Muslimah Pride: We Reject Femens Islamophobic and Neo-Colonialist Crusade to Save Us

I have been following the exploits of Femen for a while now and have become increasingly frustrated with the way in which they carry out their campaigns. What Femen are doing is highly counterproductive and detrimental to Muslim women across the world. For me and hundreds of other women who have got in touch with me over the past few days, their tactics are a part of the ideological war that is going on between neo-colonial elements in the West and Islamic societies. Their aim is not to emancipate us from our presumed slavery, but instead reinforce Western imperialism and generate consent for the ongoing wars against Muslim countries. 

Despite my personal views about the effectiveness of Amina Tyler's actions, I hope that she is safe and well. However, I fail to see how declaring 'Topless Jihad Day' in 'support of her' will have any positive effect on her fate. A policy based on "Muslim women, let's get naked" is counterproductive and bordering on insane. This is what prompted me to launch 'Muslimah Pride Day'.

It seemed that many other Muslim women across the world agreed with my stance and what followed was a defiant and vocal rejection of Femen's invitation. Instead of 'getting naked' Muslim women from across the world tweeted and uploaded pictures of themselves to Facebook in their hijabs, niqabs, and western attire. They held up signs telling the world why they were proud of their identities and did not need racist Islamophobic women to dictate to them on how they should dress. The sheer number of participants and support was indicative of the level of anger and frustration that Muslim women feel toward being perpetually infantilised and patronised by Femen and other such groups. 

In our open letter to Femen we referred to them as 'colonial feminists' to describe Femen's activities. I believe it is the most apt term to describe their particular brand of feminism. From Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships, to the pretext of female liberation surrounding the invasion of Afghanistan, women have always been used as pawns by men as an excuse to wage war. Femen are just the latest chapter in the long history of gender imperialists that manufacture consent and provide ideological foregrounding to justify going to war. By dismissing the role of western countries in the oppression of Muslim women and focusing solely on Muslim men they are only working to demonise Islam, not liberate Muslim women. 

In her latest piece in the Huffington Post UK, Inna Shevchenko suggests that we have "bearded men with knives" behind us that have pushed us to launch this campaign. In doing so she is dismissing our right to self-expression as impossible.

What she is implying is that Muslim women are incapable of speaking for themselves. It is a blatant attempt at denying that we have agency in our own lives. This kind of inferiorising is symbolic of why so many Muslim women are so angry with Femen.

The lead up to the Afghanistan war is a prime example of how feminism is used to construct and disseminate negative stereotypes about Muslim women to whip up support for warmongers. Former First Lady Laura Bush provided the speech act on the so-called plight of the women in Afghanistan, which turned a referent object like the Burkha into an obstacle to freedom. The reported plight of Afghan women was used to manipulate the public in to believing that this war was a well-intentioned feminist crusade to free them. The crude/sick reality that the chosen method of liberation for these women was by bombing, killing and raping them was cynically eclipsed by the fervour to save them from their own 'evil' Muslim men. 

In a climate where we are constantly warned about a 'clash of civilisations' and the West's state of perpetual war with Muslim countries, there is a fundamental need to dehumanise the 'enemy'. The overemphasis on the Muslim man's perceived misogyny overshadows the complete lack of scrutiny of the West's oppression against Muslim women. Femen's reliance on the overused media tropes of the modern western values versus traditional Muslim values is creating a dichotomous representation of the 'self' (West) and 'other' (Muslims). 

Discourses based solely on the way women dress has historically been used to justify oppression against all dominated groups in history. The French colonialists would physically rip the veil of from women's heads during the Algerian Revolution. In his essay Algeria Unveiled, in which he examines the role of women in colonised societies, Frantz Fanon quotes the French colonial authorities in saying: "If we want to destroy the structure of Algerian society, its capacity for resistance, we must first of all conquer the woman; we must go and find them behind the veil where they hide themselves and in the houses where the men keep them out of sight". Neo-cons and Islamophobes use the same approach to keep the Muslim woman subjugated.

