Name: Saadia Faruqi
Occupation: Author, speaker and interfaith activist
Hometown: Karachi, Pakistan
Sect: Ahmadiyya
Anu: How does your culture and family members influence your religious practices and understanding of Islam?
Saadia: My whole family isn’t practicing and everyone in the family has different levels. Like my mom would call herself practicing. She is good in somethings and not in others. She doesn’t wear a hijab for example. One of my sisters doesn’t even consider herself Muslim. It is very much across a wide spectrum. I think definitely this is a struggle that most Muslims have, including myself. Culture and religion become so closely connected or intertwined with each other and a lot of times we aren’t able to really distinguish it. It has been good for me because I am living in a different culture that what I grew up with and I am raising my kids in a culture that this is their culture and a lot of things that I'm doing they check me and say "but that's not... Are you sure you are not just saying or doing that because you used to do in Pakistan.” I would have to think about and take it out of the equation. Yes we will do these things and not these things because they are not religious. You have to be aware of it a lot. I see that with South Asian culture in how women are treated and certain things are only done in the house which you would think is just religious but it really is not. You have to have knowledge of your religion to say 'wait a minute I don't agree with this’. I would give you the example that in South Asian culture women are supposed to really serve their husbands and be very respectful and take care of them and there is this understanding that God is happy with you because you are doing this thing and giving your husband this importance and all of that. It is not an islamic concept at all. We have to stop. As a wife, if your husband is expecting certain things of you. You can say “no this is just a cultural thing that we got because of the Hindus and the Muslims and everybody living together”. For example, Prophet Muhammed never expected that of his wife. Women did so many more things in Islamic Arabia. You have to know that and research your faith to be able to see which is which. I feel like I have and I feel grateful to have the opportunity of not just following a religious tradition that my family was doing. I got the opportunity to look it up and read about it and learn from a practical perspective.
Anu: What are the biggest influencers of your decision to cover?
Saadia: I don't know. The story that I have written in the book Mirror on the Veil and I tell this story a lot. I was here and I was working somewhere and one day my boss asked me this. Why don't you wear a hijab like other muslim women i see on TV?
I couldn't answer her. Thats a good question. Why don't i do this? I was already practicing my faith in other ways and then i thought about it and it was a moment that I had to stop and say I don't know the answer. Why I am not doing something that I feel I should be doing? The answer I gave her was that my faith isn't strong enough. It takes a long of courage especially if you are living in a society where most people don't wear certain things. And it was a kind of a moment where I decided. just going against society's norms of what appropriate dress is like. It is really difficult for women. Women like to be like everybody else. I was not ready to make that commitment earlier. I don't know. When I analyzed it, I realized that I made a commitment by doing everything else that my religion requires to the best of my ability. What is the thing that is stopping me? One of the things was also the workplace and it is hard to wear if you are going out.
The hijab is not just a dress, it is the whole attitude of how you interact with other people. I take some offense to how some people use it. If you are wearing a hijab but then you are going out for drinks at a bar with guys giggling and laughing. That’s not really hijab. What does it matter whether your hair is showing or not. It is the whole way that you interact with people especially if you are a women with men. So being in a workplace was something that was holding me back because I knew that people were already judging me because she is from another country, and now she is also dressing differently. It took a lot of steps. I left my job. I started working from home, started my own business. I felt a lot more comfortable because I wasn't out all the time. I could choose who I interacted with much more.
Anu: Have you experienced discrimination based on your choice to cover? Could you describe such discrimination?
I am very lucky that I live in Houston. Houston is so open. The worst i ever had was one time I was at the beach and this guy was walking by and he calls out "Aren't you feeling hot in there?"
Well, it's none of your business. I don't know you. You can ignore things like that. I have clients. I go and interview with clients and they decide if they want to hire me or not. I could say that someone didn't hire me because of my hijab but how do you know? I think a lot of us get paranoid about it and you don't know. You feel that you are being treated differently because in your mind you are different. I am very lucky. I haven't had any instances. I had friends who had bad incidents. Sometimes, my friends had bad incidents repeatedly and I wonder why that is. Thankfully none of this happened to me because I was wearing the hijab. I think it’s about attitude. I am very outgoing and I make it a point to smile at people or make them feel comfortable so if someone sees you wearing something different they don't feel immediately like oh my god who is she? It depends on how you present yourself.
Anu: Does seeing hate crimes against women who cover had any impact on your decision?
