“The one you are looking to for help and guidance needs patience and good treatment too. No Muslim is perfect, whether revert or born into a Muslim family, student or Islamic teacher, layperson or scholar.”

—from the journal of Umm Zakiyyah

It took years before I realized how others saw me. In my mind, I was still that self-conscious girl whose voice was trapped inside her in a world that belonged to other people. I was still the girl who would walk the boisterous halls of middle school with the daily hope—and prayer—that no one took notice. I did not want anyone to see the white cloth on my head. It was the double-take that scared me most. If someone looked twice, I knew a snide remark or sneer was coming…and then maybe them yanking off my hijab.

O Allah, protect me from them. That was my heart’s daily plea. The banging of lockers slamming closed. The whirling whisper of combination locks turning. And even laughter. These were the most terrifying sounds to me.

In elementary school I fought back—once. But the school had swiftly punished me for harming the boy who had harmed me daily. So I knew better than to seek comfort in teachers or administrators. My only hope was in wowing them with my wits. They were on the other side, opposite me. Their cordiality was an obligation, their kindness a contract term that expired at the end of the day. But their hearts were aligned with students who hovered near my locker, saying, “What would you do if we snatched that rag off your head?”

At such moments, my words were a gift, a miracle even. And I was often in awe at the effect they had on others, the effect they had in protecting me.

“But you’re Umm Zakiyyah,” a friend and colleague said to me one day when I came to her for advice regarding some problems the teachers were having at our school.

“What?” I said, taken aback. I had no idea what my being a published author had to do with addressing our concerns.

“People expect a lot from you,” she said, almost apologetically.

After a few more moments of puzzlement, my heart dropped in understanding. If I spoke up, people would think, What’s her problem? Who does she think she is?

And like a prophecy, my friend’s words kept manifesting themselves around me. “I never expected this from you,” an administrator said to me when I asked if my workload could be lessened. I was teaching more hours than my contract stipulated, and I was also being given unofficial administrative responsibilities. I did not think I could handle much more. “You’re not the type of person I’d expect to complain about doing extra to help the school.”

Oh my God, how do other Muslims do it? This is the question that stays with me today. How do imams and scholars, public figures and Islamic teachers, and even overtly “strong Muslims” and those active in their communities carry the burden of benefiting others while managing to be viewed as human at the same time?

And I am not talking about excessive workloads. I am talking about the expectations that others have of you. The inability to make a mistake. Having no right to a bad day. The requirement to get everything right. The swift criticism if your words inadvertently offend someone—or if someone feels you could have done more for them.

“I’m only human,” I have often said.

“But you can’t expect others to see you that way,” I was told.

Years ago, I would have taken these words to heart, believing that I myself should deny my humanity simply because others expected me to. But today I am more realistic, more hopeful even. Because now I understand that each of us has a similar struggle as we seek spiritual direction and help others along the way.

But there are still times that I feel like that girl in the boisterous halls of middle school, hoping and praying that no one does a double-take and sees a person who is distinctly different from them.

Umm Zakiyyah is the internationally acclaimed author of the If I Should Speak trilogy and the novel Muslim Girl. Daughter of American converts to Islam, she writes about the interfaith struggles of Muslims and Christians, and the intercultural, spiritual, and moral struggles of Muslims in America. She also writes under her birth name Ruby Moore. Currently, she is working on an independent film project to turn her first novel into a movie. Visit her website at uzauthor.com

Copyright © 2015 by Al-Walaa Publications. All Rights Reserved.

WRITTEN FOR VIRTUALMOSQUE.COM

By Anthony Hardy

“I don’t understand,” said a friend of mine who happened to be an agnostic, “if Muslims here are just as racist as the Christians, why the Hell are you still Muslim?”

This question had never been posed to me in all my years of being Muslim. I had given it ample thought. I hadn’t, however, formulated a cogent, verbal response for it in the event someone asked me.

“I mean,” he continued, “if one of the reasons you converted was because of the race thing, you didn’t get very far. Seems like you may have regressed a bit actually. Just seems like you going through a lot of trouble for this Islam stuff.”

I conceded his point. While some phenomenal Muslims, Black and non-Black, had crossed my path along my trek in this great faith, I can say with unwavering certainty the vast majority of my time as a Muslim has been filled with hardship, isolation, and loneliness. Some converts break and fold under the immense pressure to which they are subjected at the hands of the community and their families. Some apostate as a result. I can’t say I blame them. I wasn’t broken – alhamduliLah (praise be to God) – but I was scarred and bent: the human heart is a fickle and fragile morsel of flesh.

There really was nothing on the outside anchoring me to Islam: with the exception of my younger brother, himself a convert, I didn’t have any Muslim relatives; my culture wasn’t enmeshed in Islam; though I have a strong affinity for the Black Muslim community, I didn’t belong to any community in particular; and because of my experiences and the experiences of loved ones, I didn’t even want to belong.

I responded to my friend’s inquiry, “True, in terms of race, I probably did backtrack a bit. Still, there are some existential considerations for which Islam provides sufficient explanations that no other system of thought I’ve come across has the potential to answer. For that reason, I stick around.”

Islam mandates upon those who embrace its inspiration to submit their ego as best as they can manage to a set of transcendent principles and confers nobility upon those individuals who make earnest attempts to uphold those dignifying principles. Unlike in our society, where one’s worth is determined by wealth, lineage, extent of education, occupation, gender, sexual orientation, physical beauty, physical handicap and – yes – even skin color and hair texture, the notion of submission and adherence to a set of divine principles as the ultimate measure of one’s value is largely independent of the circumstances surrounding one’s genesis into the world or current station in the world and thus lends itself to a humble agnosticism concerning the ultimate worth of others: under such an empowering paradigm, even the jettisoned pauper, pygmy, or orphan has the potential to be a prince or princess in the eyes of God by virtue of character, actions, and outlook.

Each soul is granted a story of its own from its Lord related to where and when He chose to author it. The purpose of those different stories is so that we might all learn and grow from them all and hence from one another. We are meant to be mirrors unto one another. I remain Muslim, among other reasons, because Islam dictates by virtue of tauhīd (oneness of God) that my story and the stories and experiences of my people have intrinsic value for humanity at large, even if many in the world, including and especially Muslims, fail to recognize that value for our skin color, class, culture, or whatever. We are lessons to be heeded and learned. As it stands, large segments of Muslims in America deign to perceive themselves as superior to us because of what Allāh, subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He), has bestowed upon them out of His Mercy and do not wish to educate themselves with our stories or even has us in their company or communities or families, quite possibly out of the very essence of kufr (disbelief of God) itself, for it was Allāh (swt) Himself who created us as we are.

“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.”

— Qur’ān, (49:13)

Unfortunately, Muslims have done themselves, their families, their children, their communities, and their religion a grave disservice in their folly. Until Muslims begin to realize the source of their honor is with God alone, until Muslims resume their slave status before God and not to the inventions of men, physical or otherwise, my mother will continue to be correct and Black Muslims or other communities who have contributed or have the potential to contribute so much to Islam in America and throughout the world will only always be just “niggers” or “thugs” or “gangsters” or “scary” or “dime a dozen” or “too dark” or ‘abd or zenci or whatever other derogatory term cultures may design. We must muster the courage to strive against the false gods and false regimes of validation that have taken residence in our hearts and minds for the integrity of the community, for our collective existence in this country, and for the integrity and purity of our eternal souls before our Lord.

I pray for a better way forward. I can’t do it without you.

To sit and dream, to sit and read,

To sit and learn about the world

Outside our world of here and now –

       our problem world –

To dream of vast horizons of the soul

Through dreams made whole,

Unfettered free – help me!

All you who are dreamers, too,

Help me make our world anew.

I reach out my hands to you.

– Langston Hughes, “To You”

By Anthony Hardy

Photo: Lisa Ouellette

“My father always complains about how Islam has broad acceptance in the African-American community but not in the White American one,” said a Pakistani friend of mine as he handed me a cup of chai. “He doesn’t like how many African-American brothers come to Islam through the prisons and stuff like that. He wished more middle class White Americans were Muslims. He disdains Islam being associate with the lower class in this country.”

