both Zarina and Eli previously attended an event featuring noted politician and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was born into a Muslim family but later declared herself an atheist. “She wants us to go running around confused, like Christians,” he says, a claim that Eli disputes (I.2). Zarina also has a different take on Hirsi Ali’s views. Hirsi Ali is “just saying Christianity has been around longer than [Islam],” she explains. “It’s had more time to work out some of the kinks” (I.3).

Afzal and Eli may disagree when it comes to Hirsi Ali, but they find some common ground when it comes to Zarina’s characterization of Muhammad in her novel. Her attempts to humanize the Prophet leave both Afzal and Eli distraught. “He’s nothing like the man I know,” Eli remarks of Zarina’s fictionalized Muhammad. “I didn’t recognize him, Zarina. I didn’t recognize the man I fell in love with when I became a Muslim” (II.1). As Afzal firmly rejects Zarina’s interpretation, Eli cautions that Zarina may be alienating her audience. “The young men and women in my mosque. The people you’re trying to reach, if they don’t recognize the man you’re writing about, they’re not going to listen to you,” he cautions (II.1).

But Zarina follows her own inner compass forward.

QUESTIONS: 1. When a conservative Muslim group wants to give Eli an award, he hesitates to accept it, telling Afzal, “they like telling people what it means to be Muslim more than I’m comfortable with. To you, your Islam. To me, mine” (II.2). Why does Eli respect the group’s right to their religious beliefs, even though they differ from his own? Would he feel differently if he had been brought up a Muslim?

2. Zarina claims that she “hate[s] what the faith does to women” and that “for every story about [Muhammad’s] generosity or his goodness, there’s another that’s used as an excuse to hide [women]” (I.4). How does her perspective differ from the young women in Eli’s congregation? How is it possible to derive two different meanings from the same scripture?

3. How do Muslims respond to Zarina’s book when it is published?

4. Research and then compare and contrast the various denominations of Islam. Consider their historical origins, ethnic makeup, primary geographic location, and what they value, emphasize, and prioritize within Islam.

THE WHO & THE WHAT “ All the stories we hear, that have gotten told for hundreds of years, don’t point to a real person. It’s all like this monument to what we have made of him. But who he really was? We don’t know.” – Zarina, Act I, Scene 4 The title of Ayad Akhtar’s play The Who & the What also happens to be the title of the book the play’s protagonist Zarina is writing.

It refers to a struggle to sort through what centuries of Islamic traditions have made the prophet Muhammad out to be, in order to discover who he truly was as a human being. Given that Muhammad lived hundreds of years ago and cannot speak for himself, the faithful must examine religious texts and use their own imaginations to find the truth for themselves. Read the quotes below that describe or refer to characters from The Who & the What who do not appear onstage, then answer the questions that follow.

RYAN MAHWISH: You have to put Ryan behind you.

ZARINA: He is.

MAHWISH: No, he’s not. (beat) He’s married. (I.1) ...

AFZAL: Zarina. I’m sorry. I should not have stopped you and Ryan. (pause) Forgive me.

ZARINA: I have.

AFZAL: No you haven’t. (I.3) ...

AFZAL: He came to Atlanta, Christmas 2009. A solid fellow. Catholic. Irish… very smart. Could keep up with that mind of hers… Very respectful. (II.2) ...

ELI: Are you still in love with him?

ZARINA: It’s over. (II.3) ...

ZARINA: I don’t know who Ryan is anymore! He’s just an idea in my head! (II.3) HAROON MAHWISH: [Haroon’s] a man. If I don’t do something with him, he’ll find somebody else to do it with. (I.1) ...

MAHWISH: I love Haroon. (I.1) ...

AFZAL: I didn’t know what it was, dating. We don’t have it. With Mahwish it was never a problem. She always had that boy Haroon. Who I knew since he was a child. (II.2) ...

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

9

MAHWISH: I got it in my head that when I was nine, I was going to become the Prophet’s favorite wife, too…

You know what happened when I turned nine? I met Haroon… That’s when he and I first met. That was the sign. He was wearing that white turtleneck and those Levis… He was seriously cute… I mean, he still is. (II.3) ...

ZARINA: When you think of Haroon… what do you think of?

MAHWISH: He’s my husband.

ZARINA: But, what is it about him?

MAHWISH: Oh, he’s smart… and funny… He’s different around you. You intimidate him… He never does any dishes… but he always buys me Pinkberry… And he’s got such a great job.

ZARINA: Okay… So if you take away all those things…

And if you think of him. Of who he is. Just him… Not what you can say about him… How do you feel then? erin baiano

MAHWISH:… Mad. I feel mad. (II.3) ...