Recently since the election, I have been really thinking about it. I don't think that I would ever actually take it off. There are times though... For example, hearing things in the news about how women are treated and recently there have been a lot of hate crimes. It kind of worries me. We went to europe with my family in the summer. A lot of the European airports do a lot of security and here too. For a long time, I thought to myself maybe I won't wear my scarf. But then I couldn't do it. You know, I have worn it for so long and I felt like if you do it for people then just take it off right now anyways. What does it matter? If you are doing it for God, then God is going to be there with you in that airport too. It’s a choice. I think I try to be flexible and I got one of those really loose scarfs like the ones I buy for my daughter because she is too young right now. It's one of those scarfs from Target or the one of those ones that are have a circle, flimsy and doesn't stay on your head. I got of a couple of those instead of my regular ones that literally stays on my head. I will have that so if i see someone treating me wrong or I feel like there is a guy who will be mean. I will let it slip off and we will see how it happens. I didn't actually have any bad incidents. I am very happy about that. I think I was worrying too much. I had a lot of conversations about that with people feeling that now it’s a lot of more open. Before people would have just stared at you but now people are actually saying something. Nobody wants to be in that position especially if you have kids about. They just feel so scared if someone is doing something to their mom. It’s just very terrifying.
Sierra: Do you influence your daughter to cover or are you going to let that be her own choice when she gets older?
She is too young right now. She is 8. We talk about it. I actually know a lot of my friends who grow up wearing the scarf. They would probably expect their daughter to do that. I wouldn't because I did not have that experience. I feel very strongly about choosing to wear this. When I really started wearing the hijab as a full time practice was probably in my late 20s, early 30s and so it was something. It means something to me because I decided to do this in my adulthood. If you are wearing it as a teenager, you are not really... it doesn't mean anything to you. It is just part of your dress or something that you do to please your parents. Even if you are a faithful person, you are too young to really have strong faith. There is an age after which you really come to understand God. I don't think that 14 is that age. I wouldn't do that. Like I said, hijab isn't only this. My daughter has rules that she has to follow in my house. My daughter, she is not allowed to show her legs for example. She likes wearing skirts so the rule is that if you want to wear a skirt you have to wear leggings under no matter what temperature is outside. She used to wear short sleeves but now that she is eight since last year I don't let her wear sleeveless dresses. So if you have to have a dress, it has to have at least a tiny bit of sleeve if not the whole sleeve. It is degrees of hijab. Hijab means modesty. It is not only the hair. When she goes to sunday school, she is expected to wear it. It is a part of the uniform for the girls. We pray 5 times a day and every time you pray, you have to wear it. She is used to it and she doesn't hate it or like it. It is just this thing she has to do at certain time. I will not be the one to say no you are 12. You have to choose to wear it. I would encourage her. I would hope that she would follow in my footsteps but then I also believe that she is not really going to have that relationship about it if she does it because of me. she has to do it because of God. Who know what her future is going to be.
Anu: How do you view Muslim women who don’t cover?
Saadia: I have grown in that respect.
Anu: Oh okay. Yeah.
Saadia: If you are born into anything, you become so rigid you know. You are thinking everyone else is going to hell.
It is not different and I mean honestly in my beginning probably several years i was like that. even with the covering. I mean this is pink right now so I wear not only my scarf but also a coat over my clothes. 10 years ago, this to me would be totally wrong. Oh my god it’s pink.
Sierra: Wait Why?
Saadia: Because I would consider like if you wear a hijab to be like a very plain color, something that doesn't attract any attention and pink is more you know.
That is whole point of the hijab and of covering. That you are not attracting attention to your physical self. And then your personality and your intellect can be the only thing that attracts people and not something that you are wearing. Right now, this coat is not even closed from the top and front. I would have been wearing buttons. I had a time in my life when I did judge very harshly women who not only did cover but also didn't cover correctly according to my standards and thankfully I am so over that judgmental phase. I have kind of mellowed. I think that's a journey that everyone goes in their faith when you are just very strong in your own and you are very rigid and that's the way that you can sustain it. I think that especially since nobody in my family covers so I kind of have to give them the flexibility that this is how you practice your faith. It has been a interesting journey on how i let go of those judgements but i feel that a lot of muslim women who don't cover have this complaint where they feel very harshly judged by women who do cover. it is considered as if you are not following islam properly if you are not covering yourself. I don't know. Obviously if I am covering it is because I feel that this is something that I should be doing. So how do you deal with people who think that this is not something we should be doing not just hijab but anything. If you are christian, how do you deal with people who don't accept Christ? In your heart, you may judge them then you are not going to be really... it's not a good idea to have that out in the open. I don't know it's very interesting.
Anu: I was just curious. How has living in Pakistan influenced your view of Islam especially now that you are living in America since the cultures are so different?