I shouted, “Wait? What? Is he serious?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Hasn’t he read the seerah [biography of the Prophet]? Hasn’t he read the Qur’ān? The people most receptive to the message are the exploited and downtrodden. That’s how it usually works. In America, that means Blacks, Latinos, and women!”

✻✻✻

“It must be nice,” I told a White Muslimah friend of mine, “to have people approach you for marriage so frequently in the masjid. I mean, your beauty is a constantly being reinforced, unlike Black beauty. I’m sure it helps with your self-esteem.”

“Yeah, it was nice,” she admitted.

“Was? What do you mean by was?

“Well, it was nice…until I realized why they were asking me. The aunties and Arabs were only approaching me because I was White and because they wanted lily-white children. Once I figured that out, I just stopped entertaining their request. That’s one reason why I stopped going to the masjid altogether. I didn’t want to be put on a pedestal.”

✻✻✻

While shopping for naan and daal in an Indian store with some Pakistani friends, I happened to browse the cosmetic section. I found a package of “Fair & Lovely: MAX Fairness for Men.” I had heard about this cream from my Indian and Pakistani friends, but I didn’t know it was sold in America or even that it could be sold here.

I read the label:

“…fight [the] darkening of your skin due to your active lifestyle.”

I laughed aloud. No amount of cream was going to lighten my melanin-enriched skin. My friends joined in my laughter when they saw what I had found. Afterwards I put it back on the shelf.

My laughing spell continued in the car ride home. One of my friends asked me, “What’s so funny man?”

I answered, “Because it’s all so darkly comical: White people here destroy their bodies to look like Brown people and Brown people there destroy their bodies to look like White people. Everyone wants to be something other than what Allāh has made them, and they all make themselves sick in the process.”

✻✻✻

A wise Muslim woman, who happened to be a White convert, once told me that my skin color, despite the hardships attached to it, is actually a blessing in disguise: she described it as a filter which would sift through those individuals who are not serious about their commitment to higher religious or moral principles, whereas she and her family, all of whom are White, will always have to worry about people dissembling their commitment to those principles for her and her family’s Whiteness. She said my dark skin was a test for them, one many of whom are failing miserably.

✻✻✻

“So an auntie was trying to find a wife for me,” a Latino Muslim friend of mine told me, “but when they saw my pictures, they said I looked ‘too Mexican.”

I laughed a little on the outside—died a little on the inside. He is handsome in his own right, a Mexican man with German heritage. The German traits dominate his physical appearance.

I replied, “Just exactly how are you suppose to look?”

“I don’t know bro. ‘Too Mexican’? What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re the right skin color – White or White-looking in your case – but you come from the wrong culture.”

He nodded. “That’s Jahiliyya [ignorance] man.”

I continued, “I know. But cheer up. You’re better off than me: at least you’re on the right side of the color line. I’m both the wrong skin color, and I come from the wrong culture.”

✻✻✻

Midway into my nine-year tenure as a Muslim, I returned to my hometown to visit the religious community of my upbringing. Standing there in the middle of a giant cathedral, gazing at the beautiful stained glass renditions of New Testament scenes, I began to reflect on my experiences as a Black Muslim convert in America. The Muslims I had chanced upon who hailed from abroad or whose parents hailed from abroad were in fact beneficiaries both of the injustices perpetrated against Blacks and of the “universal” franchise that resulted from the struggles against those selfsame injustices; and yet, this stark reality was seldom if ever brought to the fore at conferences, masjids, Muslim Student Associations, or Islamic centers, or what have you: rather, what I saw and heard was a community by and large preoccupied with the preservation of culture – some of which contain elements of anti-Black or anti-dark-skin bias – or obsessed with producing fair-skinned progeny or enamored with prospects of making Islam more palpable to the palates of the White middle class in America – itself a byproduct of anti-Black racism – while at the same time both relegating and denigrating the very community so instrumental in their success and indeed their very existence in America in the first instance.

To employ sacred history, by way of metaphor: the Muhajir (Immigrant), when he arrived in Medina, kicked sand into the eyes of the Ansari (Helper) man; and when the Ansari was doubled over in pain, trying to remove the sand from his eyes, the Muhajir climbed on his back, to elevate himself to a higher plane and then proceeded to disparage him for his state.

This monumental incongruity made me realize many self-proclaimed and perhaps well-intentioned Muslims do in fact worship multiple gods, and one of the modern deities that has caused many others, including myself, so much difficulty within large segments of the Muslim community and around the world happens to be – for lack of a better word – a White god or a god of Whiteness whereby the standards, sensibilities, sensitivities, and suspicions of certain classes of people become not just normalized but something for which to appease and sacrifice. The only difference I could gather that day is that whereas other communities tended to be more open, honest, and straightforward in their personifications and anthropomorphizations of this god, the Prophetic directives in Sunni Islam not to depict God or His Prophets and even the racial, ethnic, and tribal egalitarianism promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) tended to obscure the historic and contemporary reality of bias against darker bodies and of predilection for fairer ones.

By my estimation, many Muslims are racially agnostic at best: the tragic irony in this racial agnosticism or the unwillingness to deal with the issue is that it perpetuates and exacerbates racism within the community, creating a staggering dissonance of nonsensical proportions. Moreover, the inability to discuss the issue effectively means it does not exist and raises it beyond critique. One can quote the Prophet ﷺ and say “No White man is better than a Black man” or recite the popular platitude “There is no racism in Islam” or appeal to the racially progressive nature of the Prophet’s career or even name his children after prominent Black Companions of the Prophet and yet be rubbing “Fair and Lovely” on her skin to “beautify herself” or requesting “fair” women for marriage in public matrimonial advertisements or telling their children to “avoid too much exposure to the sun lest you become dark and therefore unattractive” or assert something seemingly innocuous as “Blacks are scary” or Black converts are “a dime a dozen.” Very few would be the wiser.

The irony of this glaring dissonance reminded me of Al-Lāt, Al-‘Uzza, and Manat, the mighty triumvirate of the pagan Arabian pantheon, and how the capricious conclusions drawn from idolatry and polytheism are often illogical, inconsistent, and, to be blunt, asinine. Our sacred history informs us the Prophet ﷺ had these stone effigies smashed to smithereens after the conquest of Mecca. I contend, however, these idols were never really destroyed; they merely took more imperceptible, incorporeal forms: instead of sacrificing for a god or goddess fashioned from stone, wood, or date pit, now sacrifices made for modern deities are intended to placate false, arbitrary ideals of what it means to be beautiful, intelligent, pure, civilized, rich, honorable, valuable, successful, wise, and – most of important of all – human; instead of sacrificing for and finding nobility within the aegis of an inviolable set of transcendent principles dictated by Allāh, subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He), Himself and His Prophets, modern Muslims are content to destroy their bodies, their communities, their families, their children, their religion, and maybe even the integrity of their hearts and souls to achieve an empty, ephemeral sense of honor and worth.

“So have you considered al-Lat and al-‘Uzza? And Manat, the third – the other one?” (Qur’ān, 53:19-20)

“Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely.” (Qur’ān, 4:139)

Yes Allāh, honor it is they seek in something other than You. I finally understood my mother’s fear of “becoming White”: shirk à la modernity.

✻✻✻

These words are not written with sorrow. I’ve shed far too many tears already for this community, enough to fill a suburban pool thrice over.

Nor are these words are not written with anguish. I’ve spent the better part of my tenure as a Muslim being angry to the point where I resided in such deep and dark nadirs that I existed in a state of oblivion regarding the blessings of my Lord.

Nor are these words written with pain. I’ve become desensitized in many respects to my own pain out of psychological necessity.

Nor are these the words of another Black convert to Islam who has faced insurmountable difficulties within the community for petty, superficial reasons. The Internet is inundated with such tales. Communities are filled with them as well. I therefore see absolutely no need to contribute to this sphere. If Muslims were so inclined to our struggles, they could sadly find those stories with minimal effort. Besides, imitation is the highest form of flattery: if the sacrifices and privations of converts were as inspiring as the community would have us believe then I would expect to see many others attempting to follow in our paths and make the sacrifices we are willing to make for the sake of the faith. Unfortunately, I don’t find this to be the case.

