Despite our differences, we’re really quite similiar.

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A few weeks ago, the Johns Hopkins Foreign Affairs Symposium and the British Embassy hosted a panel discussion about Perceptions of Islam in the West. I was invited to be the student representative who provided a personal account of the quote “Muslim American experience.” Funny enough, what I realized was that the experience of being a religious person in this country is no different for a Muslim than it is for a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist. The way I see it, being a Muslim in America is precisely what brought me into the interfaith movement, so I thought I’d share my remarks from that evening with you all here.

To give you all a bit of background about myself: my name is Farah, I’m a senior majoring in writing here at Hopkins, and I am Muslim. My parents are both physicians – they met when they were in medical school in Hyderabad, Pakistan – and shortly after their wedding in 1970, they decided to move to America. I have three older sisters and an older brother – two of which are doctors, and two attorneys – and one younger brother in high school. My family has lived in Maryland for the past 38 years, and I (as well as all of my siblings) were born and raised in the suburbs of Baltimore. Last year, I served as the president of the Johns Hopkins Muslim Students Association, and currently, I’m working as a fellow for the Chicago organization, the Interfaith Youth Core.

I was invited here tonight to give a personal account of what it has been like for me to be a young Muslim in this country in a time when it seems to carry a social stigma. Thankfully, I haven’t had to experience the backlash of this stigma in my own life, so what I plan to share with you tonight might paint a rosier picture than what you expect to hear. At the same time, I hope you all keep in mind that the Muslim American community is made up of people from very diverse backgrounds with very diverse beliefs, so I’m not trying to speak for everyone, but rather give you all an idea of where I’m coming from as a 21 year old, Pakistani-American Muslim.

Growing up, I went to the same grade school all of my siblings went to: a K thru 12 private school in Baltimore County. Though in recent years the population has become a bit more diverse, it was pretty homogeneous when I was there. In a class of 125, I was one of a handful Asian and South Asian kids, and you could probably count the number of Muslim students in the whole high school on one hand.

Despite the lack of outward diversity, my school was big on celebrating differences, learning about a wide array of cultures and faiths, and fostering a close-knit, welcoming community amongst its students. For that reason, I never felt out of place or alienated because of the color of my skin or the fact that I’m Muslim. Diversity was celebrated and respect was expected of us. Sure, there were times when my religion did make me feel different than those around me – like when I had to make sure there was no pork in my bag lunch on field trips or when I chose to wear skirts below my knees rather than above them – but I saw these choices as a part of my own personal duty to be true to myself and my faith rather than barriers that set me apart from everyone else. So for the most part, I didn’t feel very different than the kids around me.

At home, I grew up with siblings who were teenagers while I was young and were not only immersed in American culture, but comfortable in it. As a result, I tended to see my home life as a sort of balancing act between my American and Pakistani identities. Though my parents still spoke Urdu in our house, my siblings and myself spoke English. Though my mom cooked Pakistani food for every meal, on some nights we had pizza or Chinese food. And even in those instances where we’d don traditional Pakistani clothes and spend our evenings with other Pakistani families, we never did it to turn away from American culture, but rather to retain a sense of our heritage as we grew up in a country different from where my parents came.

My religious identity, though, was never a part of any of this confusion. Regardless of what company I was in, I was always Muslim and always will be. I never felt the strain of being a Muslim within American society because I grew up in a household where less emphasis was placed on cultural identification of religion and more on the fundamental tenants of Islam and what it means to be Muslim. What I learned from my parents at a young age (and eventually learned on my own as well) was that one’s faith is something that is, first and foremost, within you. Islam is something in my heart that guides my actions and inspires me to do good in the world. I believe that my faith is about my personal relationship with Allah (God) and no one else’s, and when I treat others with respect, it is because it’s what I believe God expects of me.

Now, for the most part, I found that when I was kind to others, they were kind to me in return, no questions asked. If they really wanted to know what motivated me to behave the way I did, I would have been more than happy to tell them that it’s because it’s what my faith teaches. But to be honest, not many fifteen year olds in my grade were interested in such deep conversation, so when people didn’t ask, I didn’t share.