Yeah the cultures are different. I mean...it's totally different. It's... And being Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan was very difficult because we had to hide our identity. It's actually a crime over there. It's in the Constitution that an Ahmadi person cannot call themselves Muslim. And so you had to pretend to be something else. I mean I never ever told anybody what sect I belong to until I came to America. The amount of freedom that I have to practice my faith here is just tremendous. It's something that I never had over there. It is not just for Ahmadi Muslims. Anybody who is not the right kind of Muslim is just bad. It's a very harsh environment for a lot of people. I was not happy there which is why I moved so... It is definitely very positive. It has opened up my mind to see how different people live and I was not able to see that among the Muslims over there. It is a bit difficult to actually practice the day-to-day things of your faith there. That is a struggle. Even though you have the freedom like if you have to pray 5 times a day then where do you pray and how do you pray and where do you go. Those are the things that I never even had to think about because if it is praying time then everyone is praying. You are not weird or unusual. You don't have to tell people that you have to take a break. Here, you have to make a conscious effort to practice your own faith which i ultimately feel is a good thing. You have to know that these are the things that are important to you so you have to make time for them even if nobody else around you is doing that.
Sierra: Do you set like reminders? How do you make sure?
Saadia: For prayers?
Sierra: yes?
Saadia: For prayers, we have apps on the phone. prayer apps.
Sierra: Do you use them?
Saadia: No. I just know it’s time. You can tell. If you are a regular prayer, you don't need a reminder. Sometimes, I will miss a prayer because I was just too busy or it slipped my mind. For example, in the morning because it is early morning then I set an alarm to wake up. Things like that but otherwise no. Everyone is different. I know a lot of people who set reminders or use apps. My husband does.
Anu: How do you feel when you hear people say that covering is a sign of oppression?
Saadia: I think I laugh a lot of the times. Do I look oppressed to you? It is so funny. Where does that even come from? That comes up because I do a lot of public speaking and I do a lot of big events. Several years ago, I trained the Houston Police Department. I do a lot of training. It's pretty cool. A couple of months ago, I was profiled on Oprah Magazine for my…
Anu: wow, that is so cool!
Saadia: It is so very cool! I love talking about that. They were doing a whole section on women who were making a difference in their communities. So I was one of them who I was profiled for my work in training people. I do cultural sensitivity trainings or I go in front of a group and I teach them about Muslims from my point of view. They have questions like this.... Like who am I? How do you do this?
I think that the people who say that are people who don't really know Muslims. If you know a Muslim women who covers, you will see that she is not oppressed. That is just a weird statement to make now. But I am thinking that there are people like that. There are people who say that you are not oppressed because you are living in America.
Sierra: Yeah. I'm kind of curious. In Pakistan, it wasn't a choice right? Or?
Saadia: It was a choice everywhere. No, there is a choice everywhere.
Sierra: Did you have to wear it when you went to school though?
Saadia: No.
Sierra: Oh okay, that is interesting.
Saadia: Not at all. no. nowhere. I mean unless you live in a village somewhere where men are controlling your life which happens everywhere. There are women in America whose lives are controlled by men.
Sierra; Yeah.
Saadia: I mean I never covered in any way anywhere. So again those are people who watch the news or they hear these things from people or they are reading these books that just take..... You can always find an example of something but that does not mean that the example is the norm for more than a billion people. If somebody asks me about Muslim women specifically I give them concrete examples. For example, most Muslim countries in the world have had over the last hundred years more than one female president or prime minister. In the U.S, we still have yet to elect a woman as a president. I am from Pakistan. When I was in high school, we elected Benazir Bhutto who was the first woman head of state in the entire Muslim world and she was elected twice. Bangladesh has had a female Muslim president and prime minister for most of its history. Iran has. Many African countries have. Indonesia has. So how can women be oppressed when women are leading Muslim countries?
I feel like women are more oppressed here than in many Muslim countries. We have cultures not religion. If we go to a culture where women don't have rights, that has nothing to do with religion like in Saudi Arabia. Up till last week, they didn't allow people to drive. That is something that the government or the dictator is doing. That is very different. People who say that women are oppressed they are not bothering to get information. They are not talking to Muslim women. Muslim women have been Nobel Prize Winners and they are doing everything. They are in sports, medicine and technology. We just don't hear about it because our media does not cover it. I guess the only thing that I can do is share some of those examples.
Sierra: It was really interesting to me because we had to write a literature review for your project and my sub-topic in our group was on hate crimes. A lot of the articles that I was reading were about how so many people in America think that Muslim women are oppressed by their husbands and abused. The white male in America is more of a threat to Muslim women than their husbands and homes.
Saadia: You are absolutely right. Also the fact that women everywhere. A lot of white women are abused by their husbands. This is a human issue. It is not a religious issue and I believe there is no statistics that show that Muslim women have that happen to them. The reason in America is that we have a large number of very educated population. Immigration was only based on your education level. People who were coming from the Muslim countries were all very highly educated. It is usually poverty, mental illness that cause certain men to behave in certain ways to women. That is cruel. Whatever color you are or whatever religion you are it is ridiculous. It really depends on where people are getting their information from right? If someone is just reading one newspaper and that is very skewed, that is where they are getting their information from. I always encourage people. Before talking about any country, go and read their newspapers. Everything is online now. If you want to know how women in Pakistan you can just go and read for a weeks the newspapers that come out of Pakistan. You will get a much better idea. Don't watch CNN if you want to know what is going in Pakistan or Somalia or Iran. You want to know then talk to people there or read their news. That is too much effort i guess. I don't know. People don't want to know... It's too much.