ZARINA: I’ve stood behind you since you were like, what, sixteen? For your sick I’m-so-dependent-on-aman-that-I’ll-let-him-violate-me-so-I-never-lose-him…

This is my thanks?

MAHWISH: She’s lying.

ZARINA: (To Afzal) You never really liked Haroon for a reason, Dad… He’s a scumbag. (II.4) MANUEL ZARINA: Manuel. Your GRE teacher… with the muscles and the tank top…

MAHWISH:… I just think he’s hot. (I.1) ...

MAHWISH: I’m not acknowledging desire. I don’t have any desire for Manuel. (I.1) ...

MAHWISH: He asked me if I wanted to see his place. He lives around the corner from that coffee shop. We went up the stairs. He went into the kitchen and got me an ice tea. When he gave it to me, our hands touched. It was amazing. And then he kissed me. (II.3) ...

MAHWISH: It’s just a lark.

ZARINA: I can tell you saw him just from your vocabulary. (II.3) ...

10

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

Tender moment between Tala Ashe as Zarina and Greg Keller as Eli at the Lincoln Center Theater’s production of The Who & the What

ELI: So she liked this guy more than Haroon, but she married Haroon anyway.

ZARINA: I mean, it was a crush. (II.3)

QUESTIONS: 1. When an actor prepares to play a role, one way to begin learning about the character is to examine what other characters say about them, as well as what they say about themselves. Imagine that you have been tasked with bringing Haroon, Manuel, or Eli to life. What can you determine about the character’s personality, beliefs, and objectives based on these lines from the play? Who is he? What have others made him out to be? How might the reality of who he is be different?

2. Select one of the characters that do appear onstage and consider what they say about themselves, what others say about them, and the way the actor playing the role in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of the play uses physical and vocal choices in their portrayal. Describe the character’s onstage emotions and behavior and cite specific textual evidence that supports the actor’s interpretation that you see onstage.

3. Describe Zarina’s characterization of Muhammad. From her perspective, what has Islamic tradition made him out to be?

Who was he really?

4. It is not uncommon for human beings to make someone out to be something other than who they really are. Why does this happen with historical figures? With people we encounter in real life? What consequences can come as a result?

MASTERY ASSESSMENT ACT I SCENE 1 1. Why did Mahwish send Zarina a link to an online dating website?

2. Who is Haroon?

3. Who is Manuel?

4. What is Zarina writing a book about?

5. Who is Ryan?

SCENE 2 6. Who did Eli come to the coffee shop to meet? Who does he meet there instead?

7. What is Afzal’s profession?

8. Why did Eli convert to Islam?

9. What does Eli do for work in addition to running a mosque?

10. Where did Eli meet Zarina in the past?

SCENE 3 11. Why is Zarina angry at Afzal?

12. Who does Afzal want Zarina to meet? Why? 13. How did Afzal and Zarina’s mother come to be married?

SCENE 4 14. Describe Eli’s family and upbringing.

15. Why did Eli join MuslimLove.com?

16. What lesson did Eli learn about Islam from reading Malcolm X’s autobiography?

17. What story is the focus of the novel Zarina is writing?

18. Who was Zaynab, the Prophet Muhammad’s seventh wife, previously married to?

6. W hat does Afzal want Zarina to focus on now that she is finished writing her book?

7. What does Afzal think is the problem in Eli and Zarina’s marriage?

8. Describe Zarina’s mother’s upbringing and family culture.

9. Describe Ryan’s background.

10. What did Ryan ask Afzal when he came to visit during Christmas in 2009? How did Afzal respond? What did Zarina do?

11. What does Afzal find in Eli’s bag? What does he do with it?

SCENE 3 12. What does Mahwish confess happened when she went to Manuel’s apartment?

13. When Zarina was a child, who did she say she wanted to marry when she grew up? Who did Mahwish think she was going to marry?

14. How does Mahwish feel when she thinks about who Haroon really is?

15. Why does Zarina think it wouldn’t be the worst thing if Mahwish had an affair with Manuel?

16. According to Zarina, why is it impossible for her to still be in love with Ryan?

17. What does Eli discover when he tries to leave?

SCENE 4 18. What is Mahwish reading at the beginning of the scene?

19. According to Afzal, what would happen to Zarina if she lived in Pakistan?

20. According to Zarina, what is her book about?

19. According to Zarina, why did Muslim women begin wearing veils over their faces?

21. What story did Afzal tell Zarina in order to convince her to end her relationship with Ryan?

20. What does the title of Zarina’s book, The Who and the What, refer to?

22. How does Mahwish feel about Zahrina’s book?

SCENE 5 21. Who is in the pictures Afzal is looking at?

