Thea Chase
Foundation of Islam
April 8th 2012
Muslim Women in the
Media
DailyMotion.com
presented a video, which was submitted by Soultv.net entitled “Muslim Women”.
This video was used to display the difference between most “Muslim women” in
the media as being suppressed people, and actual Muslim women who live in
today’s society. This video presented by Soultv.net shows a Muslim woman who is
a single mother living in Toronto, Canada. Her name is Nadia Sultan; she is a
single mother, painter, and writer. Nadia spoke upon the backlash she received
for being a single Muslim mother in Canada, reciting verses from the Qur’an
relating it back to her life. She states, “As much as you suffer as much I
suffered for being by myself for being single mom as much as I built a very
strong communication, very strong connection with my God, I believe that the
reward is going to be now and in the hereafter because as a Muslim I believe in
the hereafter.” I believe this was her own interpretation of the Qur’an. Her
faith in her religion is very strong, she just has a different lifestyle as a
Muslim woman. Her life isn’t like that of the “Ideal Muslim women,” she is an
educated, single mother.
Later on in
the video the Hijab was mentioned, Nadia’s daughters spoke on why they do or
they don’t wear the Hijab. Nadia never forced them to wear the Hijab. One of
her daughters wears the Hijab and the other doesn’t. The daughter who doesn’t
wear it explains how she isn’t ready to wear the Hijab; she doesn’t want to
wear it until she is a stronger Muslim.
I
appreciate this different view of Muslim Women presented by this video. Being a
part of a society that feeds us, from a young age, stereotypes about a certain
group of people leaves many people blinded by false gimmicks. I wanted to
present on this topic for this reason. As
a single mother, Nadia presents herself as a strong person, and an even stronger
Muslim. She tries to instill Muslim faith into her daughters so that they will always
understand who created them: Allah. However, her method is different where she
doesn’t force her daughters to believe in what she believes in.
The
questions I ask are why do stereotypes about Muslim women still arise? For
example, why do people in societies develop these thoughts that all Muslim
women are oppressed, submissive people? I understand the Qur’an speaks of women
and how they should appear, but many people in today’s American society don’t
read the Qur’an. So are we going off of observations or fact?
As I
searched for more information on Muslim women I stumbled upon an Article from
BBC entitled, “The Brave Muslim Women of Gujarat”. This article details a woman
named Noorjehan Abdul Hamid Dewan, who basically lived the life of the typical
Muslim woman. She was married by age 17, she covered herself, stayed home and
took care of her family. The article describes how Noorjehan’s life changed
when her husband and moved to Juhapura where riots began in her neighborhood in
2002. She felt compelled to help out at the refugee camps that were placed in
her neighborhood after the riots. The article states “When she returned home
and told Abdul after what she had seen, her husband forbade her to go back to
the camp again and work there. He told me I could not work with other men.”
Later on, the article exclaims how she went back to help but her husband beat
her. However, this did not stop her from participating.
From my
reading, I understood that Noorjehan behaved like the stereotypical Muslim woman;
covering herself, getting married, serving her family, but the riots and
refugee camp changed her completely. Muslim women, this Muslim woman in
particular, are depicted as individuals, took it upon herself to help people in
refugee camps even though her husband warned her not to. As the article continues,
it details how Noorjehan’s husband supported her decisions by participating
with her in the camps. The article speaks upon this social change in Muslim
women like Noorjehan who are defying their husbands, parents, and communities
to help support and help riot victims. Questions I thought about while I read
this Article were why do these Muslim women feel the need to compromise their
livelihood to help these survivors form the riots? Why do their families not
support these women in their quest to help these victims? Do you feel these
women and victims?
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