These are the ruminations of a detached wayfarer, one without a home who is just passing through trying to reach his destination: it’s far better not to have a home if having one means residing in the septic tank. The usage of this metaphor is, for me, quite literal, since, as I mentioned, in the wake of Jim Crow and the White Flight, the powers that be in my hometown decided to erect a sewage and water treatment in the Black neighborhood where God Himself chose to place me. This depiction is all too familiar for what awaits many converts after they declare shahadah (the testimony of faith), especially if they happen to be Black, even more so if they happen to be Black women. The way I see it, my ancestors had to endure this relegation for fear of violent reprisal. I, however, do not have to nor will I, especially at the hands of Muslims whose hues are often just as brown, if not darker, as mine own flesh and who are just as much victims of the same oppressive discrimination and just as susceptible to the caustic regimes of thought as I am.

These are the words of a young Muslim man who sincerely suspects many of his fellow co-religionists may be guilty of committing the worst sin in Islam, the only unforgivable one. And what’s worse: they may not even be aware of it.

These are the words of a soul attempting to cut the world asunder and peer at its core in an attempt to see what has gone awry.

I don’t expect my words will be heeded or taken seriously. I find many Muslims lack the sagacity and internal fortitude needed to rise to the occasion and confront the issues plaguing this community, whether it’s racism, colorism, tribalism, sexism or whatever the case may be. And if they are received, I doubt they will be received kindly. In “post-racial, colorblind” America, no one wants to have honest dialogue about race, including many Muslims, who are just as hypersensitive about color privilege and predilection in their own communities as many Whites are about White privilege in America. And even if they are received kindly, I seldom doubt the presence of the necessary courage needed to induce substantive change exists. Muslims excel at paying lip service and empty rhetoric; when it comes to walking-the-walk I find them languid.

Still, the inevitable pushback notwithstanding, I write these words in the spirit of the Prophet who informed us that religion is sound advice and who said that to change something with the tongue or words is the second tier of iman (faith). I am locked into this second tier because what afflicts Muslims and indeed much of the world cannot be changed with actions, the first tier, as the malaise is lodged both in the mind and the heart; and not even the Prophet ﷺ, best example of creation, could modify the hearts of his contemporaries.

I therefore would like to say this to my fellow Muslims who may chance upon what I’ve written here: it is our duty before our Lord to challenge idols of our times with due diligence and vigilance, whatever they may be, wherever they may be. The Prophet’s destruction of the idols in the Ka’bāh is symbolic to what we should be doing for the rest of our lives, for the remainder of time itself. The idolatry of olden times is far too crass to exist within the Muslim community today. Ancient, physical idols have been supplanted with ideological ones; the effects upon society, however, remain the same.

To be clear, what I’m writing about has little to do with White or fair skinned people per se: if anything, the false ideals to which I’m referring have the capacity to be just as damaging to White and fairer-skinned people. I’m sure my words will vibe with those people. I’m talking about a pernicious constellation of ideas that goes unchallenged because of cowardice, because of ignorance, and because of a degree of buy-in on the part of many people, Muslims especially.

I present this to the community with the hopes to commencing serious, heart-felt conversations about what ails us. I realize the gravity of my claims and I do not take them lightly. It is my solemn prayer that those who read this won’t take them lightly either.

I am so tired of waiting,

Aren’t you,

For the world to become good

And beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife

And cut the world in two —

And see what worms are eating

At the rind.

— Langston Hughes, “Tired”

Photo: Anshu

Reflections of a Black Convert: Part I – A House in the World | Part II | Part III

By Anthony Hardy

“Remember – no matter what you achieve in life,” my mother told me when I was an eight-year-old child, “you will always be nothin’ but a nigger to them.” She looked at me with the piercing eyes only a mother has, the ones that see past your face and penetrate your soul. “When I brought you into this world, you already had three strikes against you: you’re Black, you’re a male, and you’re poor. You ain’t gonna get the same kinda leeway these White folks get.”

It’s the same admonishment all Black parents in America give their children at some point, though maybe not as candidly as my mother did. Above all else, she was a pragmatist and a martinet. Being a poor, single, Black woman in the American South will fashion a pragmatist; the desire to protect your three children from the negative influences of the environment will harden even the softest of hands. When my mother spoke these immortal words to me, the Civil Rights Act of 1965 had been the law of the land for some thirty-nine years; the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education had been so for forty-five years; and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 – deemed the Fair Housing Act – had been law for thirty-six. Adequate instruction was still a necessity for survival in an ostensibly “integrated” world, particularly for Black males.

My Sustainer saw it fit to fashion me Black and to place me in a poor, deeply rooted Black Catholic community located in a portion of the Bible Belt South. The cathedral serving the community was originally constructed in the late 1800s to serve the ecclesiastic needs of German, Italian and Irish immigrants. A group of nuns opened a school for Blacks and Creoles a few years after the completion of the cathedral. The descendants of emancipated slaves flocked to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism searching for education for their children, as back in those days, Catholics were known for their stellar parochial educational institution. My great grandfather, so my mother told me, was among those individuals who converted seeking something better for his progeny. I would like to think some of those Blacks even shared the pews with their fellow White Catholics.

If so, not for long: the ninety years of Jim Crow laws and the deceptive fallacy of “separate but equal” bifurcated the community. Many of the recent European immigrants who were maligned for being Catholic were able to purchase Whiteness at a fairly cheap price. And then there was the White Flight, the embodiment of discriminatory housing legislation, urban planning, government subsidies, social engineering, predatory economic exploitation, and even physical violence that gave genesis to the coveted suburbs and exurbs, the culmination of the illusionary confluence of separation and equality. These were Jim Crow at its finest—the holy grail of the ever-elusive American Dream, built off the backs of Blacks through savagery, thievery, and connivery.

Long before my mother came into the world in the early 1960s, only Blacks attended the church. Most of the Whites in the surrounding area had long disappeared. In their absence, the powers that be erected in the center of what would become the community of my birth a sewage and water treatment plant. The house of my grandmother, the house in which I was to be raised, was juxtaposed with the cesspool. The cathedral where I was to be baptized was a ten-minute walk down street from the plant; the elementary school where I was to be educated was a fifteen-minute walk from it. For decades, everyone in the vicinity woke up, worked, and laid down to the putrid stench of excrement and chemicals. Some people would even die with the fumes in their breast, said my grandmother.

The smell had not abated when I came into the picture. Sometimes, it was so bad I remember my mother and grandmother praying for God to command the winds to take the fumes. At times, those prayers were answered; other times, we just had to bear it. Allāh subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He), in His Infinite Wisdom, had coined for me a parable using my own childhood as to what I should expect from my existence as a Black man in America.

Said Moses to his people, “Seek help through Allah and be patient. Indeed, the earth belongs to Allah. He causes to inherit it whom He wills of His servants. And the [best] outcome is for the righteous,” (Qur’ān, 7:128).

“Ain’t much else you can do,” both my mother and grandmother would say, “but suffer it and go on.”

✻✻✻

Muslims often ask me what brought me to Islam. By way of preamble, I inform people of the obvious – that I’m a Black man – and the not so obvious – that I hail from the South. I then ask them to couple these facts with their own imagination as to why a man in my position from this part of America would accept the message of the unlettered, gentile Prophet ﷺ. Most of my interlocutors, at this point, have inklings as to some of the reasons—a sign, I hope, that people at the very least comprehend the connection between the social and historical realities and the theological consequences of those realities.

I then proceed to tell them this. In fifth grade, at a private Catholic school attended predominantly by White middle and upper class children, a fourth grader, a White kid, said, “All you Black people should still be slaves!” after I bested him in a game of basketball. Were it not for some childhood friends restraining me, I surely would have beaten him to Hell and back.

