The Face Behind the Veil

by Donna Gehrke-White

  “My parents never tried to shield me from ideas,” she remembers. “My sister and I grew up in an extremely political household where we watched and discussed the news every night. I remember being the only kid in my seventh-grade class who knew who the secretary of state was. As small children, my sister and I were sat down in front of the TV to watch programs about the famine in Ethiopia. We were raised to know about the world around us and to feel that we were required to help.”

  She calls her father the “most informed individual I know” and her mother “the friendliest and most clever. When I was growing up, I thought how, of all the Muslim kids I knew, I had the coolest parents.”

  She and her father, early on, were politicos. She jokes her father would be attending a city council meeting for one issue—say, a gasoline station being proposed too near a residential area—while she was going to the next meeting when an environmental issue was on the agenda.

  As befitting a California liberal, she went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad and found herself elected as chairperson of the California Public Interest Research Group, a 60,000-member nonprofit grassroots environmental and consumer-advocacy organization. During one summer, she worked eighty hours a week to fund-raise for the campaign to “Stop the Rollback” by the U.S. Congress of environmental and public health laws.

  Several years later she was off to law school at New York University, another bastion of liberal values. Berkeley, she jokes, is a top supplier of students to NYU’s law school.

  With her typical energy she signed up for a summer internship in the West Bank after her freshman year at law school: It was to be one of her most memorable experiences. She went as part of the Palestine Peace Project, a team of lawyers, law students, and professors, and became involved in researching and writing about the controversial program by which the Israeli government reassigned Palestinian homes to Jewish residents. “It was heart-breaking, that summer,” she recalls.

  Dalia remembers going to visit a family who had been evicted from part of their house—including the kitchen—which had been taken over by an American-born Jewish family. When Dalia, along with about seventy others who were nearby to attend an academic conference, went to pay their condolences to the Palestinian family, they were met outside the home by the Jewish family, who were toting guns.

  “They pointed their rifles right at us,” Dalia says.

  She was standing near one of the young men brandishing a weapon and she saw in his eyes a fierce determination. She remembers thinking, “Oh, my God, he really will shoot us.”

  But she was grateful for her Islam. She found herself calm and composed. She was confident she wasn’t doing anything wrong, that to console the other family who had lost part of their home was the right thing to do. Despite the guns, she calmly and patiently sat down on the home’s unpaved driveway.

  “With Islam, you do what is right,” she says. “It allows you the freedom from worrying about the consequences.”

  The Israeli Defense Force arrived, as did television crews from the international media. Suddenly the event became high-profile, the Defense Force acting quickly to disarm the Israelis. They then turned their focus on the visitors, becoming violent in their efforts to remove them from the scene. “Three men shook one poor woman around like a rag doll,” she remembers. “They started dragging people away.”

  One of the key speakers at the conference, a Jewish American professor, suffered a broken ankle. Others had severe bruises, lacerations, and sprains. Dalia herself was approached by an Israeli soldier who spoke to her first in Hebrew. The trilingual Dalia speaks French and Arabic, but not Hebrew. “Okay,” he said, exasperated. “I’ll give it to you in English. We don’t want to hurt you. Just get up and leave.”

  When Dalia didn’t move, she found herself gently lifted and carried away from the house. Later, she learned that the incident had been broadcast on TV—and pretty accurately, she adds.

  After the West Bank, she went on to another—safer—internship in New York City, graduated from NYU, and worked for a time as an associate at a law firm in Los Angeles, although she realized she wanted a job that involved advocacy law. The job opening at the ACLU fit the bill. Already, she feels she has made a difference.

  Her boss there also gave her a priceless and unforeseen reward: He introduced her to her future husband, a Moroccan who came to the United States as a ten-year-old. He, too, works for a nonprofit agency. And, yes, he is a Muslim.

  Dalia remembers one of her male friends becoming upset when she once said she could only marry a Muslim, a notion he thought too restrictive. He himself was marrying out of his faith: He’s Jewish, his bride Christian. Although Dalia thinks that is fine for him, she can’t imagine not marrying within her faith. Not only does Islam require her to marry a Muslim but she feels it is important for her.

  “Being a Muslim—I don’t think of it as a religion,” she says. “It is a way of thinking, a way of life.”

  She wanted a soul mate to feel the same way—and she feels blessed that she got one. “Islam,” she adds, “has created the best part of who I am.”

  49

  OKOLO’S ODYSSEY: STARTING THE FIRST U.S. MUSLIM MUSEUM

  OKOLO RASHID IS THE CO-FOUNDER and executive director of the first Muslim museum in America, the International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, Mississippi. She tells the story of how this came to pass:

  “I had my own private consulting business in Jackson, Mississippi, promoting community development and historic preservation projects, when I heard that a huge, $10 million exhibition, called “The Majesty of Spain,” would be presented at a local museum. Some of the artifacts to be displayed had never left Spain before and many were lent by the royal palace. In fact the king and queen of Spain planned to attend the opening.

