Maryam Amir – Gender Relations, Muslim Women’s Roles and More Dalia Mogahed, Imam Jamal Diwan,
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The speakers discuss the impact of sexism on society, including the negative impact on women and the importance of strong relationships and mutual respect. They also discuss challenges faced by men in regards to sexism and the need for a strong community. They emphasize the importance of finding a healthy understanding of sexism and finding a partner who is not a woman. They also stress the need for women to be aware of their body and find a partner who is not a woman to be a partner.
AI: Summary ©
Racism, but do better your dreams.
So with that, I
am so I want folks to think about moments where they've been a part
of this problem of sexism in our communities. Again, whether you
were a victim, whether you were a bystander, whether you may have
had a hand in it, with or without realizing it,
and the way that it permeates through our community and it
affects the way people grow as Muslims and as leaders, as
students, as brothers and sisters and sons and daughters, and
everything else that we identify as. So I'm
going to hand off,
or start the conversation with your expert, Steve Yes, by
introducing namisha Alba,
starting with from my right, we have with us ostende Maria Amira
barnini, so briefly.
Osad El Marie Amira barnimi has a strong background in leadership
and is a passionate advocate for social justice. In high school,
she acted as the Associated Student Body President and was
personally recognized as Student of the Year by former Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger. In college at San Jose State University, she
served two consecutive terms as the MSA president.
Upon graduating with a BA in child and adolescent development, Maryam
partook in an 11 month study abroad program in Cairo, Egypt,
where she studied the Holy Qur'an and learned and became fluent in
classical Arabic. Upon returning from Cairo, she entered the field
of education, earning her teaching credential and Master's in urban
education from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Currently, Mariam is pursuing a second bachelor's degree in sunny
studies. Maria speaks regularly at conferences and events. Holds a
second degree black belt in Taekwondo and speaks four
languages
throughout will come back for you,
continuing to the right we have with us. Sister, daddy is an
American scholar of Egyptian origin. She received her
undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with a minor in Arabic
from the University of Wisconsin. She subsequently received her MBA
from the Joseph M Katz Graduate School of Business at the
University of Pittsburgh. She is the director of research at the
Institute for Social Policy and understanding. IFC for short, istu
for short,
in Washington, DC. She is also president and CEO of Mujahid
consulting, a Washington, DC based executive coaching and consulting
firm specializing in Muslim Societies and the Middle East.
Mujahid is a former executive director of the Gallup center for
Muslim studies, a nonpartisan research center that provides data
and analysis to reflect the needs of Muslims all over the world. She
was selected as an advisor by US President Barack Obama on the
White House Office of faith based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
And last but not least, Chef javantelan was born and raised in
Southern California. He received a bachelor's degree in her world
studies from UCSD in 2005
He then traveled to Egypt with his wife, Chef Abu Asmaa pramil, where
they spent the next six years studying Arabic and Islamic
studies in 2012 he completed a law degree in Sharia. From al Asmaa
University in Cairo, while in Egypt, he also nearly finished an
MA in Islamic Studies at the American University of Cairo. He
is a regular speaker at universities and Islamic centers
on issues pertaining to Islam and Muslims in America in 2014 OC
weekly shows him from among Orange County's most fascinating people,
and the OC register chose him from the top 100 most influential
people in Orange County. He served as a resident as the resident
scholar of the Islamic Center of Irvine for two and a half years.
Currently, he serves those communities at UCLA USC and UCI as
a chaplain through the Institute of knowledge, and is the full
calendar and director of sofa Center for Research. I'm
going to stop talking so we
can get some of our scholars. I want to pose a question to the
ladies on stage.
How do you understand your role as a Muslim woman within Muslim
community and a greater society?
I.
Understand my role as a Muslim woman the way that Sophia, the
aunt of the Prophet Zola sila, understood her role when she was
in an area during the Battle of the Trench where a woman were
staying, and has said Ibn SABIT, who was told of the Prophet Zola
sila was staying with the woman who can feel a blessed in every
way. He wasn't the person who stood physically on the front
lines of doubt. He was a he was a soldier with his words. And when
there was somebody scaling the place that they were saying, that
the woman was saying from the enemy line. So he is why. And she
knew that this could be someone that killed a woman in that area.