The hyper-sexualisation of Femen's campaign and the insistence on Muslim women to strip naked as a gesture of emancipation is a tell-tale symptom of Orientalist fantasies. When puritanical, prudish Christians from Europe first came across the Muslim world, Muslim women were off limits to the western man but that did not stop writers of harem literature fabricating their fantastical sexual encounters and present them as reality. Muslim women were depicted as the sex slaves lounging around in harems, there for the sexual pleasure of Muslim men. This has led to a construction of the 'Muslim Woman' as a submissive sexual object. Femen's tactics suggest that this mentality has not changed. Now that the West has become supposedly sexually liberated, the Muslim woman (the 'Other') represents covered up sex slaves trying desperately to clamber out of their stifling burkhas and forced marriages. 

I am not dismissing the fact that there are problems in the Muslim world. However history has shown that the West has directly (through slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism) and indirectly (through the propping up of misogynistic and oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia) done far more damage to Muslim women than Muslim men have. That is why I vehemently oppose Femen's universal imposition of the neocolonial agenda. If Femen really want to help Muslim women they should address the fact that for far too long now, Muslim women have been marginalised, bombed, raped, killed, and enslaved by men from the western world. They should work within their own countries to try and subvert future wars against Muslim countries and help break down barriers. Or perhaps they should stick to trying to liberate women in the west. 

We have been overwhelmed and are extremely appreciative of the messages of support and encouragement we have been getting from non-Muslims around the world. A woman from the US sent us a picture in which she had fashioned a hijaab out of a piece of cloth and headband in solidarity of our right to wear it. Western feminists such as Those Pesky Dames have also come out in support of our campaign. This is indicative of the ability to look past historically ingrained attitudes and the willingness of none Muslims to try and understand this misrepresented religion. 

Despite the popularity of our campaign and the strong message that it sent out, Femen have continued to display a flagrant disregard for our agency and have consistently tried to downplay the legitimacy of our collective voices. Femen have tried to dismiss our campaign using conspiracy and conjecture, and there has been no sign of intellectual debate or a constructive argument against the points that we have raised. They have made no attempt to approach us directly, nor have they provided a response to our open letter. Instead Inna Shevchenko has said that's she will see us on the "battle lines", but we do not wish to engage on those terms.

For us this is not about a spat with Femen. Rather we are concerned with the bigger picture, of changing attitudes and perceptions and to foster a better understanding between Muslims and the West. This is our opportunity to tell our stories, let our voices be heard and take control of our own narratives. Femen should hope for a warm summer, they can get naked every day for all we care, the vast majority of Muslim women have shown that we won't be joining them anytime soon. 

Twitter @_MWAF
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Follow Sofia Ahmed on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sofiaahmed1

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Aamir Khan & 'Truth Alone Prevails': Bollywood Star Takes On India's Taboos In New Show

 A Bollywood megastar is making India confront its dark side.

Shining light on inequities like the rampant abortion of female fetuses, caste discrimination and the slaying of brides in dowry disputes, actor Aamir Khan has reached an estimated one-third of the country with a TV talk show that tackles persistent flaws of modern India that many of its citizens would prefer to ignore.

"Satyamev Jayate", or "Truth Alone Prevails," is a clever blend of hard news and raw emotional appeal – part "60 Minutes," part Oprah Winfrey. Its influence has even prodded the notoriously lethargic government machinery into action, though it's too soon to know what policy changes may be in the works.

After an episode exposed rampant medical malpractice and championed giving cheap, generic medicine to millions of India's poor, Khan was invited to address a Parliament hearing on health care.

Indians haven't seen anything quite like this. Hard-hitting talk shows are rare and certainly none has acquired even a fraction of the popularity and buzz Khan's has generated since it debuted 11 weeks ago. And Bollywood superstars have ventured into television only to host glitzy game or reality shows.