24. How does Eli defend Zarina’s work?

22. Where has Mahwish been that evening?

23. What does Afzal want Zarina to do with the book?

25. What offer does Afzal make to Mahwish?

23. What does Zarina do when she returns home?

EPILOGUE 26. Who does Afzal think is contacting Mahwish on the phone?

ACT II

27. Why did Mahwish accompany Afzal to the park?

SCENE 1 1. How has the relationship between Zarina and Eli changed?

28. Where are Zarina and Eli moving?

2. What has Eli been withholding from Zarina for two days?

3. W hat are Eli’s concerns about Zarina’s depiction of Muhammad in her book?

SCENE 2 4. Why is Eli uneasy about receiving the Young Muslim Leader of the Year award from the Muslim Association of North America?

5. Why does Afzal try to give money to Eli rather than Zarina?

29. What happened to Afzal’s business after Zarina’s book was published?

30. What do the people emailing Zarina about her book say it did for them?

31. What news does Zarina share about her and Eli’s family?

32. When Afzal prays to God, what does he ask for Zarina’s child?

33. What is the gender of Zarina’s child?

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

11

FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION AYAAN HIRSI ALI A year before Eli sees Zarina’s profile on MuslimLove.com in The Who & the What, he met her briefly at a talk they both attended at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The speaker was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch-American activist born in Somalia known for her women’s rights activism and vocal criticism of Islam. In The Who & the What, Zarina’s father Afzal is distressed to hear that Eli and Zarina would attend such an event and takes issue with what he frames as Hirsi Ali’s assertion that “all Muslims should become Christians” (Act I, Scene 2). Eli counters that “that’s not exactly what she thinks,” but admits that, as a devout Muslim, he does not agree with everything Hirsi Ali says (Act I, Scene 2). Hirsi Ali’s controversial positions on Islam, women, and cultural practices where the three intersect, ignites debate both in Ayad Akhtar’s play and in real life.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s biography begins in Mogadishu, Somalia, where she was born Ayaan Hirsi Magan into a devout Muslim family in 1969. Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was a Western-educated political dissident who received a degree in anthropology from Columbia University. He was a leader of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, which would later be a major player in the civil war that broke out in that country in the early 1990s. While Magan Isse was imprisoned for his activism from 1972-1975, Ayaan’s grandmother had the traditional Somali female genital cutting performed on her.

ARABIC WORDS IN THE SCRIPT Allah:

God.

Dozakh:

Hell or a place of torment.

Mosque:

A Muslim place of worship.

Mashallah: “God has willed it,” in reference to something good.

Subhanallah: “Glory to God.” An exclamation of awe and wonder.

Masjid:

A synonym for mosque.

Behti:

A term of endearment for one’s daughter.

Tabari:

he History of al-Tabari. A key religious T and historical account in Islam, written by Ibn Jarir al-Tabari.

Hijab: A barrier or partition. The principle of modesty, most commonly exemplified by the head covering worn by many Muslim women.

Nikah:

A Muslim marriage.

Tauba: Repentance. Leaving what God has forbidden and returning to what God has commanded.

Bismillah:

12

“In the name of Allah.”

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

When he escaped from prison, Magan Isse fled with his family to Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia before finally settling in Kenya. There, Ayaan attended a Muslim girls’ school where she wore a hijab and followed a strict interpretation of the Quran. In 1992, Ayaan was allegedly married against her will to a cousin living in Canada. She was not present for the wedding. En route to join her new husband in Canada, she escaped to the Netherlands where she applied for and received political asylum. Believing that her family would be bound to perform an honor killing if they found her, she changed her name to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and lied about her date of birth to make herself more difficult to track.

Hirsi Ali attended the State University of Leiden where she studied political science and went to work in politics shortly after graduation.

Her career took her from a stint as an immigration issues researcher to a member of the Dutch parliament, and was marked by her harsh criticism of Dutch immigration policies, particularly when concerning Muslims, as well as advocacy for the rights of Muslim women. She pushed Muslim immigrants to fully integrate into Dutch society and expressed concerns about Muslim neighborhoods and communities where old world practices could continue unchecked. In 2004, she worked with Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh to create Submission, a short film that depicts various forms of abuse that Hirsi Ali contends are sanctioned by Islam. Reaction to the film included both praise for its blunt criticism of violence against women in the name of Allah and outrage over its creative depiction of Quranic verses painted onto women’s bodies. A week after the 12-minute film aired on the Dutch public broadcasting network, van Gogh was murdered by a radical jihadist. Hirsi Ali also received death threats.