And so she told me. She told him, Hey, you know, there's, like, a
guy, he's coming up. And this is, like, you know, a big translation
in summary of the
situation. And Hassan was like, if I could handle that, I would have
been in the battle. So, Sophia wrote the long time as she went
and she took care, she, you know, physically took care of the
person, of the person who was the enemy. And she didn't, she didn't
stop for a moment to think I'm a woman and I can't protect the
other woman. Hassan Abu Asmaa didn't stop and say, You're a
woman. You can't take care of the other woman. The way that I
understand being a Muslim woman in our community, in general society,
is the way that om Salama,
when they were in the city of puja and the Prophet saw them. His
companions were so,
you know, overwhelmed with sadness that they didn't feel like they
had won in that situation, and so they weren't following. The
Prophet saw them, and he went to Allah. Was frustrated. He went to
his wife, Lu Salaman, and he asked her what to do. He told her the
situation, and she gave him advice. She gave advice to him,
and she told him to go ahead and do the actions and the people will
follow. May Allah, bless them all. But in that moment, Osama didn't
think I'm a woman and I can't give advice to my beloved husband, the
most incredible man on earth. And in that moment, the Prophet saw
someone. Didn't think she's a woman, she's my wife. I can't take
advice from her. I take my example of being a Muslim woman in the
Muslim community and in society from people that had said the
time, who was a poet in the time of the Prophet. So Allah a praise.
I take it from nasiva, who stood and physically descended the
Prophet SAW Allah a so much so that he said that he saw her to
the right and to the left everywhere he looked. From
ruslamiyah, she was a surgeon in the time of the Prophet saw them,
and she took care of the surgery at one of the top competings of
the Prophet saw when he got hurt during battle, because the Prophet
saws asked her to take care of him because she was a boss. I take my
understanding of being a Muslim woman from the sahabigat who stood
with the Prophet saw them, and the Sahaba who stood with the Prophet
saw them because their understanding of what it means to
be a Muslim woman wasn't relegated to gender. Specifically, it wasn't
you can't do that because you're a woman. It was we appreciate you
because you're a woman. And the skills that you have
in using your voice, whether it's in being a mom, whether it's in
being in surgery, whether it's leaving, whether it's staying at
home, whatever you feel is calling to you, within the guidelines of
Islam that your number one role isn't specifically tied to
marriage. It isn't specifically tied to motherhood. It's tied to
being a slave of God and everything else
that
comes with that, every other aspect of your identity that comes
with that, those are acts of worship to God. So if I want to
make my number one goal be a mom, may Allah bless me and may Allah
bless anybody who chooses that, then that's going to be my
servitude to them. If I'm going to make it so that I'm going to be
the best teacher that the world has ever seen. Then inshaAllah,
that's going to be my servitude to God. But I understand my role as a
Muslim woman to be the slave of God number one, and after that,
however, I can use my life in a way that he would be pleased with
based on the incredible dynamic and quiet the way, and the shy,
the every single type of woman we see at the time, the prophet holy
seven, and all of the men who didn't stop them from being a
woman, but who appreciate them for who they were, who encouraged them
and Who allied with them to be the best of them.
Okay, I'll try to speak out so I can build on
that. Now, as I thought about this question, I wanted to reflect on a
verse from the far end that I think really guides me in this in
this topic. So now we know and what we
need,
that the believing men and the believing women are guardians of
one another.
And you think of.
Of the word winning. It's it's a guardian, meaning someone who
protects the other, someone who stands up for the rights of the
other. And this is actually the Quranic relationship that that men
and women should have. This is how a law has prescribed for us to
relate to one another. This is this relationship of mutual
support, of having each other's back, of standing up for each
other's rights. It's such a beautiful, symmetric relationship.
