On June 6, our neighbors to the north witnessed a horrific terrorist attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario, that ended the lives of four people and nearly killed three generations in one family. The only survivor was a 9-year-old boy. According to the London Police, there is evidence suggesting that the attack was premeditated, driven by Islamophobia, or a prejudice against Islam and Muslims. The family, including two parents, two children and a grandmother, were out on a walk when they were struck by a man driving a pickup truck while waiting at an intersection.
Their names were Salman Afzaal, Madiha Afzaal, Talat Afzaal and Yumna Afzaal.
What was their crime? They were guilty of being Muslims in the eyes of the terrorist that killed them. This jarring massacre sent a wave of shock to the Muslim community, one which left it questioning its safety and the safety of its children once again. It is not easy to fall off the radar following terror attacks on Muslims, when Muslims are easily recognizable in a crowd from the way they dress.
Muslim women in particular are like snow in winter: impossible to miss. They stand out wherever they are because of their religious attire — the hijab or the headscarf they wear, to be exact. The media successfully turned this symbol of religious devotion into a symbol of oppression and a threat to Western nations.
Being a Muslim woman of color myself, it is disappointing to see people obsessed with their “white savior complex” want to free me from myself and thinking that I need rescue. The problem with this savior mentality is that it correlates the hijab with a lack of agency over our bodies and that those who wear the hijab are oppressed, undermining what the hijab represents for a Muslim woman. It is similar to believing that the more conservatively one dresses, the less freedom one has. This association between nakedness and freedom is problematic. When I am cornered into taking off what makes me who I am, my First Amendment right is being violated and I am being disrespected as an American Muslim woman.
Hijab means different things to different women, but the common denominator is wearing the hijab out of love for God and following his commandments. It shows our religious devotion, but unfortunately is not seen as such. In contrast, nuns wearing the habit are seen as devotees but Muslim women wearing the hijab are seen as oppressed. American researcher Dalia Mogahed’s experience echoes that of many Muslim women. Mogahed was approached by a woman in a public bathroom and was told that she was now “in America” and that she didn’t need to wear “that thing” on her head. The act of assumption is what divides us. Having respectful conversations about our values and beliefs is what will bring us together as a community.
What saddens me is that, as an adult, I know how to respond to such matters. But when our younger siblings and children go to school wearing hijab, they come back home filled with questions they were asked. “Why are you wearing that? Do you have hair? Do you sleep with that? Do you shower with that? Can I touch it? Did your parents make you wear that?” And on and on. In some extreme cases that I was personally told, children’s hijabs were pulled off of them. They come home internalizing that horrible experience as if it is their fault they look different from their peers. We must teach our children that their differences are empowering and unique, not demeaning or dehumanizing.
If schools do their part in paying attention to diversity in their classrooms, we will have a community that loves each other and respects difference, not conformity. Kids will learn from one another and get curious about each other as they appreciate their differences through cultural explorations in classrooms.
We don’t need saving from anyone. We have the freedom to practice our religion while engaging in our civic duties like any other American citizen.
praiseinterracialmarriages
Jun 28, 2021 at 9:48 pm
I enjoyed reading Luul Boru’s opinion article. As one who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, I saw, and remember seeing, a number of films written and produced by Zionists from Israel. Their stories focused on how Zionists were being virtuous and righteous by warring against Muslims. Themes often involved hijacking of aircraft, which some Muslims did in an effort to make their own point known — though it was and remains a federal and international offense to hijack planes. The gist of those films, some of which took place at “terrorist training camps” in deserts, was that all Muslims are bad people and we shouldn’t trust any of them, and we should side with Zionists who, in 1948, began to wrest long-held land and real estate property out of the possession of Muslims because the Old Testament said that Jews were the Chosen People.