In 2006, Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk announced that Hirsi Ali’s citizenship had been revoked due to the discrepancies in the paperwork she filled out when she sought asylum in the country 14 years earlier. Although Hirsi Ali managed to retain her citizenship, she left parliament in 2006 and moved to the United States. Since then, she has studied the relationship between Islam and the West for the American Enterprise Institute, and founded the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation. According to its mission statement, the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation “is the leading organization working to end honor violence that shames, hurts, or kills thousands of women and girls in the US each year, and puts millions more at risk. The organization also works to elevate the status of women and girls globally, so they can create peace and prosperity for themselves, their communities and the world.” Hirsi Ali is the author of four books of essays, analysis, and autobiography that examine arranged marriage, female genital cutting, domestic abuse, and denial of education, among other topics concerning the role of women in Islamic society.

When promoting her 2015 book Heretic, Hirsi Ali drew attention for admitting at a National Press Club talk that she previously believed that peace-loving Muslims should convert to Christianity, even going so far as to send the Catholic Pope a letter in the hopes that he would work to “capture the hearts and minds of all of these millions of people who are spiritual, in search of redemption.” Hirsi Ali now advocates for Islam to experience a reformation, similar to Christianity’s Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

QUESTIONS: 1. Compare and contrast Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s writings with Zarina’s book in The Who & the What. Why would a talk by Hirsi Ali appeal to Zarina?

2. Hirsi Ali has drawn the ire of both Islamic fundamentalists and Western liberals, two groups with generally opposing ideals. Why do these groups overlap in their disdain for Hirsi Ali? 3. Research the Protestant Reformation. What lessons from this transformation of Christianity does Hirsi Ali want to see applied to Islam?

4. In 2014, Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, announced that it planned to award Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree. Students and faculty circulated a petition accusing Hirsi Ali of hate speech, causing the university to reverse its decision. An official statement from the university on the matter called some of Hirsi Ali’s past statements “inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” The school’s president, Frederick M. Lawrence, confirmed, however, that Hirsi Ali was welcome to visit Brandeis “in the future to engage in a dialogue.” Why did students and faculty at Brandeis object to Hirsi Ali being awarded an honorary degree? Was the university right to rescind their award of a honorary degree? Why was the school still interested in having Hirsi Ali as a guest speaker on campus?

THE STORY OF ZAYNAB BINT JAHSH In The Who & the What, Zarina courts controversy when she decides to set the novel she is writing on the day the Muslim Prophet Muhammad married his seventh wife, Zaynab Bint Jahsh.

Zaynab was born around 590 AD. A cousin of Muhammad, her father was a messenger to Muhammad’s aunt and her brother was a military general. As a woman of noble birth, she expected to marry a man with similar status but Muhammad determined that she should marry Zayd bin Harithah, a freed slave who Muhammad had adopted as his son. Zaynab initially objected to this union on the grounds that she was uninterested in marrying someone below her own station, but Muhammad felt that religious devotion was a more important factor in determining a good match than social status. Muhammad said that a Quranic verse had been revealed to him that dictated that believers must follow the decrees of both Allah and the Prophet, and so Zayd and Zaynab were married.

The relationship, however, was strained from the beginning. Both Zaynab and Zayd felt they were incompatible and eventually divorced, though there are controversial accounts of the circumstances leading to their separation. In one version, marital strife is the sole reason for Zayd and Zaynab’s divorce, which they pursue despite Muhammad’s protestations to the contrary.

Another version describes the Prophet coming to visit Zayd and Zanyab’s home and unexpectedly finding his daughter-in-law home alone, wearing only a nightgown, while another claims that Muhammad wanted to marry Zaynab all along and that he joined her with Zayd to conceal his own desire for her. In The Who & the What, Zarina cites one story claiming that “before the divorce,

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

the Prophet saw Zaynab naked,” which Zarina then used as the inciting incident for her novel (I, 4). In any case, Zaynab Bint Jahsh eventually became Muhammad’s seventh wife. “After the Prophet’s son and Zaynab get divorced,” Zarina explains, “there is trouble in the community because the Prophet wants to marry her.” An adopted son such as Zayd was considered a son nonetheless and the cultural mores of the time frowned upon marriage between a man and his son’s former wife and deemed it incestuous. But according to Muhammad, Allah had sent an angel to tell him that Zaynab would be his wife, so he sent Zayd to bring her a proposal on his behalf. Zaynab prayed to Allah to help her make a decision, but meanwhile Muhammad received word that the marriage had already been performed by Allah himself. This disregarded existing familial customs, “so to calm everybody down,” Zarina says: Muhammad throws a big party the day of the wedding.

But the party goes on too long… Finally, the Prophet gets up and starts walking to the bedroom, where Zaynab is waiting. And one of the guests, not realizing where the Prophet’s going, follows him. Muhammad has had it. He gets to the bedroom, stops cold, and pulls shut the curtain covering the entrance. And with that curtain between them, the Prophet recites the famous verses: Believers.

Do not enter the house of the Prophet at improper times.