And what I really find interesting about this specific ayat is the
context. This is actually in Surat tawba. Surat tawba
is a Surah that talks about jihad. It talks about the Muslim
community being in a very precarious situation, that Muslim
community that is under threat. And yet it is in this surah,
within this context, that this description of the relationship
between men and women is giving and I think that's very
significant, because oftentimes the idea that women or or other
other groups would would sort of say, you know, we don't think
we're we're being treated right by the community. And the response to
that is, you know, how dare you bring the self when there's so
much for us to deal with, when there's so much attack from
without. And
the description, this prescription for how we relate to each other is
embedded, is, is it's the heart of a surah that is talking about a
community that is under threat, that has to defend itself from all
corners. I think this is so significant because it actually
gives us a
window into how to fortify our community when we are under
threat, if we are fractured within, if we are not respecting
the rights of the most vulnerable within our community, we are never
going to be able to withstand the attacks from outside. And I think
this is really at the heart of it. The idea that because there's
Islamophobia, we can't talk about inter Muslim issues, is actually a
false dichotomy. It's built on a false premise. It is precisely
because the Muslim community is so under attack that we have to get
our own house in order. And I think that this this simple but
beautiful a it gives us so much in the way of guidance.
You know, it goes on to say, describing this, these, these
believing men and the believing women first, as Albie add to each
other, standing up for each other's rights, representing each
other in the way that the other would want. And it's not men are
the guardians of women, but that women are the guardians of men.
They are. They are guardians of one another, and they enjoy what
is right and forbid what is evil. They are working for a better
society together. There's this cooperative spirit that is imbued
in this area, telling us, you know, something like an MSA is a
perfect vehicle to manifest and to live out the values that are
communicated in this area.
It's not a relationship of hierarchy, but a relationship of
mutual respect. So when I when I think about my own role as a
woman, this is the idea that that really animates my perspective.
When I am working on behalf of the community, I see my male
counterparts as people that I expect to have my back, and that
ones that I will support. And I completely agree with Maria when
she says that I really do think of myself first as a servant of God.
And I think this is incredibly important, because there's,
there's, there's so much pressure on women, especially that they
are, that they are valued and described in relationship to other
people. They are a white they are a mother, they are a daughter,
while men, in many cases, are described in their value is in
terms of their own individual accomplishments, not just as a
father or husband, but as you know, as a professor, as a
community activist, and I think this, this, this
difference in in how we value someone as a human being, is
actually a complete contradiction to the whole.
And a vision of
a we at one the protectors of one another, both working for the
betterment of society. You
you.
Zach loves it.
I then want to ask
this question. Is posed to all three of you, but I'd like to look
into answer. First,
I'd like to ask, what are the challenges that you may face in
your work and in the Muslim community in relation
to
sexism.
First thing I want to start out by emphasizing is that
sexism is not a monopoly Muslim community. It is not something
that only the Muslim community is dealing with. So I do want to
start off by saying that sexism is literally everywhere. I worked in
corporate America, and sexism is all over corporate America. When
you look at statistics around violence against women, sexual
assault, you know, in our country, the number one perpetrator of
murder of women as someone who's been an intimate partner. So the
idea that sexism is is just a human problem is something that I
think we have to start with, and I hope that that that realization
helps to perhaps take down some of
the feelings of maybe defensiveness when we talk about
this issue. It is not a Muslim problem, it is a human problem.
And so what are some of the challenges that we face in our
community as human beings? I started to talk about one is this
idea that women are valued in how they relate to others, rather than
how they stand as human beings. And I think that that's really the
foundation of where a lot of other problems come forth.
The second is that there is a false
connection that we are making between piety and the exclusion of
women
and where mosques are sort of viewed by some people as like a
men's private club, rather than a place of building community where
everyone has to feel included. You know, at ispu, the organization
that I direct research for, we just did a major study on mosques
and how to make them more inclusive, especially for women,
converts and young people. And when we did focus groups
specifically on the issue of women, what we found is that what
women wanted was actually just their most basic rights that they
were actually denied. They wanted access to the event. They wanted
equal access to educational opportunities. They wanted to just
simply be included in the normal life of a mystery. They wanted a
role in decision making, everything that people were saying
they were denied and was causing their alienation were things that
were actually completely guaranteed to women ever since the
dawning stuff explained.
So I guess, just to be very brief,
sexism is not a Muslim problem, it's a human problem, and the
manifestations of sexism in our community
really have to be dealt with because they are in contribution
toward faith.
Building a lot our amazing you mentioned, I feel
like there's a lot of * and Muslim structure of our community.