When I got home that evening, I started thinking about certain aspects of Christianity, at least as I understood them at the time. It possibly had something to do with the imagery often used in Catholic churches, chiefly pictures of a European Jesus and his equally European mother and disciples, and how inconsistent I thought it was for Blacks in America to be worshipping someone or something that so closely resembled our debasers. This kid and his parents believed that in accepting a certain theological interpretation of a historical event – the supposed crucifixion and resurrection of Christ – they were somehow absolved of their sins and thus would not have to answer for them. Yet I believed, even back then, people should be held accountable before God for their actions. I never told my mother what happened. She might have razed the school and maybe even the church.

Two years later, I found myself in an under-funded, dilapidated public middle school, an institution befitting of the low property taxes in its proximity, surrounded by teenagers who were more my peers, mostly poor Blacks and a few poor Whites. My mother withdrew me from the Catholic school because she could no longer afford the expensive tuition and because she was afraid I would “become White.” Back then I lacked the insight as to how one could “become White” and was unsure what that meant. I was sure, though, the strange white substance hanging exposed from the ceiling of the school was asbestos and that neighboring the school were a liquor store and a scrap metal yard. I was sure many of the teachers were not qualified for their positions, and those that were had to deal with sparse resources. I was sure many didn’t care at all: they were paid just to show up and leave.

The altercation with the fourth grader haunted me still, and because of it, I spent many nights wandering the streets of my neighborhood, agonizing over both social and theological issues as best I could. Although I believed in Him and although I was starting to challenge foundational Christian beliefs such as the Trinity and Vicarious Atonement, I also thought He was totally indifferent to our suffering or to the suffering of others. I never entertained the question of whether God existed; my concern was, rather, did God care? I wrestled with the wisdom of God putting my family in the position He did. I thought we denizens of ghettos and trailer parks were God’s bastard children, His “mistakes” in the way parents in our society often refer to their children, the ones He created by accident. Like our own derelict fathers, I figured He just left us to rot in the dirty armpits of America. I began to consider maybe there was something inherent to our nature that warranted our condition; or maybe we were guilty of some unknown transgression against Him that necessitated our status in society as just recompense. He seemed to prefer Whites, wealthy ones at that—they were made in His image after all. Why wouldn’t one want to “become White” in that case? Maybe, I reasoned, some element of their being was more favorable to the Almighty. Maybe He played favorites with His creation, the Whiter the better in His eyes. As such, I found myself wishing I looked more like them: wishing my skin color was just a little lighter, my hair was less coarse and kinky, my butt and legs were not as big. I was coming into tauhīd (belief in the oneness of God) in one sense but not in others.

I encountered my first Muslim a few months before I started college. She was a Black woman in her mid-fifties, a former member of the Nation of Islam in her youth who had embraced Sunni Islam later in life. She in many ways reminded of my mother, religious yet down-to-earth, profane yet wise. In fact, had my mother been Muslim, she would have resembled this woman. She elucidated the basic tenets of Islam, which I was eager to accept. I claim if one is predisposed to believing in God and prophets, the message of Islam will inevitably reverberate at a recognizable frequency; however, that being said, this woman, because of her background, possessed a manner of relaying the message that resonated with me on a personal level. Had someone else been placed in my path, I might not have been as receptive to the message. Allāhu `Alim (God is All-Knowing).

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Muslims often do not ask what happened after my conversion. In my experience, this appears to be less concerning to them, seeing as how the question seldom surfaces, which is a sad turn of affairs since that response is I think more beneficial and instructive.

Even after I declared shahadah (the declaration of faith in Islam), it took me many years of thinking, soul searching, reading the Qur’ān, considering the life of the Prophet (s), along with a hefty dose of Malcolm X, to reach conclusions about God that were more in line with Islam. I gave much thought to Allāh and how He relates to the suffering and downtrodden in societies, particularly Blacks in America: certain ideas about Blackness in the American context had to be challenged within my own being; ideas about Whiteness had to be jettisoned; old worldviews needed to be dismantled and new ones assembled. The psycho-spiritual furniture and psychological hardwiring in my mind and in my heart needed to be rearranged. The existential angst all humans experience borne of the paradox of infinite potential and mortal finitude needed to be directed towards a different qibla (direction Muslims face in prayer). It’s taken for granted that conversion is a process, not an event.

Not too much time elapsed following my conversion before I became acquainted with how the Muslim community actually functions in terms of race, color, class, and culture. Growing up in ghettos and trailer parks grants one amazing powers of perception. In addition to seeking God, I suppose I was also longing for a haven in the houses of Allāh against the monumental tribulation of being Black in America, a place of brief reprieve. I figured if anyone could understand us Blacks it would be the Muslims, who not only possessed a sizeable Black contingency, but who also by this point, post 9/11, were just as much the objects of unjust scrutiny as we were. I was, as it turned out, quickly disabused of this naïve notion: I went from Whites calling me “slave” to Arabs calling me ‘abd (literally, Arabic for “slave”, sometimes used in a derogatory manner to refer to Black individuals), I went from getting leery looks from Whites to getting them from South Asians, I went from Whites calling me “nigger” to Turks calling me zenci (Adopted from the Arabic “zanji”, meaning “one from the land of the Blacks”; more colloquially, the term means “nigger”), I went from hearing from Whites say, “You people can’t marry our children,” to hearing this from Africans, and I went from Whites saying, “You’re scary and uncivilized” to hearing this from non-Black Muslims in general. Not even the fanes of God were exempt, churches and mosques alike.

I remember, some time after my initial run-ins with the Muslim community, I visited my grandfather who was then eighty-two years old. He is from rustic regions of southern Alabama and had survived Jim Crow, portions of World War II, the Korean War, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Civil Rights Movement. On a whim, I asked my grandfather what he thought about race and if he thought the issue was ameliorating. Given his life experience, I figured his perspective would be valuable.

He gave me this response: “Nowadays, if someone wants to call you ‘nigger,’ they won’t do it your face. There ain’t no more ‘Whites Only’ drinking fountains and pools, ya see. There ain’t no more ‘Whites Only’ neighborhood. But what they do is they say make it so you can’t get a house or a job or they cheat you. They don’t say ‘You can’t live here!’ no mo’ but they make it hard to get a house! The Klan don’t do the lynchings. The police do it now. Ain’t no mo’ poll taxes but they still don’t want us voting! They call you ‘nigger’ but they hide it better. Don’t let them fool ‘bout what they say ‘bout progress. Things is really just the same as they always was.”

When I had this conservation with him, Trayvon Martin hadn’t been killed yet, nor had Jordan Davis, or Oscar Grant or Renisha McBride or John Crawford or Mike Brown. Richard Sherman, I imagine, was probably still in high school, so he wasn’t yet the brash “thug” he would become. And no one was asking for Barack Obama’s birth certificate or questioning his American citizenship.

At least not yet, anyway. I guess the old adage is true: the more things change, the more they remain the same. There is as much literal and figurative ‘nigger’ calling amongst the Muslims in America today as there is in American society at large. Like my great-grandfather before me, I sought something better. As my mother would say though, six in one hand, half a dozen in the other.

I’m looking for a house

In the world

Where the white shadows

Will not fall.

There is no such house,

Dark brothers,

No such house

At all.

—Langston Hughes, “House in the World”

I am described as a dynamic, assertive, energetic woman. As a teenager, I did not necessarily want Islam to be a piece of my rambunctious identity. I was loud, crazy and fun and I saw piety and religiosity as opposite my most prized traits. At fourteen, my family decided we would visit Mecca for a holy pilgrimage. I was apprehensive; I feared that such a visit might make me somehow devout and that was the last adjective I wanted to use when describing myself. But going to Mecca was everything I never knew I needed. Seeing the Ka`bah transformed my life. And in an effort to maintain a connection with the Divine once I had returned back to high school, I began reading the Qur’an in the English translation.

Reading the Qur’an in the English translation changed me. The more I connected with it, the more I realized I had been blessed with my dynamic qualities so that I could channel them for His Sake by giving speeches and being involved with leadership and community activism. I became the student body president of my public high school and received an award of Student of the Year, presented by previous Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was involved in leadership activities with an ever-present hope of helping my greater society understand the beauty of Islam and the empowerment of Muslim women. I had been wearing hijab but now I began wearing it fully and taking pride in it as a symbol of my liberation. I experienced a newfound passion to study Islam because of the empowering message I experienced from the Qur’an, to me as a female, and I wanted all to know that Muslim women are truly liberated.