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

13

Women shopping in a Malaysian hijab shop

Do not engage in familiar talk. This would annoy the Prophet and he would be ashamed to ask you to go.

If you ask the Prophet’s wives for anything speak to them from behind a curtain.

This, Zarina claims, is the beginning of “hijab,” or the veil. “Because of Muhammad’s very human impatience to be with his wife, generations and generations of Muslim women wear a curtain to his bedroom on their faces” (I, 4).

QUESTIONS: 1. The version of Zaynab’s story that inspires Zarina’s novel has come under fire from Islamic scholars as an Orientalist interpretation intended to create a negative perception of Islam.

What is Orientalism? What do you make of Zarina being so engaged by this version of the story, as both an academic and a Muslim woman?

2. Zarina used Zaynab’s story as the source material for her novel.

What real life examples can you think of in which a religious text served as source material for a literary or cinematic work?

Choose one example to compare and contrast the reactions of that faith’s adherents with the Muslim response to Zarina’s novel that she describes in The Who & the What.

3. Read the al-Tabari account of Zaynab that Zarina references in The Who & the What. Do you think the text supports Zarina’s interpretation?

14

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

TYPES OF HEAD COVERINGS Practitioners of many religions follow modesty precepts by wearing head coverings or other symbolic, traditional clothing.

In the 21st century, the various pieces worn by observant Muslim women have drawn debate over whether they are symbols of cultural oppression or spiritual devotion.

Hijab: This term comes from the Arabic word for “veil.”

They come in a variety of styles and colors and are generally a square scarf worn with the head and neck covered, leaving the face unobstructed.

Al-Amira: A two-piece veil consisting of a close-fitting cap and a tube-shaped scarf. It also leaves the face clear.

Shayla: A long rectangular scarf worn over the head, wrapped around the neck, and pinned in place at the shoulder. It also leaves the face clear.

Khimar: A long waist-length veil that leaves the face clear but covers the head, neck, and shoulders.

Chador: A full-body covering that does not cover the face and is often worn along with a smaller headscarf.

Niqab: A veil that covers the lower part of the face, leaving the eyes visible. It is worn with a headscarf.

Burqa: The most concealing Islamic veil, it covers the entire body and face, and has a mesh screen for the wearer to see through.

QUESTIONS: 1. Which coverings are worn most frequently by Muslim women in the West? In other regions of the world? Do Muslim men follow any traditional guidelines for their appearance?

2. What is a burkini? Why is this garment controversial?

3. Various denominations of Christianity and Judaism also ask practitioners to wear traditional head coverings or observe other guidelines around their clothes. What are they and who wears them? What beliefs do they represent? What other faiths ask practitioners to wear specific clothing as a symbol of their devotion?

4. The term cultural relativism refers to the analysis of the beliefs and practices of a given culture from the perspective of that culture, as opposed to using one’s own cultural viewpoint to determine whether another culture is ethical or worthy. Why is cultural relativism important in understanding why Muslim women choose to wear head coverings or veils?

WOMEN AND ISLAM The sisters in The Who & the What, Mahwish and Zarina, are as different as any two sisters in literature — like Elinor and Marianne Dashwood of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, except millennial and Muslim. Mahwish’s anxiety about Zarina’s book topic is rooted in the fact that many people have opinions about “Women and Islam,” perhaps especially those who are neither female nor Muslim. Below, we have collected quotes from prominent Islamic scholars on the topics of Islamic feminism and the tensions between the absolute spiritual equality between men and women in Islam and the social and political realities of gender inequality worldwide. “ What we are seeing today is a claim by women to their right to God and the historical tradition. This takes various forms.

There are women who are active within the fundamentalist movements and those who work on a reinterpretation of the Muslim heritage as a necessary ingredient to our modernity.

Our liberation will come through a rereading of our past and a reappropriation of all that has structured our civilization.” – Fatima Mernissi (Moroccan Feminist Writer and Sociologist, 1940-2015) “ What is Islamic feminism? Let me offer a concise definition: it is a feminist discourse and practice articulated within an Islamic paradigm. Islamic feminism, which derives its understanding and mandate from the Quran, seeks rights and justice for women, and for men, in the totality of their existence. Islamic feminism is both highly contested and firmly embraced. There has been much misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and mischief concerning Islamic feminism.