Wanting these things is a byproduct of the way that we have
structured our massagement and the way that we structure our Muslim
spaces. So you know, when we as women feel like it's normal to
walk into a message and not be able to ask questions of being
them, that is an issue of sexism. When we feel like if you're a
mother and you want to pray in the mother's lounge, or you're a
father lounge, and you don't have a space for fathers to pray in,
because there's no father's lounge, that is an issue of
sexism, spaces where, you know, growing up, when I heard a woman
give me advice, I didn't take it seriously because she wasn't a
man. So if it was a chef giving me advice, then He's a chef, but a
shaykh, well, they're not as knowledgeable as men, simply
because of your gender. Feeling like, you know, when I go through
the masjid, and I don't know.
What time they're on. I'm hearing a long walk, but I can't see them
in frame. So where am I supposed to pray? Lisa, would never happen
to you. You're like, what? What happened? These are not, oh,
actually, they were undergoing, yeah, I wasn't speaking. So all of
these spaces where we go to conferences and the people who
have privilege and power have might, and they're on stage and
they're men, but then we have a female moderator, because we want
to be able to balance the scales by having a woman on stage. A
female moderator is not the same thing as providing a woman with a
consistent with consistent spaces to be able to speak to the issues
in our community. Also, when we look at the time of the prophets
will send them. You know, there's this concept that women are not
encouraged to go to the masjid. Have you ever heard the saying of
Aisha
where he says, If the Prophet saw them, saw the way that women were
today, he would have prohibited them from going to the masjid?
Raise your hand if you've heard that statement before. So that
statement that's frequently been used to say, okay, that sometimes,
but imagine today. Of course, women dress better than they do
today. Isn't that? You know what he says about that? He says that
Aisha will be alone where I have saw the way that women had access
to so many things today, and we had access to we feel like it's
okay for us to go to the mall, we go to the movies, we go to school,
we go everywhere, but then we feel guilty when we walk into the
message, because we're not sure if we belong there, if we felt if I
joined us. Saw past then she said she wouldn't have said that women
don't belong in that message, that the public voice will have
inhibited, that she would have said women are obligated to go to
the message, because we need spaces where we feel like
international we feel
like so the point is that when it's so ingrained in us, that
which normal for us, not to be able to know what my father has
for us, not to feel like we can connect with people. When we have
Male Speaker, Male abusive and even female speakers, because
women can be the biggest inheritors of patriarchy when we
are standing in spaces and we hear all the alumni was so strong and
powerful called the Holy ala Hawaiian, he has the most amazing
event. And then when any point of us as a woman trying to emulate
one of their personalities, because that's just how we are.
We're told that's immodest. That's not my act. You're not practicing.
It's not properly. Because if you really want to be biased, then you
shouldn't read your voice, you shouldn't be assertive. But the
examples we're given are all male examples, constantly or
frequently, not always, but very frequently. So how do we balance
what it's supposed to mean to actually be a Muslim woman when
we're not even giving examples my people of our gender in how we're
supposed to interact. She has a Muslim in the Muslim
community in
growing up, she has a Muslim was one of my role models once I met
her. But beyond Sure, there was nobody for me when I grew up, I
tried to be quiet by looking at how bad we're quiet and
realistically we have different expectations when it comes to
Muslim women. So that becomes very, very difficult for the
Muslim community. So I'm going to understand. Thank
you, chef. I did post a question to you, I also know that Aaron
made a few words would you like to add to the question?
So the questions repeated, what are challenges that you may face
in your work and in the Muslim community in relation to sexism?
Kids?
So for those of you who know this, we kind of could say we have a
little donkey in this fight.
My wife was speaking at MSA West
and many other places before, that was a common thing for women to
do, and also coming from a community that tends to be a
little bit more conservative on a number of issues than, for
example, Orange County or Los Angeles community, and
we definitely face a number of difficulties with that.
But how do I, particularly in my work, deal with it?
To me, and I think it's important that we frame everything from the
perspective of Islam,
and that's always my starting point,
and that was my starting point from the very beginning of me
having to deal with these issues after we got married,
because people would come to me and they said, well, don't you
have a problem with your wife speaking in front of men? And
don't you think this or that? There was a time when a sheik
wrote a.
Letter, and then he sent it. He asked my wife, who's your teacher?
He wrote the letter for her, and he gave it to her. They spoke on a
panel together. He gave her the letter. And then we took it back
to San Diego,
and it was written in Arabic. We didn't speak Arabic at that time,
so we gave it to one of the Shays. It was like, Oh, okay.