And so, I began to study. I started taking Islamic classes constantly. The classes I took were mainly from one particular type of methodology and they specified that they were the only authentic source of knowledge. I thus started shunning information from sources other than those I assumed were specifically approved by this outlook. I also started taking private classes with those I considered to be the most virtuous Muslim women. What I did not realize, however, is that I was associating religious understanding with rigidity. Those who were the strictest, I had decided, had to be the most pious. From these sources, I began to learn things I had never heard before, amongst which was that a Muslim woman should not really leave the home ((The way I was introduced to the concept of ‘and stay in your homes’ (Ahzab) was one in which leaving the house for any reason other than strict necessity was inappropriate. So for example, getting together with other sisters for lunch was not taught as commendable because it was not out of strict necessity. The concept of a Muslim woman’s haven being her home is present in our text but sometimes misunderstood in the way it is taught and often practiced. It is not a black and white issue, as it is often taught. My statement is not in reference to the women who choose the hardest job in the world and become stay-at-home moms, nor is it in reference to women who nobly choose to be housewives and focus on maintaining her home. This is not the place for further fiqh discussion on this matter, but I did want to make sure to clarify in case there may be confusion by readers. We pray to discuss this issue in a future article.)) and that women should not be outspoken, particularly in front of men.

The more I learned, the more I changed. I was no longer the energetic, excitable woman who shared her love of Islam with all those around her. Instead, I became insecure. I thought that God had not blessed me with all of my qualities so that I could help people around me see the beauty of Islam; I worried that God had given me these qualities to test me in life, to see how much of it I could contain, how much of it I could ensure would never be seen in public. I wrongfully realized this was one of my biggest tests; hiding who I really was so that I could become what Islam really wanted from me as a Muslim woman.

I also learned, over and over, that I was a fitna (temptation, test) for men. Muslim women who I thought were very reverent came to me to tell me I should cover my face, lest men have distracting thoughts because of my existence (this was to be in addition to the large jilbab (long body covering) I wore and the scarf which went past my torso and already covered much of my face). ((Note: I absolutely understand and respect women who choose to wear niqab (face covering) as a means of coming closer to God, as following the footsteps of the Mothers of the Believers (May God be pleased with them), or as the fulfillment of an obligation. My personal experience should not be taken as a generalized reason for which women wear niqab or other outer garments.)) With this newfound realization that I could possibly be the reason a man commits a sinful thought and that men and women should not speak unless out of absolute necessity, I stopped speaking to men as much as possible (including simply greeting my own male relatives, those who had raised me, who were not blood-related). Whereas I used to politely greet the men I would see on a daily basis at school, in classes or the security guards in the library, in an effort to help them see the beauty of Islam’s kind interactions, I now limited my speech to only what was absolutely necessary, and a greeting was not one of them. I was the President of the Muslim Students Association at my University because no other male or female would accept the role, so I tried my best to be as brief and mechanical as possible when having to communicate with men. I tried to cover my face as much as possible, a task that proved difficult because my mom, a strong woman, was shocked at my sudden transformation and feared I was completely changing who I was without understanding its consequences.

Her observations of me, those shared by my father and those who had known me since childhood, were of deep concern for my development and sudden, drastic changes. I had gone from a woman who drove to pray fajr and isha everyday in the masjid, from a woman who regularly performed spoken word and delivered public speeches, from a woman with an active lifestyle who held a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, from a woman who was known for her leadership skills and ability to mobilize people, to a woman who shut herself in her room as much as possible and who constantly lived in psychological fear of becoming a form of temptation to men. I was not afraid of men themselves; I was afraid my covered presence could be the reason one of them had an un-Godly thought.

I, on the other hand, dismissed the apprehensions of those who knew me best and loved me most. As painful as it was, I felt this was the path I had to take up if I wanted to be a righteous, believing Muslim woman. And so I made excuses for those who voiced their concerns; I believed that they simply did not know what Islam really taught- even if many of them had degrees in Islamic law or had studied Islam for years. What they were trying to tell me was the opposite of what I was being told was “The Truth” in the classes I had begun taking and in the books and websites I had started reading.

Aside from the religious teachers who espoused the methodology to which I had ascribed, there was one Imam who recognized the difficult path I had put myself on. He personally continually checked in with me, reminding me of the differences of opinions, of the comprehensive nature of Islam, of the easygoing nature of the Prophet ﷺ. I saw him as my greatest spiritual role model and mentor, but I was entrenched in my personal outlook and had trouble changing my perspective and habits. However, I would cling onto his words as if they were the lifeboat of a person who was drowning. Even if I couldn’t get to coast at that point, I still felt like in the future, there could be a way back to shore. While it took time, his counsel planted seeds that stemmed and helped ground me in the stages to come.

It was around this time that I took a class in college titled Islam, Women and Sexuality. The only reason I enrolled in this class was so that I could defend Islam if necessary (you know, since I knew everything). In the class, I was suddenly exposed to information I had never heard before; the Professor introduced certain information on women in marriage, in divorce and in child custody. I had never heard of the issues she brought forth, but they sounded far from liberating. I had no tools through which I could defend my religion. All I knew was that I felt she was wrong, and that whatever scholar she had quoted was mistaken or misunderstood.

It was in that class, for the first time since I had decided I wanted to fully live Islam and dedicate my life to it, that my faith was challenged. I began to have doubts in Islam’s empowerment of women and I was afraid to speak them aloud because I feared they would become tangible. I knew Islam was the truth; the science in the Qur’an, the power of its message, the miracles of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his life, it all resonated so strongly in my mind and heart that I knew it was from the Divine. But it was painful to consider Muslim women not truly being liberated in what I considered the most liberating religion. So out of fear, I intentionally ignored my doubts and focused on what I knew brought me spiritual exhilaration, and that was memorizing the Qur’an.

By now, I had been reading the Qur’an in English for about six years. At this point, I could understand the basic message but I knew that if I wanted to understand it in depth, and if I wanted to become a Muslim scholar (as I did, bar the whole studying about women thing), I would need to learn Arabic. Thus, after college, I was blessed with going to Egypt to study Arabic and Qur’an. And there, it was the first time I finally witnessed what it was like for Muslim women to live in a Muslim-majority country, where there was no huge separation of religion in daily interactions and in life in general.

You see, when I learned about a Muslim woman’s true liberation being in her home, with her empowerment being her ability not to attract men, I really only saw those things in practice by certain groups in the mosque in my American hometown. I knew how to act in the mosque, but my interactions became a little more confusing when I was in any other public space. Yet in Egypt, I experienced something completely different; Islam present in social interactions throughout society. In Egypt, Muslim businesswomen interacted with male clients without awkward harshness and vice-versa. I saw normalcy in their society; spontaneous human reactions to harsh living, to jokes, to social issues. Muslim women in hijab, in niqab, in khimar, all were a part of the social fabric. My Arabic teacher was a lover of the Qur’an, a strong believing Muslim woman who covered her face and was a mother, and she passionately would remind me of the vital role of Muslim women in transforming society for the best and the need to sacrifice to be a part of the struggle.

In Egypt, I began to find myself again. My Arabic teacher, whose knowledge of Islam I deeply respected, helped me understand that conversation was necessary for me to improve on my language skills. Thus, I spoke to everyone, all the time, including men. I spoke to taxi drivers and asked them about their life stories, I stopped men from a physical fight when they were screaming over whose turn it was in line. I ran, shouting to intervene when I saw a man kicking a guy in the stomach, helped men take care of their families’ needs and travelled in microbuses full of men because I needed to get where I needed to go. I was never treated disrespectfully by men. I had to depend on them and constantly interacted with men and women of the Egyptian society to help me figure my way around and my dependency was returned with incredible kindness and professional respect. In fact, twice, when I heard two different men, on two different occasions, calling out to me, expecting that they were trying to hit on me, I screamed in their faces: “Astaghfirillah!!!” only to see their shocked reactions and realize that they hadn’t even noticed I existed and were just saying something to someone else in Arabic. Yet I, being naïve, expecting men to hit on me since I was fitna (remember?) and not really knowing Arabic, had expected the worst from them and was trying to put them in their places. ((I absolutely recognize the social problems Egypt has, but this article is focusing on my personal transformation through my interactions with Egyptians. Kindly keep your focus on that point.))

