He walked up to her and asked her to dance. He was charming, and he was quite the dancer. They whirled around the dance floor and then talked.
“He didn’t tell me he was an Arab. He said he was Italian. He told me his name was Jamie. But something was not setting right and as we continued talking I asked him again where he was from. He broke down and said he was from Syria. At the time I didn’t know where that was. He told me he was a Muslim. I had no clue what that was. I thought it was something like being a Methodist or Baptist. He told me it was just another religion—we all believed in one God. Other than that, we didn’t talk about religion. He swept me off my feet. I had never met anybody like him before—he was so handsome.”
She had been divorced for six weeks. As it turned out, his wife had just left him. He, in fact, had been married twice. His first marriage, which his mother had helped arrange, had been to an older woman so he could get a green card to permanently stay in the United States. He was eighteen. He later married a girl his own age but he told W.L. that she turned out to be a drug addict and had just skipped town with his car.
At age twenty-two he was available. So was W.L., who was in her late twenties. Despite the age difference they clicked and married a year later. “We had some wonderful times,” she remembers.
Muhammed, who had gone to college to become an engineer, was good at sales so both he and W.L. went into selling commercial real estate. Seeing the influx of people flocking to the Sunbelt, Muhammed bought a mattress store franchise, which soon grew into a chain of furniture stores, along with his own factory and warehouse.
W. L. concedes that it was a rags-to-riches story. W. L. worked in one of the stores until their second child was born, after which she stayed home. She took her children and spent long periods in the Middle East living with her husband’s family and learning Arabic and about Islam. On her third visit, she converted while in Syria. She became immersed in Quran study, holding small groups at her Atlanta home. She became active at the mosque and helped welcome new converts into the faith. But at the same time she knew something wasn’t right in her marriage. The business was consuming Muhammed. “There was so much to manage. He started drinking heavily. He had always gone out at night but that escalated.”
She discovered he had phone numbers from other women. “When I confronted him, he beat me up,” W. L. says. “I called the police.”
Muhammed apologized and promised it would never happen again. W. L. believed him. The violence, however, didn’t end. Perhaps a month or so would go by peacefully, but then something would upset him and he would fly into rages.
“He said I made him do it,” W.L. remembers, “that it was my fault that he hit me.”
Again there would be tearful reunions, his promises to reform, and on one occasion a nine-karat diamond tennis bracelet.
W. L. also had to put up with Muhammed’s suggestion that he should take another wife. “Throughout our marriage, the topic would come up. He would ask me how I felt about this. He would say it was legal and part of his customs. Of course, I said no—it was not part of my customs.”
In retrospect, W.L. says she should have noticed the danger signals within Muhammed’s family. The entire clan had trouble controlling their anger. Fights would break out at family get-togethers. Muhammed’s mother thought of herself as a matriarch and eventually moved from Syria into W.L.’s home. “She felt everything I had was hers. She could take anything she wanted because her son was the provider. She would even tell me that I had no right to anything—everything goes to the mother.”
Mother and son would also clash. One time, they began arguing in the kitchen while standing next to a coffeemaker. “She took the hot coffee and scalded him,” W. L. recalls. “Then he got her by the throat and I tried to get in the middle to break it up. It was not fun.”
By the time of that fateful birthday party, W. L. also was beginning to have doubts about Islam. How could a peaceful religion create such havoc? She could take no more of it.
When her husband had gone to work on the Monday after beating her at the party, she sprung into action, got the locks changed at her house and emptied money from their bank accounts. A sympathetic judge gave her a restraining order. He also ordered Muhammed to pay for her and the children’s support. “The judge gave me everything.” When Muhammed returned from his business trip he found he had no home and no cash.
But that was not the end. More reconciliations would follow, then more fights. When W.L. decided she was going back to Christianity, her husband became furious and uttered three times, “I divorce you.” W.L. believed that to be an Islamic requirement for her husband to divorce her. After seemingly endless messy court battles, her marriage was dissolved.
Since becoming a Christian again, with its philosophy of forgiveness, she prays for her ex-husband and has visited him in the hospital when he has suffered from heart problems. She has since remarried and continued with her Christian studies. And she has her website to maintain. W.L. also speaks at meetings held in mosques where she talks about her experiences. She lets people ask her questions. Most, she says, are taken aback by her courage. “A lot of Islam,” she believes, “thrives on fear.”
44
ANEESAH: SCHOLAR AND SOCIAL WORKER
GOD KNOWS THE STRUGGLES—and triumphs—of Aneesah Nadir. She is first in her family to earn a doctorate while working, raising a family, helping out in the community, and serving as president of the Islamic Social Services Association. She knew she shouldn’t do it all—but she did anyway. Her frenetic schedule went on for seven years. Last year, at age forty-eight, after more than two decades of going to school off and on, she finally got her Ph.D. Today she is on the tenure track at Arizona State University in Phoenix while leading efforts nationwide to help bring needed social services to the growing Muslim population in the United States.