Sierra: Personally, if you don't want to know, then you shouldn't talk about it.
Saadia: That's the thing,
Sierra: I mean I don't know anything about Pakistan but I don't go around and talk about it.
Saadia: That is the thing. That is how we feel like we can say certain things. For example, not a topic of hijab but in my trainings and classes that I teach, for example terrorism is a big topic that comes up always that people want to know about. Every time I teach a class some guy will stand up. It is funny how it is usually men. Well, he would say that the Quran says it’s okay to kill non-muslims. I'm like really? Have you read the Quran? No! If you have not read a book, i mean.... I'm not going to say Shakespeare wrote this is in a play when I have not read any one of play of Shakespeare. How does that even work? How can you say something and argue with me about it and tell me that I am lying or that I am wrong. Or that I am saying this because I am living in American and I am not back home somewhere when you have not even read that book. So you are absolutely right. If you don't know something about a topic then you should not be talking about it. So that is a problem we have. Again, nobody has a monopoly on this but everyone is like that. We like to think we know everything.
Anu: Do you feel the need to defend Islam when mainstream media attacks it? If so, how?
Saadia: I don't know why I feel the need. I know many people who are just able to walk away from it. I am not. The way i do it.... I am always writing about it. If I see something on the news, I will immediately write an article and send it to Huffington Post or somebody else and get it published. I feel that it is my duty as a Muslim. If somebody is attacking my faith, I have to stand up for it. Why would you believe in something if you couldn't even stand up and fight for it. I do feel strongly. I do feel that need. I try to have constructive ways of doing it. I have community colleges where I teach classes every semester. There is no point in arguing with people about it. If you are on Facebook and somebody says something that never goes well if you start fighting. I have to ignore it which is very hard. Or some of these articles that come out in New York Times or Washington Post and then you just read the comments underneath and it is just so ugly and it is amazing how what kind of opinions people have. You have to stop yourself. I don't read those comments anymore. If I am on Facebook and I see a comment I just walk away. It obviously makes me so angry but I found through experience that people like that are not really listening. No matter what you write it is just going to fall on deaf ears. There is a constructive way of answering criticism and a constructive way of defending religion and one that is not.
Anu: Many people suggest a Muslim and American identity are not always compatible. What is your opinion on that issue?
Saadia: How do you define that? How do you define American? That is a question that my kids have actually. They are growing up as first generation American but their parents are not what they consider American. Everything they say "well you are not really American". I say "but no really I am really American". I was not born here but I am just as American as you. What does that even mean. The other day my daughter... we were going somewhere and she took her scarf out but she didn't put it on her head. She wore it around her neck and down. She said" today I am going to wear my scarf like an American". I just looked at her and said "Honey what do you mean? I am American but I don't wear it like that." She got a bit shocked. She said" You know what i mean" I said," no please explain to me what you meant by that." I knew what she was saying. She was probably trying to say maybe a white person, Christian. What she was trying to say is 'not Muslim' but then she used the word American which is so not correct. I think it is just so many people equate wrongly American with Christian. When you do that, when you think those two words are the same then yeah you will say that Islam is not compatible because it is a different religion. But if you take American to mean freedom and equality, then Islam also stands for freedom and equality just like every other faith. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people just don't know a lot of Islam. They just see that some Muslim countries have oppression or not a lot of equality. There are muslims who are doing these bad things so we are not American. To talk about it or gloss over it. I don't think it is something that can be explained in a conversation. It is something that comes through long term like changing of perceptions and ideas. If I am in a classroom setting, if people asked me that question which they do, I will say to them lets define that. this is basically everything that is different between culture and religion so my culture is different but when i came to America I changed a lot of things about my culture. I don't wear my Pakistani dress. I wear jeans. I am not violating any tenet of faith by changing my dress. I listen to music from here now. I don't listen to Pakistani music anymore. I eat burgers instead of my regular food. What is this American that you are talking about? It is sad that.... It is also very human that when we say certain words we think they mean something but they might mean something different to someone else.
Anu: When did you move from Pakistan to here?
Saadia: I moved in '98.
Anu: Did you move for college or??
Saadia:I moved`because I got married. My husband was here and so I got married so I moved.
Sierra: How did you meet?
Saadia: It was arranged. We didn't really meet before we got married. He was here at UH and then he got a job so we got married and I moved here. I was in college and I was in the middle of my studies and so I finished my bachelors and moved to Houston. We are going to married twenty years next year. It is a long time.