Additionally, learning Arabic provided me a gateway to Islamic literature that described Muslim women in the society of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); a society in which dynamic Muslim women flourished. The materials to which I previously could access in English were often poor translations from the original Arabic, or information supporting only the viewpoint to which I chose to ascribe and in neither did I find descriptions of righteous women who had my personality and who interacted in society. The literature I used to read supported a certain paradigm, mixing culture with religion and supporting strict gender separation versus appropriate, kind collaboration. With this newly accessible material, I didn’t see the woman I had become; I saw the woman who I once was before I had become unrecognizable to my own self.

While learning in Egypt, I was incredibly blessed to continue learning from the Imam who worked with me while I was going through the changes I faced during my search for the meaning of women in Islam. It took time for his mentorship to sink into my heart and actions, but he continued to teach me Islam’s balance, reminding me that God describes us as, “a balanced nation,” ((Qur’an 2:143)) and that the Prophet ﷺ, “was not given a choice between two matters, except that he chose the easier of the two, as long as it was not a sinful act…” ((Bukhari)) He helped me understand that there is not necessarily one methodology that is “The Truth,” and helped me maneuver the differences of opinions amongst scholars, how they derive their legal verdicts and the influences that may impact their opinions. His mentorship was vital to protecting me from losing myself completely while on this journey and helping me find myself again.

My return back to America was marked with transformation. I finally acknowledged what I had first learned of the role of Muslim women had scarred me psychologically as I had immediately tried to change myself and my lifestyle to fit some sort of image I had been told was that of a pious Muslim woman, but was not necessarily so. I finally understood that the harshness I saw in whom I assumed were pious Muslims may have, in fact, been a misunderstanding of Islam as simply a set of regulations or Islam practiced under a different cultural backdrop than to which I had been accustomed.

And it is very important that I clarify that the way of life I assumed from what I learned was not completely due to what I learned or who I learned it from; I absolve them of my obstinate tendencies. My actions may have been rooted in a personal misinterpretation of what I learned, where I failed to differentiate the universals of Islam with its particular manifestations in a given culture, something that comes after deep study. And it is imperative to note that I am not intending to draw parallels between women who choose to cover their faces and stay at home most of the time with the difficult transition I went through. That is not at all true; all of those women contribute to communities in incredible ways, may God bless them all. Such awesome women deal with so many stereotypes from within and outside of the Muslim community already and it is not at all my intention to add to that stereotype. The issues I encountered were not because of covering the face and staying in the home; rather the issues were due to a mentality, a paradigm, a methodology that I was taught in relation to my role as a Muslim woman. This individual narrative is not meant to condemn that respectable lifestyle; my personal experience should not be used to generalize the experiences of other Muslim women.

In the years after my return from Egypt, I was blessed to interact with quality scholars who understood our Islamic texts and our American culture; whose wisdom and qualified research allowed them to teach Islam as related to Muslim women in ways that reflected the beautiful psychological, emotional and spiritual empowerment of women in the Prophetic society and how to best translate that practice in North America. I was also incredibly blessed to marry my hero and beloved husband, someone who comes from a wonderful family grounded in living the spirit of Islam. They, along with my own cherished family, relatives and understanding friends supported me through my slow changes and provided resources to help me find myself and the core values of Islam as they related to my life again. I mention this to explain the absolute necessity of supportive mentors and loved ones in order to sustain positive change.

Through these experiences and the support of loved ones, I found who I truly was again. I found Maryam; the dynamic, assertive, energetic woman who knows without a doubt that Islam is empowering, who wears hijab for the sake of God, not for the sake of men, and who understands that the qualities God blessed me with were not meant to be locked up and hidden, but rather to be used appropriately for His sake.

I understand that some of you may disagree with my reflections; I understand because I once felt the same way and fully am aware of how it was the only truth to me, and is for many. I still respect you for your perspective. Even if I now differ, you are my brother and my sister.

Yet I am approached, over and over, by youth and young adults who are confused, struggling to figure out who they are, and are doubting Islam in its entirety stemming from the very notions I mentioned above; they do not know who to speak to about the doubts that continue to persist, nor do they know what to think when they feel spiritually bullied. Those who approach me most are young women who are nervous about the way they hear Islam and women presented by religious figures and are struggling with doubts towards Islam’s empowerment of women in the face of religious guidelines that seem the opposite.

This article is geared towards that group of individuals. I am detailing my personal story because I did not hear one like it from another woman while I was struggling. What I heard was of women who became strictly devout and then eventually left Islam completely. Or decided they could no longer wear hijab or other related coverings and chose to remove them because they could no longer take it. While I was going through those stages, I used to wonder about those women, worrying that perhaps like them, my “eman (faith) wouldn’t be strong enough” and I too would change. Now I understand that such painful experiences may have left many a woman searching, seeking to find comfort and healing, yet feeling stripped of the only thing they could have ever imagined finding that security in- their belief.

And this brings me to important points which I believe are essential for any Muslim, male or female, to consider when learning women’s issues in Islam.

5 Tips for Rethinking Studying Women’s Issues in Islam:

1. Understand the context and that there are differences of opinion.
   • Understand the context of Qur’anic verses or Prophetic traditions. It may seem really confusing or in fact, quite opposite what we have learned Islam teaches. Before jumping to conclusions, first learn why it was revealed, why the ruling was given at that time and place, the wisdoms or the understandings that stem from that, and different interpretations from the scholars. But also understand that as a scholarly interpretation and not necessarily, “Islam’s one and only viewpoint on this entire subject.”
   • As such, know there are legitimate differences of opinions. All that I mentioned here: a woman’s place being the home, covering the face, certain marriage, divorce and custody laws- all of those things are legitimate opinions based on proofs derived by qualified scholars. Are they the only opinions? No. Are they “The Ultimate Truth”? No. Should they all be respected and appreciated as legal rulings derived from legislative texts? Yes. Do they all need to be applied to your specific life? That is something you have to research and, with the help of qualified teachers and loved ones, decide. ((Please note: this article is a personal narrative aimed to provide a perspective not often discussed in our community. The fiqh issues mentioned here are not covered at all in this article, as fiqh is not the focus. God willing, those issues will be covered in other articles.))
2. Find a mentor.
   • A Qur’an teacher or your masjid’s Imam is not necessarily a qualified legal scholar. Simply because a person is in some type of religious position, or seems “religious,” does not mean they are qualified to give you legal rulings, or that what they teach is applicable to your situation. Take your religious knowledge from those qualified and those who combine that qualification with a keen understanding of the social reality in which you live.
3. Learn about the historical legacies of Muslim female scholarship.
   • Muslim women have been scholars, muftiyahs (female of “Mufti”- ever heard they exist before?) and qari’ahs (female for “Qari”- or Qur’an reciter) for centuries. Some of the greatest male scholars, whose names are oft celebrated, like Hasan alBasri, Ibn Hajar and Ibn Taymiyyah, all had female scholars as teachers and contemporaries. We rarely hear about the women who taught all those men, but it does not mean they did not exist, nor does it mean they have to remain a secret or never exist again. It is up to you and me to change the way we view women’s interaction with scholarship in our communities.
   • Here are books and audio I have personally read and recommend or which have been recommended by those I trust:
     •  تحرير المرأة في عصر الرسالة – (Arabic only) for all those ayat and ahadith you’ve heard misquoted or in the wrong context, for which have placed doubt in your heart or mind.
     • Al Muhadithaat by Shaykh Mohammed Akram Nadwi- for thousands of examples of female hadith scholars throughout our history and so much more.
     • A Biographical Dictionary of Muslim Women by Aisha Bewley- to truly understand the vast range of positions Muslim women have occupied in Islamic societies throughout history.
     • A Glimpse at Early Women Islamic Scholars by Imam Zaid Shakir.
     • Audio: Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah’s Women in Islam series
     • Audio: Abdallah Adhami’s lectures related to women in Islam.
4. Have a support group.
   • This is essential for feeling supported through what can be a long, confusing and sometimes emotionally painful process. (It took seven years for me to go through this process. It may take time for you, too.)
5. Understand that negative rhetoric or policies surrounding women’s issues by community and/or religious leadership should never be linked to the Islamic perspective of women in Islam.
   • If you hear something weird coming from a person in religious authority (ie: “If a woman gets her period while in Hajj, it’s a punishment from Allah for her sins.”): Be critical! Even Aishah (may God be pleased with her), more pious than all of us combined, got her period while on Hajj! So ladies, instead of doubting Islam when hearing things like that, remind yourself that many well-intentioned Muslim men (and women) are schooled in cultures where negative views of women dominates even religious circles and of course it seeps into religious knowledge. So study and actively work to help change our community narrative and understand that such rhetoric is exactly what Islam came to change.

