N. Jamiyla Chisholm

“Ummi thought of herself as a servant of God, what the Community called a true amatullah, only to discover she was a servant to the Community.”
― N. Jamiyla Chisholm, The Community

“One day he started a water fight between the men and women. Another time, they had a flour fight. All of them, dressed in the few clothes they owned, threw white powder back and forth, laughing and screaming as though they had forgotten how fun fun was. They were children again, but their laughter was a strange sound in the house. Even to Ummi’s own ears, her happiness sounded odd. Everyone had a good time that day, but after all the mess was made, the women were left to clean the fine dust off the walls and from between the wooden floorboards, handwash their garbs, and panic over what to eat that night since they wasted all the flour on child’s play.”
― N. Jamiyla Chisholm, The Community