For many middle-class Indians – comfortable in their belief that their country had moved beyond most of these problems – Khan's show has been a gut-wrenching and poignant dose of bitter reality.

"Definitely it's reminding people that there are problems within our society," said Narendra Kumar, an environmental researcher in New Delhi. "It's also creating discussions and sometimes helping people find solutions to the problems."

The show forced Paromita Dey to confront an act she had tried to bury.

Four years ago, Dey and her husband Souporno – already parents to a teenage daughter – ended a pregnancy because she was carrying another girl. Like millions of Indian families, they wanted a son.

In the opening episode of Khan's program in May, Ameesha Yagnik haltingly recalled how her husband forced her to abort six female fetuses in eight years. How he threw her out of the house but refused to let her meet her infant daughter for months until she agreed to divorce him.

Both Khan and his audience were in tears.

So were the Deys when they watched the show.

"Yes, I killed my baby because she was a girl," a shaken Paromita Dey said, sitting in her home in a posh neighborhood in the northern city of Lucknow.

That India's highly skewed gender ratio is a cause for concern isn't new. Census after census has revealed that fewer and fewer girls are being born, despite strict laws against sex-selective abortions and a slew of failed government incentives and programs.

Yet Khan's show created such an outpouring of outrage that the government of the western state of Rajasthan, with one of the worst gender ratios, promised action, and a village head there formed a committee to check against the practice.

"It's both ironic and amusing that it took an actor from Bollywood to shine a light on the yawning gaps in Indian journalism," political commentator Tavleen Singh wrote in a recent column.

The show has done "what us hacks should have been doing over and over again," she wrote.

Khan, 47, began his career in Bollywood as a romantic hero in the late 1980s. But over the last decade he has broken new ground in Bollywood, fashioning a career path combining the social consciousness of George Clooney with the hero appeal of Tom Cruise.

Now one of the industry's very biggest stars, he has the cachet to push through any project he chooses. He produced, directed and acted in a film about the journey of a misunderstood dyslexic child. His film "3 Idiots" examined the sorry state of India's education system. He's thrown his weight behind social causes – joining anti-dam protesters and embracing an anti-corruption activist. The talk show has cemented his status as Bollywood's first true activist-star.

Khan initially was asked to host a TV game show. He refused.

"I want to do something dynamically different," he told Open magazine. "I continued to think about it, and slowly this idea was conceived."

"Satyamev Jayate" has tackled many horrors unique to India: the torture and murder of young brides for bringing insufficient dowries to their in-laws; the shunning and degradation of those at the bottom of Hinduism's caste hierarchy.

Others are more universal – alcoholism and child sexual abuse – but made worse by a conservative culture unwilling to deal with them.

The program is broadcast on several networks estimated to reach about 400 million people in India. Since its debut, more than 13 million people have posted suggestions and messages of support on the show's website. The alcohol abuse episode sent 60,000 phone calls flooding the Alcoholics Anonymous helpline, said the show's co-director Svati Chakravarty.

"It was unprecedented in the history of AA worldwide."

Rights workers say Khan has used his celebrity with remarkable effect.

Stalin K, a rights activist and documentary filmmaker who appeared in the caste episode, said none of the issues raised were new, but that Khan's show was giving them far more attention than the glancing treatment they usually get in India's media.

"It's a different level of engagement," he said. "The conversations are much deeper."

Khan's reputation as a thinking person's superstar adds to the show's credibility, but for the most part he keeps to the background – only speaking when someone looks lost for words or to explain something to his audience.

In a recent episode, Khan interviewed a university professor who had battled years of discrimination for being a dalit – the lowest Hindu caste. Kaushal Panwar spoke about being taunted in her village school, about not being allowed to drink water from the same clay pot as upper caste children.

Khan interjected only a few times, mostly to give Panwar time to hold back her tears, and once to admonish his audience and viewers that "if I believe an accident of birth makes me superior to you, that is a mental illness."