“I’ve got to say, faith is the foundation. None of this would have happened without God’s grace,” she asserts. “There were lots of times I didn’t think I could make it, and He would carry me through.”
Aneesah certainly wasn’t the typical doctoral candidate. She was a working mom wearing a brightly colored hijab. She didn’t come from a family of scholars; no one in her family had ever dreamed of such educational possibilities. Her parents had to struggle just to put food on the table.
“Growing up in inner-city New York,” she told an interviewer for the Muslim website soundvision.com, “I saw the disparity between the haves and the have-nots and I felt that it was somehow important to be involved in making a difference and making a change, so there would be a greater degree of social justice for everyone involved.”
Her parents also encouraged her. They may have come from humble backgrounds but they wanted their children to achieve and have a better life. “I can remember vividly my mom taking me to the public library in Queens and getting me tons of books. She couldn’t help me with my homework but she was there to encourage me.”
Her family also saw to it that she got religion. She went to church regularly. However, it was her time at Adelphi University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in social work in 1978, that changed her forever: Classmates at the university introduced her to the Nation of Islam, which promoted black nationalism, spiritual development, and empowerment.
Aneesah felt drawn to Islam, and has never regretted it. She is now a member of a mosque in suburban Phoenix that is made up primarily of immigrant Muslims.
“Having grown up Christian, I felt Islam was the rest of the story,” she says. “Islam has given me a framework for living, a clarity of purpose, a connection. I would say it has also given me a strong family life. Islam has provided me with moral meaning in my life.”
Her family was not immediately thrilled by her conversion, especially her father. “My dad worried about me because of how Islam was portrayed in the media.” Now, after decades of seeing how Islam has strengthened his daughter, he supports her.
Aneesah has h
ad to rely on that strength to get through some difficult times.
Take her move to Arizona in 1981. “It was a cultural shock to me,” she now says, laughing. “I came as an African American to a part of the country where there are very few African Americans—only 3 to 5 percent of the population—with the number of Muslims even smaller. I was still a very young woman with two children. Moving was a big step for me.”
Her first conclusion after settling into the Phoenix area: “I can’t stay here.” But she stuck it out. She enrolled in a master’s degree program for social work at Arizona State in nearby Tempe and, as she puts it, “I made connections.” She adjusted to Arizona but faced daunting challenges at school. “The social work program was very rigorous. The required internships were like going to work. At the same time I was raising a family.”
The stresses from juggling home and school caused a strain in her marriage. (“We learned; we both matured,” she now says.) Because of her early marital problems, Aneesah knows from experience the stresses that confront so many American couples these days. She believes that all couples should get some counseling before they marry, and Muslims are no exception. Like other Americans they have a high rate of divorce. One estimate has it that in the United States over 40 percent of Muslims’ marriages end in divorce. Premarital counseling would help couples determine whether they are compatible and help them weather the inevitable difficulties.
“Being married is one of the most important things we’ll do, developing and establishing a family. It’s also one of the least prepared things we will ever get to do. Most of us aren’t really prepared to be a husband or a wife, and eventually a parent.
“But Allah and his Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) have placed before us guidelines, lessons, and teachings that will help us to be well prepared. Unfortunately, many of us aren’t seeking that guidance. I think it’s important that those who are getting married—be they young or old—should prepare and understand their rights and roles and responsibilities. We call these the three Rs.”
Having a sense of faith greatly helps in a marriage, she adds. Islam emphasizes marriage and family, and marriage is a way of serving God. Indeed, Imams can help promote strong healthy marriages by discussing this and offering premarital sessions and other counseling. In the past, though, Imams haven’t been trained to counsel, especially if they are immigrants. Many Imams are beginning to realize the value of counseling, and are increasingly reaching out to Muslims, many of whom are coping with life in a strange land and face a weakening of familial bonds as their children gravitate to their new American—and non-Muslim—friends. Throughout the country, some Muslims are fighting substance abuse although Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol or drugs. Some are grappling with domestic violence in their homes, with many women afraid to say anything.
For some time, Muslims would not even discuss domestic violence. The assumption was, Aneesah says, “That’s a tragedy that doesn’t affect Muslim families. But it does affect Muslims just as it affects Christians, Jews, and other religious and cultural groups.”
Aneesah has been trying to spread the word in the American Muslim community that families can get help and that physical and mental abuse need not be tolerated. She refers to Islamic teachings that condemn domestic abuse: “Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) instructed Muslims regarding women: ‘I command you to be kind to women.’ He said also, ‘The best of you is the best to his family.’”
When she helped start the Islamic Social Services Association in the United States and its sister organization in Canada, she intended it to serve as a network for discussion about social service concerns and to provide education and training to social workers to help them reach Muslims. Every year the association has a conference to update professionals about the latest trends and the best practices in providing social and mental health services to Muslims.