After September 11^th, though, this mindset of mine of not telling people unless they want to know definitely changed, and I think that’s why I found myself getting more involved with issues of faith and education in college. I was lucky that in the days and years after 9/11, when I discussed my faith with others I never faced discrimination or suspicion from those around me, and I think that’s because it was just so fundamentally ingrained in our psyches that this society is founded on the notion of religious freedom and tolerance, a notion dependent on respect between individuals. That wasn’t the case for everyone, though, and I heard many stories about friends of mine having their hijabs pulled off in hallways, being called names and accused of believing in a violent, hateful faith, and these stories really had a profound affect on me. But rather than becoming critical of this society, I saw these acts as a consequence of people not really knowing many Muslims in their everyday lives, and as a result, not knowing what Islam really is. I was so sure that if people just knew us, they wouldn’t believe these things. So instead of jumping to a rabid defense of my faith, I chose to teach people through my example, and it was these stories that encouraged me to interact more with the people around me and the communities I was a part of with the hope of fostering a sense of mutual understanding and respect.

In college, I found myself getting to know more Muslim people than I had before, which was really interesting for me considering what high school I had come from. Aside from the Pakistani community my family associated with, I had never had Muslim friends who were not Pakistani. To come here and see people from a multitude of cultures who were all Muslim was amazing in and of itself, but what was even more amazing was learning about the diversity of approaches and interpretations of Islam people followed. Growing up, I didn’t really know what it meant to be a Sunni or Shi’ite or Isma’ili, I just thought that Muslims were Muslims and that was that. But when I learned that there were different flavors of Muslims, I wasn’t struck by the differences in our interpretations, but rather the fact that we could all come together on a common belief – in one God and that Muhammad is his final prophet – and learn about each other and from each other.

This idea of discovering and appreciating our commonalities, and using that as a basis to learn about and understand our differences is what inspired me to get involved with interfaith work. Forming bonds of friendship with people of different faiths gives us a basic understanding of the fact that the experience of being a religious person in this country is quite similar, regardless of your faith.

In college, such an emphasis is put on sex, alcohol, and drugs to the point where they are almost accepted aspects of our culture. Many Muslims feel a particular pressure to rise above all of it, and can sometimes be overwhelmed by that pressure. For many, they’ve also been very sheltered their whole lives, having parents who have worked to shield their children from these kinds of lifestyles. Often, college is the first time some have ever had to experience this, and it can be a bit of a culture shock.

I did go through this to a certain extent, but rather than dwell on how out of place it made me feel, I found comfort in the fact that my non-Muslim friends always respected my decision not to drink, for instance, and never pressured me to change my ways. After a while, I realized that this aspect of my social life was more of a test of will for me. Islam is a religion about self restraint and control, and in the face of these kinds of temptations, I found that it exercised my ability to stand firm on my beliefs and grow spiritually.

While this aspect of American culture feels like it’s what really makes being a Muslim in the west both difficult and unique, what I’ve learned from my friends of other faiths (and just by being in college) is that it’s not singular to the Muslim experience. Though not everyone makes the same decisions, we all face the same social pressures and we all feel that tension between living up to our values and beliefs while also fitting in with those around us. The most important part for me was to realize that though I choose to not drink or I choose to dress modestly and pray on a daily basis, it’s okay that not everyone is just like me.

Ultimately, growing up as a Muslim in America has reaffirmed my faith as well as shown me that for all of our differences, there are also a lot of similarities between us and in order to really relate to each other and understand each other, we need to acknowledge these commonalities. I try to achieve this by engaging myself with all kinds of people, and I attribute my success in this respect to my communities’ mindset towards diversity. Our differences are not seen as insurmountable obstacles separating one group from another, but rather natural products of life that we’re encouraged to learn about.

 

In the Qu’ran, we believe that there is a verse in which God says that if He wanted to, He could have made us into a single people with the same race, religion, appearance, and so on. Instead, He chose to make us into a diversity of people to teach us how to respect each other. To me, this is what American society is, and my duty as a Muslim within it is to remember that it’s a two way street, and if I expect other people to learn about me and respect me, then I need to learn about them and respect them as well.

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