  “This was exciting news—until I learned that the exhibition would ignore Spain’s almost one thousand years of Moorish rule, that it would depict only Christian Spain. It was then that I decided that a companion show should be mounted to depict the history of Islamic Spain.

  “My partner, Emad Al-Turk, who was then a board member of our mosque and the chairman of its economic development team, became excited about the idea, as did the rest of the Muslim community. We wanted the exhibition to show how under Muslim rule Spain was for centuries a peaceful oasis for all religious and ethnic groups. Most people don’t know that when we use the term “Moor,” we’re talking about African people. The exhibition would be about how Africans and Arabs ruled a European country.

  “We decided to call it ‘Islamic Moorish Spain—Its Legacy to Europe and the West.’ Initially, we thought we could create a modest show for about $30,000 to $40,000. But in the end, despite considerable volunteer labor, it turned out to be a half-million-dollar project, presented at a building near the other Spanish exhibition.

  “We got a lot of help. One of our key supporters was Don Simmons, then a deputy director at the Mississippi Humanities Council. As he had done his doctoral dissertation on the Iberian Peninsula and knew its history, he was upset that ‘The Majesty of Spain’ wasn’t even going to mention the country’s Islamic legacy. ‘They can’t talk about Spain without acknowledging this influence,’ he said at our first meeting. ‘We have to do this.’

  “Don helped us get our first federal grant. We were able to open our exhibition in about four months—we call it a miracle project. That show became today’s Museum of Muslim Cultures, which opened in April 2001 and drew about 25,000 visitors in its first year. Mississippi’s then-governor, two former governors, and Jackson’s mayor, Harvey Johnson paid visits. We’ve had international guests from some forty-five countries. The federal government uses the museum as a cultural stop—Muslims and non-Muslims from around the world come here as guests of the U.S. government to learn more about the United States’ religious tolerance and Muslim culture. There are articles about the museum on the websites of U.S. embassies in such countries as Nigeria and Indonesia.

  �
��Although the exhibition was a great success, it would have closed, as scheduled, on October 31, 2001. However, sometime after 9/11, someone threw a brick through the museum’s plate-glass front window. When we saw the vandalism the next morning, we began to worry. The exhibit still had six weeks to run, and we had planned a much-needed corporate fundraiser that was being hosted by the mayor and other supporters. Former Governor Ray Mabus was to be the guest speaker. Both he and the mayor expressed reservations about the wisdom of going forward with the fundraiser. We, however, stressed that it was important we come together to support community education and multiculturalism at a time when it was most needed. They agreed, and the event moved forward.

  “During this same time, people from all faiths, showed up in support, encouraging us to keep our doors open, that the museum was needed in Jackson. So we did, and the museum is now thriving.

  “We have been surprised at the support—about 80 percent of our guests are Christians. So I guess an Islamic institution can thrive in the Bible Belt. It’s been my experience that Americans are curious and eager to learn, especially when they are challenged, as they were after 9/11.

  “Of course, I have also seen Mississippi at its worst. Mississippi was justifiably an embarrassment to the rest of the country, among the last states to give up its Jim Crow laws. It was as bad as movies and books show—and probably worse.

  “I was born in 1949 into a poor sharecropping family in a small town called Flora, about twenty miles outside Jackson. I was the fifth out of eleven children—that is, eleven children who lived. Four were stillborn. My mother had a baby every year at a time when there was no birth control, as such. Babies’ deaths were a sad part of life back then, especially for African American sharecroppers. My mother grieved for her lost children but tried to do her best for those of us who lived.

  “My mother worked very hard. I consider her a smart woman, but with a limited education. She is also a very spiritual person. Her mother was very religious. In fact, she was a pillar of her community because of her strong religious convictions and character.

  “My father, on the other hand, was not spiritual at all, and I do not mean to say that in a negative way. He had a very difficult childhood, with an abusive father of his own. He ran away at an early age, became a functioning alcoholic, and was, in turn, physically abusive to my mother.

  “Interestingly, however, when my father was not drinking he was an entirely different person. I remember my father as a man with integrity. He was honest, had a strong work ethic, and insisted on the same from his children. He was highly respected both by whites and African Americans. He worked as a long-distance truck driver for a rich white family in Flora at a time when very few African American men had that kind of job. Although he made pretty good money, the family didn’t see much of it because he would go out on weekends and come back home with nothing.

  “My parents also sharecropped. As kids we had no choice but to help out in the fields, even when we were little and supposed to be in school. We would work through Christmas and go to school in January. That meant we hardly—if ever—went to school. My mom hated that. It was my father’s decision, not hers.

  “This was one of the main reasons why my mom left my father, taking the nine children who were still at home. She worked two jobs in Jackson to provide for us. She would always say she wanted her children to get an education.

  “I was ten years old and in fourth grade when we moved. Even though we missed out on a lot of school, I didn’t fail a grade. But I have to say, I carried scars from my learning disadvantages. I struggled through my elementary school years, but began to improve significantly when I went to high school. I became an honors student. I was motivated: I finally had the chance to go to school all year. I never missed a day of school from the fourth grade through the twelfth.