If you have felt guilty because you had doubts, if you felt confused because you considered something in Islam (especially as related to women) oppressive, if you have chosen to distance yourself from the Muslim community because you simply could no longer take feeling intellectually, emotionally and spiritually judged, especially as a woman, I want you to remember something: God did not create you, as a woman, to punish you or to crush you or to make you less than men in His eyes. If anyone makes you feel so, then do not be the one who turns away from Islam or the community. We need your voices, especially, to help change the narrative many of our communities have when we especially address women in Islam.

Always remember: Islam does not aim to mute our personalities, rather, to enhance us. If we become unrecognizable to our own selves, we need to think critically on the messages we are accepting into our lives. The Prophet (peace be upon him) did not train people to warp into who they are not. Rather, he built people to become better versions of themselves. God brought you to Islam to help you progress towards a better version of your own self and to benefit humanity. Seek Him, study seriously under solid mentors, and be a means of transforming yourself and those around you for the best.

By Lena Khan

On the day that I write this, I received an email from a sister giving me advice (nasiha). I can (maybe) make documentaries, she told me—but certainly not fictional films. I should refrain from imitating the kuffar (disbelievers) in making movies. And for certain, I should be careful of engaging too much in the dangerous American culture. Lest I forget, our Prophet ﷺ told us, “Islam began strange, and it will become strange again…”

To be sincere, as a practicing (in sha’ Allah, God willing) Muslim in the film industry, I try my best to navigate my career while conforming to the principles and guidelines set down by my religion. Am I certain that I am making every correct decision in doing so? No, and I hope scholars will continue to guide me and start discussions to help others. Do I feel that Islam asks us to be foreigners, staying away from the arts, language and culture of the communities in which we reside? Absolutely not.

Instead of eschewing culture, Islam has always recognized the importance of it to the vibrancy and identity of the people. When the “sons of Arfida” (a reference to Ethiopians) beat drums and danced with spears in the Prophet’s mosque, Umar ibn al-Khattaab radi allahu `anhu (may God be pleased with him) wanted to stop them. The Prophetﷺ  stopped him instead, mentioning that the performers were the “Sons of Arfida”—that is, they were not of his people, his culture. “Play your games, sons of Arfida,” the Prophet ﷺ mentions in one narration, “so the Jews and Christians know there is latitude in our religion.”

Such was the sunna (tradition) of the Prophet ﷺ: accepting pre-Islamic Arab cultural norms, except that which violated the religion. Be it language, names, or practices, the Prophet ﷺ generally left the people to their culture. In recognition of this truth, the respected jurist Abu Yusuf “understood the recognition of good, local cultural norms as falling under the rubric of the sunna.” ((Abd-Allah, Umar Faruq. “Islam and the Cultural Imperative.” 4))

Most interesting, however, are the actions of Angel Jibril. In a famous tradition, Jibril comes to the Prophet ﷺ in the form of a man and questions him about his religion. Since angels can only act upon the orders of Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He), one aspect is telling: Allah ordered Jibril to dress in the clothes of the people with whom he was speaking. ((Lecture: Imam Suhaib Webb, Alim Winter Conference. 1/19/12. Paraphrasing is my own, and may fall victim to my errors of interpretation)) The affirmation of the culture of a people, it seems, has strong precedence in our faith.

In accord with this attitude of the Prophet ﷺ and the religion, Islamic cultures of history followed suit. In China, instead of replacing the indigenous culture, Chinese Muslims created one of their own. The Chinese of centuries ago up until the modern artist Hajji Noor Deen cultivated Chinese calligraphy, and also (but not always) incorporated Arabic. When one looked upon a Chinese mosque, he or she might find the ideograms kai tian gu jiao: “the primordial religion from the world’s beginning.” ((Abd-Allah 8.)) Chinese Muslims, it seemed, consciously made their faith intelligible and organic to those around them. In these acts, Chinese Muslims affirmed that their faith was not foreign, but part and parcel of their indigenous culture.

In this way, the Prophetic and Islamic civilizations of old embraced the culture of the land in which they lived. This, however, was always done in accord with the divine Law. The Prophetﷺ  purified cultural practices that went against the religion and its values. He left people and even converts to their own names, except when they had ill or blasphemous meanings. He encouraged poetry, but not all poetry. The Prophet, in his wisdom and guidance, did not come to erase culture. He took what was good of it, and created a new one. And thus the Muslim identity stayed strong for centuries.

Nowadays, however, our youth do not feel the same comfort. While Chinese Islam feels Chinese, and Indian Islam is distinctly Indian… American Islam is asked to be Arab (or maybe South Asian). As Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah writes in his article, “Islam and the Cultural Imperative,” “In history, Islam showed itself to be culturally friendly and, in that regard, has been likened to a crystal clear river. Its waters (Islam) are pure, sweet, and life-giving but—having no color of their own—reflect the bedrock (indigenous culture) over which they flow.” If this analogy has any truth, American Islamic culture is in danger of being a murky and shallow pond, reflecting nothing, and providing no refreshing life force to those who drink of it.

Just as Islamic civilizations have done for centuries, it is incumbent upon Islam in America to create its own cultural authority—not through losing ourselves to the culture without regard for our religion, but by developing it from the culture. In this way, we—and especially our youth—will feel like we truly belong.

Islam has always been a practical religion, dealing with the realities of the world. We, too, must also deal with reality: we can either define and develop our own strengthened cultural authority, or we can lose ourselves and our youth to another. Culture allows us to define ourselves, and have strength in who we are. “Identities that are rooted in deep cultural contradictions,” writes Dr. Umar, “are easily thrown into states of confusion and doubt.”

We have then, a choice. Culture, especially the arts, will always be part of the human experience. Whether it is through Muslims who have made it into the mainstream—such as Yusuf Islam, Lupe Fiasco, Khaled Hosseini, G. Willow Wilson, Hakeem Olajuwon, or the Abdullah Brothers, or filmmakers and artists who are on their way to mainstream recognition—like I hope myself and others, in sha’ Allah, our youth are starting to have examples for how to embrace our indigenous culture and from it create our own.

Knowing many of these figures, I know that our work itself is a struggle. We strive to become excellent in our fields, while maintaining what we believe our religion asks of us. It is likely that some may disagree with our choices. Music, or no music? Is a bad word in a novel that more or less requires it worth the good that comes, or is it even allowed? The solution is not topush away culture and the arts, but to have the discussions that will guide us through them and emerge with a halal (permissible) alternative and guidelines in the arts and our cultural authority. This is what we find in the Prophetic example, as well as in Islamic civilizations for centuries.

Perhaps some may disagree with those figures most powerfully developing this cultural authority. If that is the case, we should understand that we are in a new era where we have Muslim artists who are not operating outside of Islam, but trying their best to apply it—practicing their craft without sacrificing Islamic principles as they understand them. Let us have the critical discussions to guide them all. As Oscar Wilde famously said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Our society, and youth, will continue to find identity and strength in cultural icons and artists. Do we worry about what figures, and what art, is currently defining them? Then let us support those who may give them a more acceptable alternative, and help create an Islamic and indigenous cultural redefinition that will strengthen us all.

Lena Khan is a writer and director, working on a full-length feature film, “The Tiger Hunter” and currently running an online crowd-sourcing campaign to help fund it.  Information about her film, and how to support, can be found at http://kck.st/13tcFx8.