The group’s affiliate in Canada produced a public education manual, “Muslims and their faith and culture,” which was revised for the United States with grants from the National Conference for Community Justice and Chevron Texaco. The manuals seek to educate police officers, social workers, journalists, and school administrators about Muslims.
It’s particularly needed now. Since 9/11, Muslims around the country have been targeted for vandalism and even worse violence. Ten minutes away from Aneesah’s home, a man reacting hysterically to that day’s terrorist attacks, shot to death Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gasoline station owner who was mistaken for a Muslim because he wore a turban. In 2004, Aneesah’s mosque was defaced with a spray-painted swastika. Another mosque in nearby Glendale, she says, was set on fire.
Nevertheless, where some see problems, Aneesah sees opportunities to reach out. “I see myself as a bridge builder.”
To Aneesah, she is only doing what other Muslim women have done. “The history of early Islam,” she says, “was filled with strong women–women who were scholars, who were courageous, and were agents of change. They were not afraid to speak out.” Nor is she.
45
MASTER ZAKIA MAHASA: COURT IS IN SESSION!
A TEENAGER WAS APPEARING in juvenile court before Master Zakia Mahasa. “I don’t want to see you again, you hear?” she said.
In the nearly eight years since Master Mahasa was appointed to the Baltimore bench, she has been on a mission not only to serve justice, but to make sure kids don’t get caught up in the system again. She is a Master in Chancery in the Family Division of the Baltimore City Circuit Court.
Master Mahasa is believed to be the first Muslim woman judicial appointee in America. She believes that her faith helped her get where she is today, and that it soothes the stress of handling the enormous number of cases that appear before her in her court.
In just forty minutes during one afternoon court session, she presided over five cases. In one of them, she gave a year’s probation to a convicted first-time drug offender, a boy whose mother died of cancer and who has now been taken into the home of an older brother. She also assigned him a mentor and directed he be given other social services to try to turn his life around. The state had actually been willing to settle for six months’ probation but Master Mahasa was concerned that the boy should have enough time for an effective rehabilitation. She was also worried about him talking back and not being respectful enough to the brother who was financially supporting him. “He is your father-brother,” the judge told the boy sternly, demanding that he wipe the grin from his face. She wanted him to realize the seriousness of his condition: “He didn’t have to take you in. Be a benefit, not a burden.” The boy, serious now, assured the judge he would be.
In another case, she meted out probation to a first offender, a thirteen-year-old boy whose mother advised the judge that she thought her son had been caught selling crack cocaine because he was trying to raise money to run away to his grandmother’s. Again, Master Mahasa assigned a mentor and other social service programs to turn around the boy’s attitude. She wanted him in school—on time, every day—and the mother said he was already going regularly.
Master Mahasa recalls that when she first graduated from law school in the 1980s, she could count on one hand the number of Muslim women attorneys in the United States—and she would have most of her fingers left over. “I knew of only two,” she says.
Today, the Muslim community has come a long way, something Master Mashasa sees firsthand: Her son, a second-generation Muslim, is now a criminal defense lawyer, practicing in Baltimore. There are also many more young Muslim women attorneys throughout the United States. She wants to be a role model to them—to set an example as an American Muslim woman who can wear a scarf and still succeed at her work. While sitting on the bench one day, she wore a smartly wound black scarf around her hair that matched her tailored skirt and jacket. “There are different ways of doing it,” she points out. “You can be stylish.”
Master Mahasa hasn’t been hurt professionally by wearing the hijab, although
her family once worried she would be. She has found that because she is proud of her faith and apparel, she is respected by others.
“You can still ascend the career ladder,” she says. “It has not been as difficult as one would have thought.”
She has also managed to decorate her judge’s chamber in a style that makes her comfortable. She lights scented candles while she works. Her crystal paperweights and globes—she collects them as a hobby—glitter on a counter by the window. She has artwork, stained-glass lamps, and a Persian rug, too.
Master Mahasa wants a younger generation to know that a woman can balance work and family, career and community service. Despite being a working mom, she has managed to fit in years of volunteering. She is currently chairperson of the Michigan-based Mercy USA, a predominantly Muslim charity organization that makes contributions to underdeveloped countries to help people become self-sufficient, regardless of their religion. (Mercy helped the earthquake and tsunami victims in South Asia, for example.)
Master Mahasa is glad to be a part of it.
She also has given back to the community by serving on a statewide court improvement committee on foster care that finds methods to improve foster children’s stays in the system. In this and other ways, judges can have a profound influence, from placing children in the most appropriate foster care to determining when parents are ready to get their kids back. From her extensive experience presiding in family court, Master Mahasa knows how crucial it is to improve foster care.
She is also aware that it is not a simple matter for women to juggle everything. She herself struggled for years as a divorced single mom, working full-time at the Social Security Administration’s office in Baltimore while studying and taking care of a small son. Sometimes she hated her work; processing disability claims, she says, was the worst. But she is grateful to the agency, which paid for most of her college education.
The Face Behind the Veil Page 26