Occupation: Author, speaker and interfaith activist
Hometown: Karachi, Pakistan
Sect: Ahmadiyya
Anu: How does your culture and family members influence your religious practices and understanding of Islam?
Saadia: My whole family isn’t practicing and everyone in the family has different levels. Like my mom would call herself practicing. She is good in somethings and not in others. She doesn’t wear a hijab for example. One of my sisters doesn’t even consider herself Muslim. It is very much across a wide spectrum. I think definitely this is a struggle that most Muslims have, including myself. Culture and religion become so closely connected or intertwined with each other and a lot of times we aren’t able to really distinguish it. It has been good for me because I am living in a different culture that what I grew up with and I am raising my kids in a culture that this is their culture and a lot of things that I'm doing they check me and say "but that's not... Are you sure you are not just saying or doing that because you used to do in Pakistan.” I would have to think about and take it out of the equation. Yes we will do these things and not these things because they are not religious. You have to be aware of it a lot. I see that with South Asian culture in how women are treated and certain things are only done in the house which you would think is just religious but it really is not. You have to have knowledge of your religion to say 'wait a minute I don't agree with this’. I would give you the example that in South Asian culture women are supposed to really serve their husbands and be very respectful and take care of them and there is this understanding that God is happy with you because you are doing this thing and giving your husband this importance and all of that. It is not an islamic concept at all. We have to stop. As a wife, if your husband is expecting certain things of you. You can say “no this is just a cultural thing that we got because of the Hindus and the Muslims and everybody living together”. For example, Prophet Muhammed never expected that of his wife. Women did so many more things in Islamic Arabia. You have to know that and research your faith to be able to see which is which. I feel like I have and I feel grateful to have the opportunity of not just following a religious tradition that my family was doing. I got the opportunity to look it up and read about it and learn from a practical perspective.
Anu: What are the biggest influencers of your decision to cover?
Saadia: I don't know. The story that I have written in the book Mirror on the Veil and I tell this story a lot. I was here and I was working somewhere and one day my boss asked me this. Why don't you wear a hijab like other muslim women i see on TV?
I couldn't answer her. Thats a good question. Why don't i do this? I was already practicing my faith in other ways and then i thought about it and it was a moment that I had to stop and say I don't know the answer. Why I am not doing something that I feel I should be doing? The answer I gave her was that my faith isn't strong enough. It takes a long of courage especially if you are living in a society where most people don't wear certain things. And it was a kind of a moment where I decided. just going against society's norms of what appropriate dress is like. It is really difficult for women. Women like to be like everybody else. I was not ready to make that commitment earlier. I don't know. When I analyzed it, I realized that I made a commitment by doing everything else that my religion requires to the best of my ability. What is the thing that is stopping me? One of the things was also the workplace and it is hard to wear if you are going out.
The hijab is not just a dress, it is the whole attitude of how you interact with other people. I take some offense to how some people use it. If you are wearing a hijab but then you are going out for drinks at a bar with guys giggling and laughing. That’s not really hijab. What does it matter whether your hair is showing or not. It is the whole way that you interact with people especially if you are a women with men. So being in a workplace was something that was holding me back because I knew that people were already judging me because she is from another country, and now she is also dressing differently. It took a lot of steps. I left my job. I started working from home, started my own business. I felt a lot more comfortable because I wasn't out all the time. I could choose who I interacted with much more.
Anu: Have you experienced discrimination based on your choice to cover? Could you describe such discrimination?
I am very lucky that I live in Houston. Houston is so open. The worst i ever had was one time I was at the beach and this guy was walking by and he calls out "Aren't you feeling hot in there?"
Well, it's none of your business. I don't know you. You can ignore things like that. I have clients. I go and interview with clients and they decide if they want to hire me or not. I could say that someone didn't hire me because of my hijab but how do you know? I think a lot of us get paranoid about it and you don't know. You feel that you are being treated differently because in your mind you are different. I am very lucky. I haven't had any instances. I had friends who had bad incidents. Sometimes, my friends had bad incidents repeatedly and I wonder why that is. Thankfully none of this happened to me because I was wearing the hijab. I think it’s about attitude. I am very outgoing and I make it a point to smile at people or make them feel comfortable so if someone sees you wearing something different they don't feel immediately like oh my god who is she? It depends on how you present yourself.
Anu: Does seeing hate crimes against women who cover had any impact on your decision?