My father always said, “You don’t understand the price of freedom.” But I do know and understand the price of being robbed of my right to grow up around grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I know the price of growing up nation-less; the price of having no national identity; the cost of not knowing who I am or where I am from.

I am the daughter of a mother wanted for execution in Syria for simply owning a dream to think freely, and of a father who would not bow to the country’s criminal silence. They escaped in 1980, reunited in Jordan, moved to Iraq, the United States, Canada, then once again back to the United States. They stamped each country with the birth of a child, clinging to their dream of returning to Syria. I was born in Montreal, Canada.

As a child, I was Syrian. But as a teenager, I was lost. In America, I wasn’t American. On my two visits to Syria, I wasn’t Syrian. I couldn’t own pride in a country that stripped my mother and father of the right to live or the right to return. I didn’t understand the fear, the silence, the poverty, or why my grandfather hung a two-foot portrait of the President Hafez Assad right above his television. When my 13-year-old cousin pointed his finger at me and accused his uncle, my father, of being too much of an arrogant doctor in America to even pay a small visit to his family in Syria, I opened my mouth to unleash my rage only to find my grandfather’s strong palm glue itself to my lips.

At 24, after I completed graduate school, still without an identity or nationality to boast, I decided that I would embrace the identity of being an “American,” and accept my Syrian heritage as something that belonged to my parents, something of the past. I slowly erased that image from my memory.

When the revolution in Tunisia dominoed its way to Syria, when peaceful protestors were instantly captured, detained, and had their hearts foam out of their mouths, I didn’t understand why my mother and father were depriving themselves of sleep at night. I was offended that when I flew across the country to visit them over the holidays, they were not emotionally with me as we sipped our nightly tea. They were glued to their computer screen at home, signed into Skype, talking, arranging, organizing, doing anything and everything within their human power to help the people of Syria. They even traveled to Turkey and lived with 8,000 Syrian refugees in Antakya for one month as an in-house doctor and emotional supporter sleeping in their tents and using their overcrowded toilets.

For 10 months, I prayed for the dead, the detained, and the tortured. I followed the news for ten days then abandoned it for twenty. I wanted to put this past behind me. I wanted to convince myself that there was nothing more I could possibly do. But as the symphony of protestors grew louder and stronger—bouncing off high concrete walls over a web of narrow ancient alleys every time a child was sniped, a woman beaten, and a man burned to death only after breaking his back and slicing off his fingers, my heart began to feel alive. I began to see a different purpose to this life. Was it simply to get an education, dine at fancy restaurants, travel, have children, and move into a large home while the blood of others gushes into rivers, or children die of starvation? Where were the Syrians finding the courage to persist? Where had their fear and silence gone? I no longer wanted to continue my perfectly played out movie, or worry about things that really didn’t matter.

My numbness to the image of tortured body after body after body for the past 10 months burst. I finally understood my parents overworking their minds, bodies, and hearts. I understood how they went two days without feeding their stomachs because they had no time to stop. No interest. They had no time to even grow hungry. My parents outran death, literally, when 40,000 others couldn’t. For 26 years they told me and my siblings that this life was only a journey, and the purpose of that journey was to make it to heaven. “Never get too comfortable,” my father said. “Be the last to eat and the first to serve.” Just as my parents began to grow numb to the idea of ever returning to Syria, watching the last flicker of fire fade, a few boys in the village of Daraa relit the match.

I am not the child who was brought to America to have a better life. I am not the Syrian daughter who came because her parents wanted to practice medicine and flourish financially. I am the child of a man who miraculously escaped in the trunk of a Beetle, and helped by a Lebanese priest, fled the country. I am the daughter of a woman who was grabbed by her neighbor seconds before entering into her apartment to warn her that the Syrian Secret Police were inside waiting for her. She watched her two roommates hauled into mukhabarat (Secret Police) vehicles, then thrown into torture cells for nine years. I am the granddaughter of a man shot by the mukhabarat, and later killed. I am the granddaughter of two women whose dying wishes were to see their daughter and their son in Syria, embrace their hands, and hold it against their own face while they ejected their last breath.

That is who I am. Only now am I learning to adopt and combine the qualities that make America so great, and the qualities that charge Syria with spirit. Only now do I realize that my lost identity, split into two countries, symbolize who I am. I know that I am proud to have grown up American and free, to have been educated, to ask questions, seek answers, sleep at night comfortably, proud to have a childhood. I am proud to see the men, women, and even boys and girls fight for freedom, fight for the silence of their parents and grandparents. I am proud to own Syrian blood. I am proud to stand up for truth and speak against injustice, something my parents were able to teach me because we were in America, and something I witnessed my Syrian brothers and sisters die for. I am proud to be Syrian-American and American-Syrian. And in the end, this life is really only a journey; and my journey is to hold my free mind in one hand and courage in the other, and live for something worth living for.

“So, what did you study?” a family acquaintance inquires.

“I finished my bachelors in psychology and masters in social work. I’m a social worker now,” I reply.

“Oh,” the woman responds. A look of sheer disappointment falls across her face. “Why didn’t you become a doctor? You’re smart enough to become a doctor!”

Those of us who have chosen “non-traditional” careers – basically any career outside of medicine, engineering, and more recently business and law – can probably recall similar encounters. Many of the elders in our community continue to propagate the idea of a career hierarchy; medicine is considered the ultimate ideal, followed by engineering, law, and then business. While these are noble professions, they are by no means the only ones available to our community. We are a people of diversity; God created and endowed each person with unique characteristics, talents, and skills to be utilized in varying professional fields.

Unfortunately, many parents continue to espouse the idea that certain careers are best, sometimes forcing their children to major in subjects they have no interest in or are beyond their capabilities. Most parents are well intentioned, hoping to ensure a positive future for their children. They may have faced many hardships and want a better life for their offspring. Some parents are living their dreams through their children, as they may not had the chance to complete their own education. Still, there are parents who insist on specific professions solely for prestige among their social circle. Regardless of the reason, when children are pressured into certain careers, the consequences can be detrimental to their relationship with their families, as well as their self-confidence. Pressure may lead to resentment, depression, shame, and low self-esteem.

In my counseling experience, I have worked with students who were struggling to reconcile their parents’ expectations with their personal career goals. Some of those students were torn between obeying and pleasing their parents and wanting a satisfying career. I remember one student in particular, who was depressed because she continuously failed her science courses. She was not the least interested in the subject matter, but she faced a lot of pressure from her family to become a doctor.

In contrast, students who pursue a profession of their choice are more likely to excel in their work. When their careers match their interests, they will reap the emotional rewards and be better contributors to society. Our youth should be encouraged to consider from the plethora of professional fields available.

A study conducted by Cornell University in 2002 found that American Muslims were underrepresented in law, journalism, and entertainment, while they tended to pursue careers in medicine and engineering. We know that there is a huge career disparity in our community. The good news is that after 9/11, there has been an increase in the number of students choosing alternative career paths. Muslims have learned the hard way how important it is to change the negative perception of our community and play a more active role in society. We must be more involved in the political and social issues impacting the world today. It is an obligation in our faith to serve our communities and be of benefit to the societies we live in. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) came as a mercy to all of humanity. If we restrict ourselves to certain occupations, we are doing a disservice to the human race.

Think for a moment about the array of professions it takes to build a community. We need educators, entrepreneurs, artists, social workers, psychologists, academics, chaplains, politicians, journalists, researchers, attorneys, and many more.

If you had a mental health problem, who would you talk to? How will our non-profit organizations and institutions function without managing directors? Who will advocate on behalf of Muslims? Who will research American Muslim issues? All of these careers serve our communities and are equal in the eyes of Allah. As long as career choices are within the bounds of Islam and are pursued with the intention to serve Allah and His creation, they will be rewarded. A career today is much more than just a financial pursuit; it is a lifestyle and an opportunity to gain entry into paradise. Having the ability to choose how best to serve others and gain the reward of Allah is invaluable.

Amal Killawi is a clinical social worker who provides counseling and conducts research.

Reprinted from The CommUnity Journal.