This new feminism has given rise simultaneously to hopes and to fears.” – Margot Badran (American Historian)

“ If we are Muslims, whether or not believing or practicing, Islam is part of our identity, our way of life, a culture, a system of values. We may be at ease with it or find our position painful and ambiguous.” – Zika Mir-Hosseini (Iranian-Born Legal Anthropologist) “ The real challenge for Muslim feminists today is not simply to prove Islam’s compatibility with women’s rights, but how to empower and include women in the political apparatus of the postcolonial Islamic state, which remains for the time being (with few exceptions) inaccessible to the Muslim masses, male and female alike.” – Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon (Author, Tunisia) “ My resistance to feminism stems not from its central premise that women and men are equally human and deserving of equal rights, but from two facts: First, I dispute the master narrative of feminism that claims this insight as a peculiarly feminist discovery. In my own case, for instance, I came to the realization that women and men are equal as a result not of reading feminist texts, but of reading the Quran. In fact, it wasn’t until much later in my life that I even encountered feminist texts. But I do owe an intellectual debt to feminist theorizing about patriarchy and for having given me the conceptual tools to recognize it and talk about it. Second, it seems to me that, for the most part, feminism has secularized the idea of liberation itself such that feminists often assume that to be a believer is already to be bound by the chains of a false consciousness that precludes liberation.” – Asma Barlas (Pakistani, Sought Political Asylum in the Us, Professor of Politics, Ithaca College) “ With respect to gender, I think that the Quran contains two moments, which can support two opposing perspectives.

As a believer who sticks to equality and justice above all, I see these values to be the core of Islam. There are clear moments in the Quran that support this vision. But objectively, I can also see that the Quran contains an androcentric language, and, therefore, cannot adhere to an easy, naïve discourse that declares Islam or the Quran as feminist, or that gender equality is normative in the Quran. … Emphasizing the spiritual gender equality of the Quran should not lead to avoidance of dealing with its patriarchal discourse.”

– Raja Rhouni (Moroccan Academic) “ As we engage more deeply with the intellectual heritage of centuries of Muslim thinkers, we must neither romanticize the tradition as it stands nor be blindly optimistic about prospects for transformation within it. Most importantly, as we expose reductive and misogynist understandings of the Quran … [w]e must accept responsibility for making particular choices — and must acknowledge that they are interpretative choices, not merely straightforward reiterations of ‘what Islam says.’”

– Kecia Ali (American Scholar, Boston University) THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

15

“ Delving into memory, slipping into the past, is an activity that these days is closely supervised, especially for Muslim women. A passport of such a journey is not always a right.

The acts of recollecting, like acts of black magic, really only have an effect on the present. And this works through a strict manipulation of its opposite — the time of the dead, of those who are absent, the silent time that could tell us everything.

The sleeping past can animate the present. That is the virtue of memory. Magicians know it, and the imams know it too.”

– Fatima Mernissi (Moroccan Feminist Writer and Sociologist, 1940-2015)

QUESTIONS: 1. What is feminism? How does it support and challenge the depiction and treatment of women in Islam and in the other Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism?

2. Research Muslims who are active in political and social justice work in the United States, such as Linda Sarsour, Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). What are their perspectives on feminism and the rights of women in American society? How does their religion inform and inspire their work? How do they advocate for women in their communities and throughout the country?

3. Read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Compare and contrast Zarina and Mahwish Jatt with Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.

Are the Jatt sisters feminists? Are the Dashwood sisters?

REPRESENTATIONS OF MUHAMMAD Although the Quran does not explicitly forbid the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, there are several hadith (accounts of Muhammad’s life and actions that serve as supplements to the Quran) aimed at preventing idol worship. A core premise of Islam is the belief that Muhammad was a human being, not a god; a holy prophet, but still a man. Restrictions on the creation of images of Muhammad grew out of concerns that depictions of him could lead believers to worship Muhammad rather than Allah. Muslims had already seen this occur within Christianity. Jesus is a figure in both religions, but while Christianity views him as the divine son of God, Islam views him as a man. Muslims observed Christians’ worship of Jesus through visual artistic representations of his birth, life story, and crucifixion, and did not want the same to be done with Muhammad.

Nonvisual literary depictions of the Prophet have also been accompanied by controversy, causing Afzal to grow concerned about the potential implications of Zarina’s book. “Where your Mother came from, I don’t even want to tell you what they would do to you,” he warns his daughter. “If anyone sees this, you will never be able to go to Pakistan. Never again” (II, 4). When Zarina stands her ground, so does Afzal, and when Zarina moves forward with her book’s publication, her father makes his opposition clear: “That girl. I don’t ever want to hear her name in this house again,” he tells his other daughter, Mahwish. “She is dead to me. Dead” (II, 4).

16

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

Example of Islamic mosaic artwork from the Harvard Art Museum. As Muhammad could not be portrayed in art, most Islamic art is in geometric stylings, not representative of realistic daily life.

QUESTIONS: 1. In The Who & the What, Eli defends Zarina’s work by saying that in her book, “she’s reminding us that the Prophet was just a man… We say we don’t worship him, but we do… And we’re worshipping a fiction! We have no interest in knowing who he really was” (II.4). What does it mean to “worship a fiction”?