It remains to be seen whether the show's momentum can translate into substantial reforms. But Stalin says Khan's work is vitally important.

"This amount of discussion in such a short amount of time is unprecedented," he said.

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The brave Muslim women of Gujarat

Thirty-eight-year-old Noorjehan Abdul Hamid Dewan is an unlikely rebel.

She grew up in a large family surrounded by the hum of prayers and "religious men with long beards". She got married at the age of 17 to a man who recorded the number of dead at a local hospital before he lost the job, and ended up on the streets driving an auto rickshaw for a living.

After they were married, Noorjehan and her husband, Abdul, went to live in Juhapura, the bustling Muslim ghetto of Gujarat's main city of Ahmedabad, a place derisively called "mini-Pakistan" by many. It is a dystopian township dotted with cramped homes and narrow streets and where residents struggle to secure drinking water, cooking gas connections and small loans.

Noorjehan covered herself up in a burqa, stayed at home, looked after her husband and children like a good wife. Until the 2002 riots changed her life.
'Haunting'
A refugee camp sprang up in her neighbourhood days after the violence and Noorjehan decided to step out to see what was going on. That was possibly the defining moment of her life.

"I was shocked when I saw the survivors. I saw a girl and a boy, siblings, who had been set on fire by the mob, die in front of my eyes. There were about 5,000 people in the camp. I didn't know what to do, and I felt helpless," she says.
When she returned home and told Abdul after what she had seen, her husband forbade her to go to the camp again and work there. "He told me I could not work with other men. I told him both Hindu and Muslim were working together to help the survivors. He wasn't convinced. But I decided to go back and help. The camp haunted me," says Noorjehan.

Noorjehan, sometimes carrying her six-month-old daughter, walked to the camp every day to help the survivors with food and water. She even joined a local NGO. When her husband heard that, she says, he beat her up.
For the next six months, the relief camp became Noorjehan's life. At home, her husband stopped talking to her and threatened her with divorce. She left her children with relatives and continued to work in the camps, giving out medicines, helping victims file police complaints, carrying out surveys and nursing the injured.
"I also quit the burqa. I put on the burqa when I married in 1991. I quit in 2002," she says.

The burqa, Noorjehan says, was part of the problem when she went to work in the relief camp. "People would pass snide remarks, the police would shoo us away. The burqa became an existential problem. I had to stop wearing it in order to do my job well," she says.
Ten years later, things have changed radically. Abdul is now a fawning admirer of his wife's work and accompanies her, sometimes with their school-going children in tow. "He helps me, supports me, understands me. I now live to get help, get justice," says Noorjehan.

Women like Noorjehan are leading a veritable revolution in the beleaguered Muslim community in Gujarat, which comprises less than 10% of the state's population. They have defied their husbands and parents at home and clerics outside to come out and work with riot victims and travel to dingy and often hostile courtrooms around the state to fight their cases.
'Social change'

Many of them are victims themselves, but they are waging a war against inequality in their homes and marginalisation and brutalization outside. Once sequestered and voiceless, they are making their presence felt at home and the world and challenging the stereotype of Muslim women in India. "A social change is happening in the community," agrees leading activist Shabnam Hashmi. "It took a tragedy to trigger this change."
It can sometimes look like an uphill task. After the 2002 riots, social cleavages have sharpened, ghettoisation has become endemic, lots of Muslim men have lost their jobs, and school-going boys like one of Noorjehan's sons have had to take up low paying jobs in call centres to support their families.
But they soldier on bravely.

In Juhapura, I went to see Niaz Apa, one of these women. She is 58, and lives with her husband in a 100 sq ft, two-room apartment built by a community NGO for displaced riot victims. It's an ugly two-storey building with an unending row of rooms flanked by a winding veranda. Her husband, Banu Mia, a quiet man with a hennaed beard, is a retired factory worker.