Then we showed it to shaytana, actually,
who was
here yesterday. And shaytana had some very choice words to say
about it. Basically, the letter said, this woman is too young to
be speaking in front of mixed audiences.
And so come to that we've had, I think for us, we've been very
blessed in the sense that there's been struggles, but we've been
part of institutions that have supported us in that path.
So initially, it was shift on that San Diego was a big proponent of
being able to have that space mass. Very often, gave me so much
space to do that, and then Alhamdulillah, when we were able
to study in Egypt, that was a good opportunity. When we came back and
I worked in the masjid. I worked in the masjid under a president
who was a woman. The president of the masjid was a woman.
We had prayer space downstairs in our masjid for women. We had
women, especially elderly women, pray downstairs in Ramadan, even,
we made a little spot for them right there in the Musa, in front
of, like, right next to the men, with a little bit of a barrier,
because that's all we can do. And I thought people would have a
problem with it. They didn't have a problem with it. And then now
we're in the MSAs. And for MSAs, this tends to be less of an issue
than other places. But,
you know, we want to build communities that are healthy,
and we want to support people in their expression of Islam in a way
that will be beneficial to the entire community. I mean, look
around the room. It's about two to one
for male to female. So I think that one of our challenges moving
forward in dealing with the issue of sexism, for me on a personal
level, and dealing a lot with college students, I think our
problem is actually going to be what is that healthy understanding
going to look like?
Because the reality of it is. It's two to one, and it's been two to
one for a while, and so the culture of the community is
shifting, and 1015 years from now, you're not going to have the same
perspectives that you had 1015 years ago. But the question is, is
it still going to be something that's acceptable in Islam so we
had, maybe perspectives that took too narrow of a look at it, but we
don't want to eliminate the whole body of guidance, either. And so
this is one of just on a personal level, one of the questions that I
we struggle with,
we just do our best.
Zachary, second one, quick.
Alright, so we have talked about our placement in our woman
society. We made some of the problems and some of the
challenges that come up that face us in our work. So the women, how
do you navigate male allyship? And for folks who aren't picked with
the Social Justice League, though, allyship is
essentially dedicating yourself to being a partner in the interests
of someone who identifies differently than you do. It can be
an allyship on the grounds of gender. It can be an allyship on
the grounds of race. You can get an allyship on the grounds
of your economic class, but
that's essentially what we're looking at here, is really
dedicating yourself to helping another community and
improving their status. So to the women, how do you navigate male
allyship and alleviating the effects of sexism, and what are
practical tools that we can take back to our community in general
to come find
it the first step I would take is looking at personal
responsibility. These are some of my favorite narrations ever.
They're going to share with me, which you might have heard from me
a million times a couple of people I knew, the cousin of the Prophet
Phillip. He was sitting with the prophets from the love audio film
on a riding animal when a beautiful woman came up to them to
ask a question. And there have been so many times in my personal
life where I have been told that I am fitna.
That means a temptation.
When I was told that as a woman, I shouldn't be in this space asking
questions, and I should find my dad, my brother, anyone else who
can ask that question.