Recently since the election, I have been really thinking about it. I don't think that I would ever actually take it off. There are times though... For example, hearing things in the news about how women are treated and recently there have been a lot of hate crimes. It kind of worries me. We went to europe with my family in the summer. A lot of the European airports do a lot of security and here too. For a long time, I thought to myself maybe I won't wear my scarf. But then I couldn't do it. You know, I have worn it for so long and I felt like if you do it for people then just take it off right now anyways. What does it matter? If you are doing it for God, then God is going to be there with you in that airport too. It’s a choice. I think I try to be flexible and I got one of those really loose scarfs like the ones I buy for my daughter because she is too young right now. It's one of those scarfs from Target or the one of those ones that are have a circle, flimsy and doesn't stay on your head. I got of a couple of those instead of my regular ones that literally stays on my head. I will have that so if i see someone treating me wrong or I feel like there is a guy who will be mean. I will let it slip off and we will see how it happens. I didn't actually have any bad incidents. I am very happy about that. I think I was worrying too much. I had a lot of conversations about that with people feeling that now it’s a lot of more open. Before people would have just stared at you but now people are actually saying something. Nobody wants to be in that position especially if you have kids about. They just feel so scared if someone is doing something to their mom. It’s just very terrifying.
Sierra: Do you influence your daughter to cover or are you going to let that be her own choice when she gets older?
She is too young right now. She is 8. We talk about it. I actually know a lot of my friends who grow up wearing the scarf. They would probably expect their daughter to do that. I wouldn't because I did not have that experience. I feel very strongly about choosing to wear this. When I really started wearing the hijab as a full time practice was probably in my late 20s, early 30s and so it was something. It means something to me because I decided to do this in my adulthood. If you are wearing it as a teenager, you are not really... it doesn't mean anything to you. It is just part of your dress or something that you do to please your parents. Even if you are a faithful person, you are too young to really have strong faith. There is an age after which you really come to understand God. I don't think that 14 is that age. I wouldn't do that. Like I said, hijab isn't only this. My daughter has rules that she has to follow in my house. My daughter, she is not allowed to show her legs for example. She likes wearing skirts so the rule is that if you want to wear a skirt you have to wear leggings under no matter what temperature is outside. She used to wear short sleeves but now that she is eight since last year I don't let her wear sleeveless dresses. So if you have to have a dress, it has to have at least a tiny bit of sleeve if not the whole sleeve. It is degrees of hijab. Hijab means modesty. It is not only the hair. When she goes to sunday school, she is expected to wear it. It is a part of the uniform for the girls. We pray 5 times a day and every time you pray, you have to wear it. She is used to it and she doesn't hate it or like it. It is just this thing she has to do at certain time. I will not be the one to say no you are 12. You have to choose to wear it. I would encourage her. I would hope that she would follow in my footsteps but then I also believe that she is not really going to have that relationship about it if she does it because of me. she has to do it because of God. Who know what her future is going to be.
Anu: How do you view Muslim women who don’t cover?
Saadia: I have grown in that respect.
Anu: Oh okay. Yeah.
Saadia: If you are born into anything, you become so rigid you know. You are thinking everyone else is going to hell.
It is not different and I mean honestly in my beginning probably several years i was like that. even with the covering. I mean this is pink right now so I wear not only my scarf but also a coat over my clothes. 10 years ago, this to me would be totally wrong. Oh my god it’s pink.
Sierra: Wait Why?
Saadia: Because I would consider like if you wear a hijab to be like a very plain color, something that doesn't attract any attention and pink is more you know.
That is whole point of the hijab and of covering. That you are not attracting attention to your physical self. And then your personality and your intellect can be the only thing that attracts people and not something that you are wearing. Right now, this coat is not even closed from the top and front. I would have been wearing buttons. I had a time in my life when I did judge very harshly women who not only did cover but also didn't cover correctly according to my standards and thankfully I am so over that judgmental phase. I have kind of mellowed. I think that's a journey that everyone goes in their faith when you are just very strong in your own and you are very rigid and that's the way that you can sustain it. I think that especially since nobody in my family covers so I kind of have to give them the flexibility that this is how you practice your faith. It has been a interesting journey on how i let go of those judgements but i feel that a lot of muslim women who don't cover have this complaint where they feel very harshly judged by women who do cover. it is considered as if you are not following islam properly if you are not covering yourself. I don't know. Obviously if I am covering it is because I feel that this is something that I should be doing. So how do you deal with people who think that this is not something we should be doing not just hijab but anything. If you are christian, how do you deal with people who don't accept Christ? In your heart, you may judge them then you are not going to be really... it's not a good idea to have that out in the open. I don't know it's very interesting.
Anu: I was just curious. How has living in Pakistan influenced your view of Islam especially now that you are living in America since the cultures are so different?
