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Muslim women in the U.S. are asserting their rights and speaking out for Palestine |
By
Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON,
April 11 (IslamOnline) - Muslim students at a university near
Washington, D.C. held a Muslim Women's History Day Wednesday initially
to correct misconceptions on campus about Muslim women, but changed
their program to include addresses concerning the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict in the current crisis.
"Because
of the atrocities that are happening in Palestine… we got some
speakers" to talk about the situation, said student organizer
Duaa Haggag.
Muslim
students at the University of Maryland, College Park, fifteen miles
from Washington, began by telling their lunchtime audience about the
liberation of hijab (Islamic headcovering) and the difficulties of
confronting prejudice in America, especially on campus.
"Islam
gets a bad reputation because of some things that some people
do," said speaker Merium Khan, a senior at the university.
She
gave the example of the relationship between the Prophet Muhammad
(SAW) and his first wife, Khadija, saying that their example showed
"male-female relationships [in Islam] are not about control or
dominance, or about making one person weaker."
"All
of our stereotypes [about men dominating women] were overturned in the
very early days of Islam," she told the audience.
Another
speaker, high school student Fasiha Khan, read what she had written
for school about being Muslim.
"Attacks
on my religion and culture made me wither inside," she said, but
after realizing the strength that lay in faith, "I'm free - no
longer a slave to fashion… It was enough to Muslim. It was enough to
be me."
Both
Muslims and non-Muslims sat in the sunny amphitheater to listen; Ugur
Aybar, a junior Muslim student, said that she came to see the
reactions of other people.
"I
think they did a good job," she said of the Muslim women who
addressed the crowd. "I wish more of them would speak."
But
"people are not taking it seriously," she added. "In
the back, they're laughing. I'm really upset about that."
Another
student, sophomore Sarah Smith, said she came both because of her own
interest and because of the opportunity it presented for her to learn
about Muslim women for a class assignment.
"You
hear about Islam and what's going on today… women are looked at as
victims of the burqa," she said. "It's like they're
invisible."
But
she was impressed with what she heard from the Muslim women.
"It's not out there," she said about the real Muslim
experience, "so it's really awesome that they are speaking out…
that they can talk about their real experiences."
Presentations
about Muslim women alternated with presentations on the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis; Muslim Women of Maryland president Nashiah
Ahmad, who helped organize the event, told IslamOnline that it seemed
trivial to give a casual presentation on Muslim women when Muslim
women were being killed daily.
So
a number of students spoke about the carnage rising daily in the
Middle East. Tarif Shraim, a graduate of College Park and former
president of the Muslim Student Association, spoke with family members
in Jenin in the West Bank on Wednesday morning, and shared his
experience with the audience.
"At
this very minute, people are being slaughtered," he said,
describing the sounds of children crying and the desperate pleas of
his relatives that he heard over the phone. "This is beyond
belief. It's so incomprehensible."
Shraim
challenged the audience members to get information themselves, from
human rights organizations, and to let the government know their
feelings.
"I
believe that justice ultimately prevails, no matter how much darkness
there is," he encouraged them.
Haggag
said that members of the university's Jewish Student Union had
contacted Student Union officials when Muslim students began speaking
about Palestine, but that university officials had come out to listen
and been very helpful and polite.
"There
was some resistance, but it's nothing," she said. "This is
the least that we can do as Muslims for our sisters who are dying in
Palestine."