Ten years ago, Niaz jests, she was the "richest woman" in the relief camp, where she stayed for eight months. "I had land, I had a home. But my house got burnt down during the riots, and I sold my land in a distress sale and moved into this hovel, which is now my home," she says with no hint of obvious rancour.
That was not all. Even justice denied was denied to her. When Niaz identified the men who had torched her house in the court - "there were 12 of them, they had grown up in front of my eyes" - the judge asked her to compromise with the men. "He said just go ahead and compromise. Nothing is going to happen. And nothing did happen."
To forget her woes, Niaz says, she now works with the community and riot survivors, going to police stations, courts and cheap food shops. "It's all about securing justice by raising my voice. When the owners of the cheap food shops cheat us, I take up the cudgels. If the police station refuses to register a case, I raise my voice," she says.

'Braving the wrath'
"My life is now just about raising my voice and getting justice for the helpless."
In Godhra, I met Latifabano Mohammad Yusuf Getali, 49, who has made a stormy transition from a cloistered homemaker to a leading relief and peace activist, so much so that she was picked up as one of the 1,000 PeaceWomen for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She has worked with riot victims, opened schools and picked up training to run schools and a NGO.
"I was in the burqa when the riots happened. I had no idea of the world outside."
"From the uneventful life of a Muslim housewife to a relief and peace activist, she has walked a long mile", says the citation by the organisation.
"Braving the wrath of her conservative community, Latifabano has helped hundreds of Muslim women in the state gain access to relief and legal assistance... Latifabano's organisation was the first Muslim women's organisation in Godhra, so she faced the considerable wrath of the conservative Muslim community. But she continued undeterred..."

But there is one thing all of them miss. Life since the riots has become boring, says Niaz Apa, because of ghettoisation - the only English word she knows.
"Earlier many of us would live in joint neighbourhoods. We had so much joy living with Hindu neighbours, participating in each other's festivals. Now we have only Muslims for company. Which is a bit boring, isn't it?"

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Poor enrollment of Muslim women in colleges prompted her to embark on a mission

Some people are born with a mission. Others discover it along the way. A few develop it just about when others of their age are ready to retreat into seclusion, to spend their remaining days in contemplation and introspection, doing the little things of life – reading or gardening- that they were too busy to do earlier.

Prof. Hasnath Mansur’s life demonstrates that it is never too late to contribute to society. She started active social work after she retired, committing herself to improve the lives of Muslim women, “Education is their way out” she says.

Bangalore-based Prof. Mansur should know. For 23 years she was the principal of a girls’ college. Throughout her life, what struck her most were the dramatic absence Muslim women in higher education.

She had started her education in Salem, Tamil Nadu. In the local Sharada College, of the 2,000 students, only five were Muslim girls. In a college in Coimbatore where 1,500 students were enrolled, just four were Muslim.

She says “It was so depressing. These were big colleges getting huge grants from the government. But the visibility of Muslims was nonexistent. I started wondering what’s wrong with my community?”

Over the years, she discovered that acute poverty was the main culprit. Except for a few households, most Muslims in the area were dirt poor. Parents could not afford the fees. “One of the biggest and enduring myths is that it is our religion that stands in the way of Muslim women’s progress. But I can say with conviction that it is not Islam but poverty that is the root cause” she says.

It was disconcerting that many Hindus and Christians believed the myth that Islam imposed restrictions on women. “But far more disturbing” says Prof. Mansur “was that many Muslims too believe this myth.” There was very little that Prof. Mansur could do to break this myth as long as she was working. Life was too hectic. But when she retired, she felt the urge to do something for “the hapless, voiceless section” of her community.

If Islam did indeed forbid education for women, then here devout father, a district sessions judge, would not have educated her. The trouble was that poverty unfortunately kept the Muslim community not only poor, but backward, ignorant, superstitious and illiterate. Prof. Hasnath points out that this enabled a misguided section of the orthodox clergy to get away with their misinterpretations of Islam. The indisputable fact is that when it took root in the 7th century, Islam enshrined more rights for Muslim women than what were enjoyed by Jewish and Christian women at that time. But some self appointed male custodians of social more misinterpreted the Koran to accord religious sanction to the prevalent patriarchal, tribal and feudal traditions in Arabia. And that continues till this day. Thus in addition to poverty, ignorance and ill health, Indian Muslim women had to cope with the added burden outdated or incorrect interpretations of the Islamic Law (Shariah).