2. Consider the following exchange from the epilogue of The Who & the What: AFZAL: The people say awful things about you, behti.

That makes you happy?

ZARINA: Not only. They don’t only say awful things…

I’ve gotten so many letters. Emails.

AFZAL: From Christians.

ZARINA: No. From Muslims. Istanbul. Lahore. London.

Omaha.

AFZAL: Saying what?

ZARINA: That it helped them. a. What role does art play in religion? Why might the Muslims who wrote to Zarina have believed that her book helped them? b. Research Islamic art from the Middle East. What imagery and forms have Muslim artists used over the centuries?

3. In 1988, British Indian author Salman Rushdie published the novel The Satanic Verses, which portrays Muhammad in a struggle over whether certain verses of the Quran were being fed to him by the devil. The book was banned in 13 countries and Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran, issued a fatwa against him.

What is a fatwa? How did the fatwa against Salman Rushdie affect his day-to-day life? How does it affect him today? How might Rushdie’s situation connect to Afzal’s concerns when he reads Zarina’s book?

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES QUOTABLE MOMENTS Choose one of the following quotes from The Who & the What.

Write an essay analyzing the quote’s meaning. Consider: •W hich character said it?

•D oes the character mean it literally or is there an unspoken subtext?

•W hat does this statement reveal about the character’s way of looking at the world?

•H ow do the character’s actions support or contradict the quote?

•D o other characters seem to agree or disagree?

•H ow does the quote contribute to the forward progression of the scene and of the plot as a whole?

The problem, Eli, is that it’s in Tabari and alluded to in the Quran.

Everyone is always trying to whitewash the sources…

What’s the big deal? Contradictions only make him more human, which only makes him more extraordinary.

What if it wasn’t God speaking to him? What if it was just his own voice?

Does it matter? If the story makes people want to be more honest? Or more compassionate? Who cares if it’s — Isn’t that the deeper truth?

I don’t hate him. I hate what the faith does to women. For every story about his generosity or his goodness, there’s another that’s used as an excuse to hide us. Erase us. And the story of the veil takes the cake.

I don’t hate it. Can’t you see I’m conflicted. I mean ... — Isn’t that what good art is supposed to do?

It’s always an honor when one of your kind chooses our way of life.

We’ll take our rare victories in these dark times.

I would never let a woman speak to me like that in public.

Women don’t need to be broken. They need to be heard.

It’s about the Prophet, Dad. And the Quran. And how what we think we know about those things is not real. Not human.

We don’t understand so many things about our own history and traditions.

What you did with that story is what we do. Distort these tales. It’s what we’ve done with the veil for a thousand years.

nile hawver

From top: Aila Peck as Zarina, Joseph Marella as Eli, and Turna Mete as Mahwish in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of The Who & the What THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

17

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES COMPARE AND CONTRAST DRAMATIC LITERATURE Playwright Ayad Akhtar includes the following quote from Act I, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew as a preface to The Who & the What: Gentlemen, importune me no farther, For how I firmly am resolved you know: That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter Before I have a husband for the elder Read The Taming of the Shrew (or watch 10 Things I Hate About You, a contemporary film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play) and then write an essay that compares and contrasts: • The

characters of Katherine and Zarina, and their attitudes about love and marriage.

• T he characters of Bianca and Mahwish, and their attitudes about love and marriage.

• The

characters of Baptista Minola and Afzal Jatt. Include an examination of the quote above from Baptista Minola and statements made by Afzal in Ayad Akhtar’s play.

• The relationships of the women at the center of each play with their fathers, sisters, and potential suitors.

“THE SECRET LIFE OF MUSLIMS” “The Secret Life of Muslims” is a documentary web series that “uses humor and empathy to subvert stereotypes and reveal the truth about American Muslims: fascinating careers, unexpected talents, and inspiring accomplishments, providing a counter-narrative to the rampant Islamophobia prevalent in the media.” Visit the series’ website, secretlifeofmuslims.com and watch a few episodes, including “What Does It Mean to Be a Muslim,” “A Beginner’s Guide to Hijab,” and “MuslimGirl.”

• W hat common experiences do the people featured in the episodes discuss? How are their experiences of being Muslim different? How did 9/11 and the War on Terror affect their lives?

From top: 10 Things I Hate About You movie poster featuring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger (1999); various subjects of documentary web series Secret Life of Muslims

• H ow are the people profiled in the series working to combat Islamophobia?

• W hat does the series aim to teach non-Muslims about Islam? How does it employ humor to educate?