Question on my behalf, there have been times where someone has made
a general statement when myself and Abu sisters walk into a halafa
of knowledge and they said, oh, here comes the fitna. These
messages are frequently the ones that I internalized as I try to
navigate what it means to be a practicing I don't see in many
ways, who's been practicing but someone who conscientiously is
Muslim in our society today. And hearing those things was very
psychologically damaging to me, because I went from somebody who
thought that my relationship with Allah is based on my actions to
somebody who carried the weight of if a man has a simple thought
about me, I don't want to use the word simple, that's not right, but
has a has a thought about me that's not necessarily
appropriate, then I'm the carrier of that guilt. I went from
somebody who felt like I was empowered to ask questions and to
study from somebody who was terrified that in some way my
presence could cause somebody who's conscientious of God to stop
thinking about God. And that is not the message that the Prophet
SAW. The love of Ali wa sallam has taught us. One beautiful woman
came up to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to ask a
question. In the time of Hajj, Abu started checking her out, and may
Allah bless him, she was beautiful, and he started looking
at her. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam didn't tell her,
go back and ask a male to come and ask your question. He didn't tell
her, cover your face so that a bubble isn't attracted by your
beauty. He didn't blame her at all for being beautiful. He asked. He
turned a bubble's face away. He taught him how to have personal
responsibility in having interactions with woman, even if
he was attracted to that. And that teaches us that as a community, we
need to teach personal responsibility for men and for
women, that it is my space to ask a question whether or not someone
else might be uncomfortable with that, and it is my space as a male
ally to provide spaces for women where they won't feel
uncomfortable asking a question, where they won't feel like they're
being checked out, where they won't feel like the spaces of
theirs as well, if not one interaction, the Prophet SAW THE
LAW or these will have taught us that we all have personal
responsibility in dress and lowering your gaze. There are
guidelines that Allah swt has given us for how we can interact
as allies. Allies are people who get your back. They're not people
you're terrified of. They're not people who assault you. They're
not people who hurt you in some way. They have your back because
of your brothers, and they have your back because they're your
sisters, and the Prophet teaches us personal responsibility in that
matter. The second thing is that fear doesn't create policy in our
community. We are so terrified of gender religions going wrong, that
we segregate and isolate instead of teach how to professionally
interact and in terms of Prophet sallallahu
Ibn Abu Asmaa, icon narrates that there is a beautiful woman who
stood in the Prophet saw them, Masjid, and a group of young men
who would walk
into the masjid, and Prophet saw some message. There was no
barrier. So they would go into the masjid, and she's in the front
row, and they would pray in the background and salah. They would
look, bless them and forgive them.
And they're the Companions, are the greatest ever. And yet,
subhanAllah, the public voice element, didn't, didn't enforce a
policy that now this woman shouldn't come to the mission
anymore. She needed to blame her versus in our community, women are
the ones who are frequently punished when there's a mistake
that happens. There wasn't a wall belt, there weren't, you know,
timings that she was only allowed and he wasn't allowed. You know
the other men, excuse me, quite the opposite. I'm not Pamela.
There are women who would stay in the street, who would pray in the
street, who would have, you know, physical things that happened to
one and monthly. And then there were traces of being human in the
masjid of men and women. Policy wasn't created because of the fear
of what might happen. Policies are created by what the public voice
Center has created this policy, what all else Michelle has given
us as guidelines and in our different societies and
communities, those are applied in different ways based on the
guidelines that we have in that culture of that community. But
what's important for us to recognize in terms of navigating
this space is that just because someone is afraid that something
might happen, that one person can't create a polity that's going
to affect more than half of the entire message. And it's important
for me as a woman to recognize that when I hear things that hurt,
might be mad, that God made a question whether or not friends
the truth that that's not all of this land, that's one person
presenting one thing. And it's important for me to recognize
that's not necessarily my religion. There might be one
opinion it's important for me to study, important for me to be
mentored, and recognize that all of the things that have come
addressing women have only been to a coward whenever to address us.
Applause.
I mean, when it comes to navigating allyship, I think we
were just talking about how these words relate to our faith. Should
we use them or not? And I think it's interesting, because the
concept of allyship was perfectly encapsulated in the hangar that I
mentioned in the beginning. How we this is the idea of being allies
to each other, being guardians of each other's rights. And it really
goes back to the concept of justice. What you know, brothers
and sisters.
It is not specific to women. It's not specific to any one group.
It's about justice. It's about being told and
ordered to stand on the side of justice, bear witness to justice,
even if it's against yourself, even if it's against your king,
whether it's against rich or poor.