Prof. Mansur was clear on two things: First, that Islam guaranteed rights for women. And second, the Indian constitution also guaranteed rights for women. It became her mission to propagate these ideas to poor Muslim women so that they could improve their lives and the lives of their families.

However, the real problem lay in the fact that there is no universally codified legal interpretation of women’s rights in the Muslim Ummah (community). The challenge therefore lay in educated Muslim women like her coming to the forefront to ensure that the right of women under the Qur’an and Shariah are progressively interpreted, ensure that these rights are protected and create awareness among Muslims, especially the women, of these rights so that they are protected so that they do not continue to be legally, economically and socially undermined in a male-dominated society using religion as a pretext.

But Prof. Mansur was in a bit of a dilemma. She had retired and finally has time on her hands. But she didn’t know how to go about it. She says: “What can you do after retirement? I didn't want o join politics or sit in dharnas. I was too old for all that. This country is not for old people.”

But rather fortuitously, she connected with IFES, an international NGO committed to the spread of democracy and human rights. They had just set up shop in India and had started the Muslim Women’s Initiative to promote Muslim women’s rights. Her agenda coincided perfectly with the IFES, which had evolved a comprehensive tool kit, comprising information leaflets, posters, handbills and charts. Thus together, from2005, they started conducting a series of camps to spread the message.

Instead of people coming to them they went to the people with their message. Prof. Mansur recoils with horror as she remembers her first foray into a poor Muslim neighborhood in Bangalore.

Says she: “It was so horribly dirty and stinking. The smell was so foul, I couldn’t breathe. There were open, festering slimy drains all around, just think, children are born and die here.”

The local residents mocked her: “You can’t breathe this air for five minutes. But we live here.” Her heart broke but her eyes blazed with anger. “Everyone goes on about Bangalore being the Silicon Valley of India. Our authorities spend millions of Rupees beautifying Brigade Road and Commercial Street. But in localities like these, where no VIP ever visits even the basic civic amenities are missing. You become cynical.”

But rather than succumb to cynicism, the grim reality only strengthened her resolve to extricate her community out of this mess. Ultimately, women would get to know of their right and insist on securing them if they were educated.

In her camps, Prof. Mansur quoted from the Qur’an and the Indian constitution to inform the Muslim women about their rights. Recalls Prof. Mansur: “Words like Constitution are too big for them to comprehend. So one has to describe it in ways that they understand. It has to be relevant to their condition if they are to make sense of it.”

So she talked about the rights an Indian Citizen enjoyed under the constitution, the freedom and the protection guaranteed by it, the right to have food, clothes, house and work. The Muslim women were amazed when she quoted verses from the Qur’an that protected the rights of women.

She stressed the need to become literate. The Qur’an guarantees women the right to education, income and share in property. A marriage cannot be consecrated until girl has given consent. Mehr (dowry) is paid to the bride and it must be handed over to her before the marriage is solemnized.

Islam prescribed the hijab (head scarf) but not the niqaab or face veil that is more of an Arabic custom. The Qur’an emphasis is on women preserving their dignity and modesty so as to not reduce themselves to sexual objects. Prof. Mansur told them: “It doesn’t matter what your local Imam says. This is what our Hazrat (Prophet Muhammad) has said.”

The camps created a subtle but significant shift in attitudes. Till now, most Muslim activism was restricted to charity work, collecting money or relief materials and distributing to the needy. Says Prof. Mansur: “We were doing something for the first time. We are giving information. Facts and verses from the Qur’an. We are making them think.”