Yeah the cultures are different. I mean...it's totally different. It's... And being Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan was very difficult because we had to hide our identity. It's actually a crime over there. It's in the Constitution that an Ahmadi person cannot call themselves Muslim. And so you had to pretend to be something else. I mean I never ever told anybody what sect I belong to until I came to America. The amount of freedom that I have to practice my faith here is just tremendous. It's something that I never had over there. It is not just for Ahmadi Muslims. Anybody who is not the right kind of Muslim is just bad. It's a very harsh environment for a lot of people. I was not happy there which is why I moved so... It is definitely very positive. It has opened up my mind to see how different people live and I was not able to see that among the Muslims over there. It is a bit difficult to actually practice the day-to-day things of your faith there. That is a struggle. Even though you have the freedom like if you have to pray 5 times a day then where do you pray and how do you pray and where do you go. Those are the things that I never even had to think about because if it is praying time then everyone is praying. You are not weird or unusual. You don't have to tell people that you have to take a break. Here, you have to make a conscious effort to practice your own faith which i ultimately feel is a good thing. You have to know that these are the things that are important to you so you have to make time for them even if nobody else around you is doing that.
Sierra: Do you set like reminders? How do you make sure?
Saadia: For prayers?
Sierra: yes?
Saadia: For prayers, we have apps on the phone. prayer apps.
Sierra: Do you use them?
Saadia: No. I just know it’s time. You can tell. If you are a regular prayer, you don't need a reminder. Sometimes, I will miss a prayer because I was just too busy or it slipped my mind. For example, in the morning because it is early morning then I set an alarm to wake up. Things like that but otherwise no. Everyone is different. I know a lot of people who set reminders or use apps. My husband does.
Anu: How do you feel when you hear people say that covering is a sign of oppression?
Saadia: I think I laugh a lot of the times. Do I look oppressed to you? It is so funny. Where does that even come from? That comes up because I do a lot of public speaking and I do a lot of big events. Several years ago, I trained the Houston Police Department. I do a lot of training. It's pretty cool. A couple of months ago, I was profiled on Oprah Magazine for my…
Anu: wow, that is so cool!
Saadia: It is so very cool! I love talking about that. They were doing a whole section on women who were making a difference in their communities. So I was one of them who I was profiled for my work in training people. I do cultural sensitivity trainings or I go in front of a group and I teach them about Muslims from my point of view. They have questions like this.... Like who am I? How do you do this?
I think that the people who say that are people who don't really know Muslims. If you know a Muslim women who covers, you will see that she is not oppressed. That is just a weird statement to make now. But I am thinking that there are people like that. There are people who say that you are not oppressed because you are living in America.
Sierra: Yeah. I'm kind of curious. In Pakistan, it wasn't a choice right? Or?
Saadia: It was a choice everywhere. No, there is a choice everywhere.
Sierra: Did you have to wear it when you went to school though?
Saadia: No.
Sierra: Oh okay, that is interesting.
Saadia: Not at all. no. nowhere. I mean unless you live in a village somewhere where men are controlling your life which happens everywhere. There are women in America whose lives are controlled by men.
Sierra; Yeah.
Saadia: I mean I never covered in any way anywhere. So again those are people who watch the news or they hear these things from people or they are reading these books that just take..... You can always find an example of something but that does not mean that the example is the norm for more than a billion people. If somebody asks me about Muslim women specifically I give them concrete examples. For example, most Muslim countries in the world have had over the last hundred years more than one female president or prime minister. In the U.S, we still have yet to elect a woman as a president. I am from Pakistan. When I was in high school, we elected Benazir Bhutto who was the first woman head of state in the entire Muslim world and she was elected twice. Bangladesh has had a female Muslim president and prime minister for most of its history. Iran has. Many African countries have. Indonesia has. So how can women be oppressed when women are leading Muslim countries?
I feel like women are more oppressed here than in many Muslim countries. We have cultures not religion. If we go to a culture where women don't have rights, that has nothing to do with religion like in Saudi Arabia. Up till last week, they didn't allow people to drive. That is something that the government or the dictator is doing. That is very different. People who say that women are oppressed they are not bothering to get information. They are not talking to Muslim women. Muslim women have been Nobel Prize Winners and they are doing everything. They are in sports, medicine and technology. We just don't hear about it because our media does not cover it. I guess the only thing that I can do is share some of those examples.
Sierra: It was really interesting to me because we had to write a literature review for your project and my sub-topic in our group was on hate crimes. A lot of the articles that I was reading were about how so many people in America think that Muslim women are oppressed by their husbands and abused. The white male in America is more of a threat to Muslim women than their husbands and homes.
Saadia: You are absolutely right. Also the fact that women everywhere. A lot of white women are abused by their husbands. This is a human issue. It is not a religious issue and I believe there is no statistics that show that Muslim women have that happen to them. The reason in America is that we have a large number of very educated population. Immigration was only based on your education level. People who were coming from the Muslim countries were all very highly educated. It is usually poverty, mental illness that cause certain men to behave in certain ways to women. That is cruel. Whatever color you are or whatever religion you are it is ridiculous. It really depends on where people are getting their information from right? If someone is just reading one newspaper and that is very skewed, that is where they are getting their information from. I always encourage people. Before talking about any country, go and read their newspapers. Everything is online now. If you want to know how women in Pakistan you can just go and read for a weeks the newspapers that come out of Pakistan. You will get a much better idea. Don't watch CNN if you want to know what is going in Pakistan or Somalia or Iran. You want to know then talk to people there or read their news. That is too much effort i guess. I don't know. People don't want to know... It's too much.
