Mishelle
Asinobi
Foundations
of Islam
Islamic
Women in the Media
Cover Girl
By: Kristina Bremer
In an article by Kristina Bremer in O
magazine, Bremer tells a story about her daughter and her decision to wear a
hijab and take on her father’s beliefs. Kristina Bremer, a California born
woman and her Libyan-born husband, Ismail both agreed when their daughter,
Aliya was born that she would get to choose what she identified with most from
their backgrounds. “Kristina secretly felt smug about this agreement, confident
that her daughter would choose to live a comfortable American lifestyle rather
than a modest Muslim upbringing”. To her mothers surprise at 9, Aliya fell in
love with the hijab “worn by Muslim girls as an expression of modesty,” and
choose not only to buy one, but to wear it to the grocery store the next day,
and to school after that. To her mothers disappointment Aliya chose to “learn
her farther ways” as opposed to her vision of Aliya “in a string bikini in a
few years,” she now envisioned her daughter “draped in Muslim attire.”
Although this story is one of
acceptance, I feel like Bremer is a bit condescending when it comes to what she
believes is a “Muslim upbringing.” In the beginning of the article she writes,
“I secretly felt smug about this agreement—confident
that she would favor my comfortable American lifestyle over his modest Muslim
upbringing. Ismail's parents live in a squat stone house down a winding dirt
alley outside Tripoli. Its walls are bare except for passages from the Qur'an
engraved onto wood, its floors empty but for thin cushions that double as
bedding at night. My parents live in a sprawling home in Santa Fe with a
three-car garage, hundreds of channels on the flat-screen TV, organic food in
the refrigerator, and a closetful of toys for the grandchildren.” I feel as
though it is blanket assumptions like this one that leads to stereotypes about
an entire culture.
What right do outsiders have to assume
what is right for other people?
Can we make a
blanket assumption of what it means to be free and impose it on others?
Is the Hijab
really an expression of modesty or a little bit of freedom?
Is it our
faults for not understanding Islamic practices? Is it the fault of our Country?
Is it the fault of our parents?
Are we really
as tolerant as we believe ourselves to be?
After reading this article, I went
online and read up on some viewpoints of Muslims and Non-Muslims on the topic
of the hijab and women’s freedom.
This
is a video with both Muslim Women talking about why they wear their hijabs and
what freedom means to them as well as how the hijab can be a form of freedom.
This
website id dedicated to Muslim women and their stories of how they realized
that the hijab was not relevant to their visions of Islam,
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