  “My father later joined us in Jackson and he and my mom got back together. To be with us, my father had to quit his job as a trucker. He couldn’t find a similar position—or anything else that paid as well. He was limited to menial jobs, such as working at a service station, and he hated that. He began drinking again. To this day I think of how sad his situation was and how segregation really hurt him. It wasn’t easy to see my dad transformed from a very strong man with a firm work ethic to a man hating to go to work—feeling humiliated, and with no other choice. It was all he could do to help us scrape by. When I reflect back, I realize how difficult it was for me as a child to see so proud a man reduced by such daily humiliations. After a few more years together, my father and mother divorced.

  “As my father got older, he quit drinking and told us how he regretted his mistakes. He died in his late sixties under my mother’s care, whom he praised for her hard work, good character, and devotion to her family.

  “I finished high school in 1968, at the height of the civil rights movement. I became involved in the movement as I worked to integrate Mississippi’s major junior college, now called Hinds Community College. It was just a handful of us—seven or eight African Americans—who elected to enroll at Hinds.

  “After I graduated from Hinds with a degree in secretarial science, I went to work for several years, still living with and helping my mom. Eventually, I started working at Tougaloo College, a private, four-year liberal arts college, historically black. It is known nationally as the “cradle” of the civil rights movement in Mississippi and has been ranked among the top U.S. colleges. Tougaloo was great for me because I could work there full-time as a secretary and go to school tuition-free.

  “The mid-1970s were important years for me; I got married and both my husband, Sababu, and I became Muslim. Sababu was a civil rights activist, and was involved in the movement long before I was. He was one of those students who marched for civil rights with Medgar Evers. He got arrested—the dogs were set upon them and he was loaded with the other protesters into garbage trucks to be taken to jail for booking.

  “One thing that has been the guiding force in our life and has kept us united, is Islam. Islam has kept us strong as a couple and as parents. The basic moral teachings of Islam and its pragmatic approach to life, such as kindness and dignity for all, have strengthened our relationship.

  “Our earliest experience of Islam was through Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. Our involvement, however, came about as a result of our study of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad’s son, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. The Nation was established on a sound moral base and we felt comfortable in it. We were also attracted to Imam Mohammed’s perspective on Islam. He presented Islam as emphasizing a strong sense of dignity for all human beings, and that Muslim Americans should see themselves united with Muslims around the world. The basic principle of Islam is the oneness of God and the oneness of humanity, all men and women are afforded individual freedom and equality under God. These ideas were very appealing to me and Sababu. It is that very spirit of universal brotherhood that informs Sababu’s and my work to build a more diverse Islamic community in the Jackson area.

  “Another thing I love about Islam is how it promotes learning. I want to always learn, to contemplate, and to pass on my knowledge to others. This propels me to be a better person. To be honest, I don’t see myself as serving as executive director of the museum indefinitely, but rather becoming a full-time lecturer. (As executive director, I have already given a lot of talks.) To that end, I want to become more fluent in Arabic and to travel more to Islamic countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to share with others what I have learned. Giving and caring about others is crucial.

  “After all, God came to Mohammad not for his brain but for his heart.”

  50

  RIFFAT: LIFE WITH A PURPOSE

  AT AGE SIXTY-ONE, DR. RIFFAT HASSAN could be excused for slowing down. A pioneer in Islamic feminist theology research, she had been teaching for decades at two major Kentucky institutions, the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

  Instead, she is busier than
ever, recently squeezing in a telephone interview before she flew to lead a Middle Eastern tour of somewhat apprehensive U.S. scholars. (By the end of the trip, she predicts, they will be relaxed and glad they went on the fact-finding trip that, with any luck will also be a goodwill mission.) As founder of the International Network for the Rights of Female Victims of Violence in Pakistan, she also finds time to defend women against honor killings, a “tradition” she abhors with a passion.

  “I work eighteen hours out of twenty-four—there is so much work to do,” Riffat says.

  The Muslim world is familiar ground for Riffat. She was born into an upper-class family in Pakistan, her grandfather a well-known scholar and writer. Her father, however, was traditional in his views. He loved his daughters and felt it best that they marry at age sixteen, their marriages arranged by family. Two of Riffat’s older sisters were, indeed, married as teens. “My father was a very kind man but he was part of a patriarchal society,” Riffat says. She would have shared the same fate had she not rebelled. Her mother, a feminist in her own right, supported her.

  After she finished high school at an Anglican school in Pakistan, Riffat was off to study at the University of Durham in England. She earned her doctorate by age twenty-four, was teaching at the University of Punjab in Pakistan in the mid-1960s—a career that would have been unusual even for a woman in the United States—and she married. “My choice,” she points out.

  She and her husband had a daughter and came to the United States in the early 1970s, but making a living was tough. Riffat found herself doing any work to survive, including ringing up groceries at a supermarket. That didn’t last long—a day. But eventually she got lucky and learned of an opening at the University of Oklahoma, where she taught for two years before going to the University of Louisville.