And interestingly, in that same area we are. We are warned that if
we swerve
toward bias, or if we turn away, or if we turn away, or if we stand
on the sidelines,
then God is knowledgeable everything we do
when it comes to women and their place and their rights and their
access, it is just, to me, it is just. It comes down to a question
of justice,
and when you're on
when you're on the side of justice, it means it doesn't
matter who this issue is about, and you have to have the courage
when it comes to this idea of allyship, the courage to withstand
what might be criticism from your peers. When I talk to even you,
sometimes they will hold an opinion in private that they don't
want to say in public,
and when I ask them why, they'll actually say because they would
just be too much of a backlash from their peers. So there is a
fear sometimes to stand in an unpopular place, standing for
justice on behalf of any marginalized group, any group that
might not be popular, any position that you might be getting heat for
simply because of peer pressure. So it does take courage to
actually be a true ally. And then finally, I think the most
important thing about being an ally of any kind of standing in,
you know, in solidarity with any group of this idea of being a
Wiel,
is that you don't replace the person you're trying to be a
wedding for. You actually empower and give them a space to have
their own voice
in so many situations, so called allies can actually disempower the
people they're trying to supposedly Support by speaking for
them
the meaning of a wedding is someone who listens to the person
there. They're representing. They are actually guardians of their
rights. They are not trying to substitute them and speak for
them. I've been, you know, interestingly, I've been on
conference calls where I
I'm trying to get my point across, and some of my male colleagues,
you know, well intentioned, are sort of speaking over me in an
attempt to explain what I'm trying to say, even though I'm right
there and they're Actually misrepresenting what I say. But
this idea
of allies listen more than they speak and and they don't
marginalize or silence they they actually amplify and support I
so we're talking about what
male allyship needs, and what it looks like and its importance to
shift demand.
How do you navigate being a male ally in female empowerment? And
what advice do you give to your youngest woman?
No pressure. I.
So
I actually haven't thought through these very much, because my
initial intention was to not speak on the panel,
and then my wife didn't feel up to it this morning, so she made me
go.
So I didn't really think about it, because I got the email and I was
like, alright, am I gonna answer them? Anyways?
I handle it, and I may be fine.
So now I'm stuck.
So I'm not speaking on behalf of all men,
nor all white men, or all Pakistani men, or anyone else. So
I think,
like I said, for me, the starting point is always Islam.
And I think that one of the biggest challenges we have on
either side, on the male side or the female side, is to get our
relationship with Allah right.
And why I say that is because a huge part of getting our
relationship with Allah right is about it, not being about us.
And this is a central part of Islam that people don't really
want to accept today that a central tenet of Islam is that we
are supposed to go against our ego,
and it's not supposed to be about me.
It's about a greater cause. It's about bigger issues. It's about
other people. It's about humbling myself so that we can actualize
what the Prophet salallahu Alaihe wa salam said the mensahal Allah,
and this is really an important secret, that the one who humbles
himself for Allah and Allah will elevate them.
And so when we're talking about how does, what is my advice to
young men. I mean,
my advice to young men is essentially that
we just need to work on ourselves. And there's a lot of things in our
society and our culture, in the cultures that we come from, that
are not going to aid us and being whole with ourselves and our
relationship with Allah,
and there's no way that we can help anyone else or be allies to
anyone else if we're not okay with ourselves.
And that is really, I think, one of the biggest challenges. There
are times when you will have to take positions that are not
popular right now, that might be something like, I don't know,
letting women pray downstairs. It was interesting. When we were in
the masjid, we never had an issue with women praying downstairs.
When I was in the masjid, anytime an issue happened, there was
always when I was outside and
I would come back, and so and so came and they told me that I can't
pray here. Whatever I'm like.
Does it ever happen when I'm there? But that might be the issue
that's that's at that particular time, but later on, it might be
something else.
And it might be on the other side. It might be, it might be not
popular in public opinion. It might not, for example, like we do
have still gender relations guidelines in Islam people look at
us like weirdos because we don't date before we get married, and we
don't have relationships before we're married, and we speak to one
another in very particular ways, and we don't touch one another,
and all of these kind of things, people look at it like it's
strange, but I still that's okay. Anyone else can look at it like
it's strange, but with me and my relationship with Allah, that's
the way that I do it. So I
so I think really, one of the core issues, again, is to ground
ourselves in our relationship with Allah.
That's that's largely a spiritual issue. It's also an intellectual
issue. Sometimes a limited exposure to the intellectual
history of Islam will make it difficult for us to ground
ourselves, because we're perceiving that Islam is something
that is not, and then it becomes a fitment for us. But in any case,
we have to really ground ourselves. We ground ourselves in
the example of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, then
that is the best grounding that we can possibly have, and that will
give us the strength that we need in order to move forward, and that
was always the issue for me, right? People would say this or
that, whatever I said, Look, I don't care. As far as I understand
from Islam, there's certain conditions for my wife to be doing
what she's doing, and as far as I understand, she's fulfilled them.