CREATIVE WRITING In The Who & the What, Afzal impersonates his daughter when he creates a profile for her on MuslimLove.com, then corresponds with men who respond to her (his) posting. Imagine you are Afzal and you are looking to find a good Muslim man to match up with your daughter.

Write the content for an online dating profile that you would create for Zarina. Integrate lines from The Who & the What into your writing.

PERFORMANCE — BIOGRAPHICAL TABLEAUS Consider the concept of “the who and the what,” meaning who someone truly is versus what others make of them. Think about a time from your own life when there was a striking difference between who you were and what other people made of you. In groups of 3-6, share your experiences and then select one to perform. Create two opposing tableaus that show this conflict. If time allows, create a pair of biographical tableaus that depict the experiences of each person in the group.

18

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES DEBATE CHALLENGE: EXECUTIVE ORDER 13769 President Donald Trump’s first days in office were exceptionally busy and not without controversy. The signing of Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Entry into the United States,” into law resulted in a firestorm of debate in the news and across social media. The order, which went into effect immediately and was signed on January 27, 2017, placed limits on travel from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days and indefinitely suspended the entry of Syrian refugees as well as limiting the admittance of refugees worldwide to 50,000 in 2017.

The US Refugee Admissions Program was immediately suspended Protest against Executive Order 13769, as multiple people were detained in for 120 days. Federal courts issued emergency orders halting the airports across the country. detention, expulsion, or blocking of lawful travelers pending final rulings. On February 3, 2017, following State of Washington v. Trump, a temporary restraining order went into effect and the Department of Homeland Security stopped enforcing parts of the travel ban.

Proponents of the law argue that Donald Trump’s bold strategy would ensure proper screening of incoming visitors and would therefore reduce terrorist acts on US soil. Opponents argue that the law is discriminatory as the banned countries are Muslim-majority. According to a Reuters Poll on February 13, 2017, 48.3% of respondents supported President Trump’s travel ban, 43.9% did not and 7.8% were unsure of their position. The polling reflects a deep divide among US citizens with regard to this important issue.

STEP ONE: Group Selection Choose a partner with whom you will work. You will need to decide who will be a proponent of the travel ban and who will be the opponent. Pairs may work together or independently but additional research is necessary when preparing for a debate. You will be responding to the question: Should President Trump’s travel ban be reinstated or prohibited?

STEP TWO: Preparation Once your group has gathered the necessary information and each person is prepared to defend his/her position, review the debate format. A typical policy debate includes eight speeches. The first four speeches are called constructive speeches during which the debater lays out the strongest arguments in favor of their position. The last four speeches are called rebuttals, as the debater responds to the arguments that the other side has made and reinforces their position. Below is a table diagramming the debate format:

Speech:

1AC

1NC

2AC

2NC

1NR

1AR

2NR

2AR

Time:

8 min.

8 min.

8 min.

8 min.

4 min.

4 min.

4 min.

4 min.

A stands for Affirmative, N for Negative, C for Constructive, R for Rebuttal.

You and your partner may decide on shorter time periods depending on your level of research, but it is important to note that each debater should be prepared to combat negative arguments as well as provide affirmations of each position.

STEP THREE: DEBATE! Each pair will be given the opportunity in front of the class to present their cases. Following each team, the class will vote for a debate winner based on strength of arguments, presentation and execution of the debate format and keeping within the time limits.

• How did you feel during the debate? Did you enjoy the structured argument or did you find it restrictive? Did you agree with the position you took? If not, did you become more empathetic through your research to the opposing side by participating in this activity?

• After reading or watching The Who & the What, did your opinion of the Travel Ban change? Why or why not?

• Do you think it is reasonable to restrict or take away rights from a large group of people, or even a whole country of people, in order to single out criminals in order to protect your own country from potential threats, however small the risk? Can you think of a circumstance when denying rights and restricting freedoms is a fair price to pay for the safety it might provide?

• How does exposure and a personal connection to something that was once unfamiliar change a person’s opinion? Can you think of time you were unsure of something (a food, activity, teacher, etc.) but had the opportunity to learn a little bit more about it/her and your opinion changed?

FOLLOW UP Research the legal challenges to Executive Order 13769 and the orders issued in replacement. Apply your debate to any subsequent Executive Order.

THE WHO & THE WHAT CURRICULUM GUIDE

19

S

4 BO HU ST N T I O NG N T ,M O A NA 02 V 11 EN 5- U 46 E 06

26

SU 2 TIG NDA 01 A D ER Y IN 6-2 TOP OLL STY TH 0 TH DO ’S H LE! E P 17 E W G/ OU OC AR S HO UND SE T.2 K W TU & T ER JAN 8 & ITH DE HE DOG .19 NO GE N V.3 OR T M WH M GE A AT AR. SEP T APR 17 & I T .13 30 .29 NE E