Muslimah Next Door
Most days I get the kids up, make their lunches, drop them at the bus stop/take them to school, come back home and get on my laptop to start my day’s work as the Managing Editor of Patheos Muslim, one of the faith channels at Patheos.com. It’s all largely behind the scenes work – watching what the latest news stories are, covering the issues Muslims in America are facing, facilitating discussions, talking with the writers and bloggers on my channel, promoting their work, helping them, pushing them, facilitating multi-faith dialogue, putting out fires, following and participating in discussions on social media.
In between doing the laundry, fielding calls from school, nagging the kids to do their homework, keeping on top of all of D’s autism living, putting stuff away and getting things done — for better or for worse.
And everywhere I go, the hijab goes on my head. I’ve worn my hijab for a decade, and tried hard to embody the hijab. It’s not just a piece of cloth on my head, but it’s a whole mind and body experience of modesty, decency and drawing attention to my thoughts and abilities as a human instead of my physical-ness. It’s something I believe God wants of me, and something I’m happy to do, though there are times I do a better job of it than others, but that’s a different post.
As much as Muslim women tire of discussing the hijab and modesty, and reacting to the constant policing/criticism/dissection/attention drawn to this one part of our faith, the fact remains that for those of us who choose to dress a certain “Muslim way” makes us probably the most visual representation of Islam. And so, when “so-called” Muslims engage in terrible acts of violence, whether here or in any part of the world, or when demagogues like Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spout an avalanche of Islamophobic directives singling out Muslims, we become the first target for anti-Muslim backlash.
Today I was given a great opportunity to get out from behind my computer to discuss these issues on Al Jazeera’s The Stream, along with Donna Auston, Hosai Mojaiddidi and Amina Khan. There are no easy answers, no one way to act. We just figure it out as we go along in our daily lives. Check it out:
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