So now it's on you, it's not on
her, but there are conditions, right? That's why I tell you, not
always popular, but there are conditions. And I felt that she
had, you know, she felt that she had those conditions because we,
you know, we were good with it. So I think that for me, that's a good
point. What do I tell men is that we have to not be so fragile. And
I don't mean that for men, it goes to both sides. Right?
Because if we're not grounded in our relationship with Allah, we're
all fragile. We're all pushing and blowing in the wind wherever it's
going to go, the only thing that keeps a person firm is that that
connection with Allah. So this is the most important thing we ask
Allah.
Does
that come up? Does that come up? If I wanted to open up an
opportunity,
if there's any closing remarks that anyone wants to offer on this
topic,
do
Okay, so forgive me. This is a shameless plug, but I do want to
let you guys know, since we are on the topic of gender and gender
relations,
my sister is me, Logan has a her first
dinner lecture event on what to look for when you're seeking a
spouse. And it's January 22 in Anaheim, California, and you can
go on her website, yes, me and everyone should probably know that
and and find out more information how to buy tickets. So if you are
in Southern California, I highly recommend taking part in this. I
think it'll be really important, really interesting on what to look
for and how to avoid common pitfalls when you're seeking a
spouse.
I
us? Yes, I would say that it took me seven years to go from somebody
who felt like I was so excited about the law to somebody who was
terrified of myself because of my personality as a Muslim woman, to
go to somebody who recognized that some vastness scholarship is
perfect in the guidelines that it gives and despite the struggles
that we face in America right now, There are people who have gone
through so much worse over and over and over, and I just want to
say that I draw strength from people like you when I see that
you're actually praying on campus in America, when people are
constantly talking about you and making it seem like You're so in a
fear, yeah, you're still praying right
she talks about how you know this isn't specific to our community.
We're not alone in the struggle we've gone through, but we have
something very unique, and that is the Allah tells us he's with us
wherever we are with this knowledge. So whenever we're
struggling on, I'm looking at this text and it says something crazy
that, excuse me, crazy, not the right word. I feel like I'm
misunderstanding what this hadith is saying. I was I didn't say
crazy. Or when someone is saying something about woman or men, and
it just doesn't rope the right way. I just want to emphasize,
don't take that to mean. This is what Islam is saying. Sometimes it
takes studying to understand that things that seem demeaning are
actually so empowering, and so I would encourage all of us a book
to read. He wrote an encyclopedia of over
9000 female Hadith scholars in her history. And there's an
introduction English called El mujhe by Dr
Muhammad
Abu. It's by N, A, D, W, I. N, A, D, W, I let's head up. The second
thing is, I would recommend to all of us fortify our relationship
with God's relationship with the read it in the translation. Read
one verse a day right now, you're you might be like, oh, one verse a
day. That's nothing. 365, days. Remember, that's a lot of verses
that you read, and Inshallah, it will be a means of protecting us
and giving us strength. And these times when we feel turbulent, like
when you talk. And the third thing is the time really depends.
Inshallah, we feel great friends. Inshallah, you will be able to
feel people get through some of the harder things and tell us the
tech is the public will be able
to
I would just say that this is obviously a big topic, and for
most of the and there's a number of big topics that are
very important for us discuss, to discuss as a community. I would
just encourage people to remember that these conversations and the
practical consequences and
improvement upon them are ongoing conversations, and they're not
going to be solved overnight, and they need really sincere and
genuine interactions between all party.
Involved, and so part of that is making sure, like the money you
mentioned, to have good friends and to have good company and
people you can look up to. It doesn't always have to be a shade
or something like that, but it's important to have
people who are serious about Allah in our lives, who we can look up
to, and we can feel like they are a good example of a healthy
relationship with God, but they're serious about God, and those
people are invaluable in our lives, especially as we're trying
to navigate and move past and improve upon any number of the
challenges that we're facing. So that's all I control.
Does that come along? Head to our panelists for beginning the
conversation, Inshallah, not finishing it, beginning it.
So I'm just going to make a few announcements for what's coming
up. So
sorry, according to your program booklets and they are on schedule,
lunch is right now. If you have the event based app on your phone,
it has the schedule in there. It also gives you your dining
options, since
most folks would be wanting to go off campus and shop closet
Lost and Found is outside. So if you have lost something, or if you
find something, please return it to the lost.