Significantly, the camps did not only address women. Men boys, students were also encouraged to attend. Some camps in fact were exclusively for men. Reveals Prof. Mansur: “We expected some resistance from the men. But we surprised. They were supportive, they were very impressed by the charts and kept telling us that they didn’t know this is what the Qur’an actually stated.”

In the beginning, the men were a bit diffident, not entirely forthcoming. “But” explains Prof. Mansur, “they were a bit withdrawn, not because of their gender but because they were uneducated.”

Inevitably, there were some illiberal sections of the Muslim community that viewed the camps with suspicion. Prof. Mansur calls them “subversives”. They threatened and warned, proclaiming they would urge people to boycott, pelt stones and disrupt the camps.

But Prof. Mansur and her team took it in their stride, remained undeterred in their mission. Eventually, nothing of the sort happened. Says Prof. Mansur: “It’s all a matter of traditional elite wishing to continue to exercise their power and control over the masses. They can do so only if the bulk of Muslims remain poor, uneducated and backward.

“They feed them with illusions of the after life so that they meekly endure the misery and injustices they suffer here on earth. When these elite see their power and control weakening, they hit back. They browbeat and threaten us. But we have to offer stiff resistance. Eventually, they will back off when their hold on the populace genuinely weakens. Education, especially for women, is the best way to ensure that this happens. It may take a generation, but it will happen.”

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Making the First Move

I was teaching a review session for my chemistry students the other day when one of my students (a post-bacc in her late 30’s) approached me.

“Lisa, I don’t mean this to be offensive so please don’t take it as such. But I really wish there were more Muslims that do what you do.”

With a half-smile and some confusion, I replied, “What do you mean?”

“It’s just refreshing to see a Muslim going out of her way for me.”

She proceeded to tell me the story of how her brother was a victim of the 9/11 attacks. I cannot even begin to attempt to paraphrase the complexity and emotion of her words so I won’t.

At this point, she was almost in tears, and said

“I mean, I see a lot of Muslims every day who aren’t terrorists, but I don’t see them as anything else. It’s just nice to finally have a relationship with a Muslim.”

She then apologized for ranting, changed the subject, and proceeded to ask about the titration question we had just gone over. But I couldn’t seem to focus on that.

As a convert, I often wonder if I am, in fact, being a “good Muslim.” For so long, I took that to mean praying five times a day and fasting during Ramadan, but it has grown to mean so much more. Having left the comforts of MSA-life behind, I now often find myself as the only Muslim in the room. Whether I’m doing experiments in the lab or teaching a group of first-year chemistry students, my responsibility to be an example on behalf of all Muslims has recently become more evident. I mean, it would certainly be easier if people did not directly associate my actions with my Islam, but I am well aware that this isn’t the case.

Is it fair? No. Is it reality? Yes.

The Muslim community needs to step up its game. We want people to stop having issues with us, but we don’t want to do anything to engage them. (And no. Shoving dawah pamphlets in people’s faces does not qualify as community engagement.) We are such multi-faceted people with unique talents and skills that, theoretically, we should be able to connect with a large, diverse population of people. But instead of making the first move, we sit and wait for “the other” to come to us. And when they don’t, we hide behind this fact and blame them for their lack of willingness to learn about our religion.

As part of our respective communities, we need to do things to connect with all people, Muslims and non-Muslims. And this doesn’t even need to be done on a grand level- some of the simplest things we do can facilitate the beginning of conversations that really need to take place if we ever want to be understood. Community service and random acts of kindness are a great place to start. People notice when you do something for them because, regardless of how big or small you may think your actions are, you put their needs ahead of your own. Actions like these speak much louder than any pamphlet ever could.

We shouldn’t be content with simply being recognized for not doing something bad. We should strive to be known for the good things that we do for the benefit of others. May Allah give us all the courage to make the first moves in reaching out to those with whom we come in contact and may He allow for us to foster a sense of understanding and acceptance of all people in our respective communities. Ameen.
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