Sierra: Personally, if you don't want to know, then you shouldn't talk about it.
Saadia: That's the thing,
Sierra: I mean I don't know anything about Pakistan but I don't go around and talk about it.
Saadia: That is the thing. That is how we feel like we can say certain things. For example, not a topic of hijab but in my trainings and classes that I teach, for example terrorism is a big topic that comes up always that people want to know about. Every time I teach a class some guy will stand up. It is funny how it is usually men. Well, he would say that the Quran says it’s okay to kill non-muslims. I'm like really? Have you read the Quran? No! If you have not read a book, i mean.... I'm not going to say Shakespeare wrote this is in a play when I have not read any one of play of Shakespeare. How does that even work? How can you say something and argue with me about it and tell me that I am lying or that I am wrong. Or that I am saying this because I am living in American and I am not back home somewhere when you have not even read that book. So you are absolutely right. If you don't know something about a topic then you should not be talking about it. So that is a problem we have. Again, nobody has a monopoly on this but everyone is like that. We like to think we know everything.
Anu: Do you feel the need to defend Islam when mainstream media attacks it? If so, how?
Saadia: I don't know why I feel the need. I know many people who are just able to walk away from it. I am not. The way i do it.... I am always writing about it. If I see something on the news, I will immediately write an article and send it to Huffington Post or somebody else and get it published. I feel that it is my duty as a Muslim. If somebody is attacking my faith, I have to stand up for it. Why would you believe in something if you couldn't even stand up and fight for it. I do feel strongly. I do feel that need. I try to have constructive ways of doing it. I have community colleges where I teach classes every semester. There is no point in arguing with people about it. If you are on Facebook and somebody says something that never goes well if you start fighting. I have to ignore it which is very hard. Or some of these articles that come out in New York Times or Washington Post and then you just read the comments underneath and it is just so ugly and it is amazing how what kind of opinions people have. You have to stop yourself. I don't read those comments anymore. If I am on Facebook and I see a comment I just walk away. It obviously makes me so angry but I found through experience that people like that are not really listening. No matter what you write it is just going to fall on deaf ears. There is a constructive way of answering criticism and a constructive way of defending religion and one that is not.
Anu: Many people suggest a Muslim and American identity are not always compatible. What is your opinion on that issue?
Saadia: How do you define that? How do you define American? That is a question that my kids have actually. They are growing up as first generation American but their parents are not what they consider American. Everything they say "well you are not really American". I say "but no really I am really American". I was not born here but I am just as American as you. What does that even mean. The other day my daughter... we were going somewhere and she took her scarf out but she didn't put it on her head. She wore it around her neck and down. She said" today I am going to wear my scarf like an American". I just looked at her and said "Honey what do you mean? I am American but I don't wear it like that." She got a bit shocked. She said" You know what i mean" I said," no please explain to me what you meant by that." I knew what she was saying. She was probably trying to say maybe a white person, Christian. What she was trying to say is 'not Muslim' but then she used the word American which is so not correct. I think it is just so many people equate wrongly American with Christian. When you do that, when you think those two words are the same then yeah you will say that Islam is not compatible because it is a different religion. But if you take American to mean freedom and equality, then Islam also stands for freedom and equality just like every other faith. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people just don't know a lot of Islam. They just see that some Muslim countries have oppression or not a lot of equality. There are muslims who are doing these bad things so we are not American. To talk about it or gloss over it. I don't think it is something that can be explained in a conversation. It is something that comes through long term like changing of perceptions and ideas. If I am in a classroom setting, if people asked me that question which they do, I will say to them lets define that. this is basically everything that is different between culture and religion so my culture is different but when i came to America I changed a lot of things about my culture. I don't wear my Pakistani dress. I wear jeans. I am not violating any tenet of faith by changing my dress. I listen to music from here now. I don't listen to Pakistani music anymore. I eat burgers instead of my regular food. What is this American that you are talking about? It is sad that.... It is also very human that when we say certain words we think they mean something but they might mean something different to someone else.
Anu: When did you move from Pakistan to here?
Saadia: I moved in '98.
Anu: Did you move for college or??
Saadia:I moved`because I got married. My husband was here and so I got married so I moved.
Sierra: How did you meet?
Saadia: It was arranged. We didn't really meet before we got married. He was here at UH and then he got a job so we got married and I moved here. I was in college and I was in the middle of my studies and so I finished my bachelors and moved to Houston. We are going to married twenty years next year. It is a long time.