However, other history which I have read has shown men in the traditional costumes of Jews rousting Muslims from their ancestral villages and homes, shooting at them, and taking over their property with no consideration or care given to their well being. This covetousness, thievery and killing of people on an avaricious mission is not compatible with God’s law. While it may have seemed right at the time, as peaceful Jews had been put in ghettos and rounded up, enslaved, gassed and murdered, and whose bodies were placed in ovens at extermination camps, the current behavior of some people in uniform and traditional Jewish costumes, absent of the high integrity which Moses led them to understand were God’s laws is an anathema to true and integrous Jewish doctrine. To those readers who are Christian, it is an anathema to those of us who were taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. If what is going on in Israel, by people in traditional Jewish and military costumes is any indication of why earlier Jews were oppressed by governments (something which I haven’t studied), then it is no wonder they were oppressed. The great scholarship of many Jewish scientists, clerics, legal authorities and judges, and doctors, are being obscured by the acts of fiends and criminals in today’s Middle Eastern history.
Having lived in the Riverside Plaza Apartment Complex in the Minneapolis Cedar-Riverside Neighborhood, also known as “Little Mogadishu,” and remembering the first business meeting my dad ever took me to participate in when I was seven-years old, at the then new Columbia Heights, Minnesota mosque and Islamic prayer center (which now has a funeral home), as my dad was the imam’s attorney and was at that time engaged in signing mortgage papers and incorporation papers which would be headed to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office; and having a friend and former CPA, AJ Siddiqui, who is president of the Islamic Center of Minnesota, I have broadened my grasp of history and also about the more truly integrous and civilized and loving members of the Islamic community.
I don’t see Muslims as a threat, though I broke up a loud verbal altercation between Israeli shopkeepers and a Palestinian couple at Mall of America several years ago. I have also followed Jews for Peace articles and videos which document the criminal and certainly un-Jewish behaviors of so-called Jewish Zionists in Jerusalem and Gaza, and in other cities and villages where the so-called Jews, which are not following the Ten Commandments in their theft of land, homes, and other property, and randomly shooting at not only Muslims, but Christians who live in the region and who are not, by blood or appearance, Jews. I have read how legions of Jews, internationally, condemn the practices of those criminals in kippahs. I have come to the conclusion that the appearance of a person, or their stated devotion to a religion, means nothing if they act contrary to that religions basic and most well-known laws. I have signed petitions to U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as written on http://www.whitehouse.gove/contact to ask him to sign an order to cease funding Israel, and cease sending military and police apparatus and training to the government in that region as they are clearly violating the International Declaration of Human Rights and are acting like barbarians in their bloodthirst to control property which has never been their own.
I have read the Torah, the New Testament, and the Noble Qur’an several times. Elderly and now deceased friends of mine were the only surviving members of their extended family who survived the torture and depraved imprisonment and extermination of Jews, Gypsies, LGBTQ and mentally ill and otherwise disabled citizens of Europe at Auschwitz. As a historian who was trained at both Macalester College and University of Minnesota, and casually continued my studies of both history and religion, foreign affairs, and diplomacy beyond my graduation with a B.A. in history from University of Minnesota, I have come to the conclusion that while their was, during and following World War II, a moral imperative to assist Jews, who were oppressed in most European and Eurasian nations, we must look to the crimes of their grandchildren and children of today’s generations, and not condone or support their callous, criminal and animal behavior against Muslims and Christians.
When I see a woman wearing the hijab, I think of my elderly and younger neighbor women who have recognized my consideration of them as being sisters and revered elders. I have a similar consideration for civil and loving Jewish friends and past neighbors, as well as my Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, and Native American friends and neighbors.
I do not begrudge a person or discriminate against others on the basis of their own personal and internal beliefs and civil and peaceful practices. I am more interested in reviewing people for their character and acts. If a person is violent or acts in an unwise and ridiculous manner which defies credibility and civility, I am more likely to discount them and take an entirely hands-off approach with them, and not engage in conversations or meetings with them.
I do not care what kind of clothing or internally personal thoughts and beliefs a person has unless they lead to a degradation of peace and amity in the community. My motto is to live and let live. I also care to make friends with people from all conceivable backgrounds if their conduct is respectful and amenable to my comfort zone. As one who grew up at their height of the 1960s and 1970s Civil Rights Movement, I have learned to not care of one’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identification or disability status unless they would otherwise lead me to discount another person. Instead, I live to care for people who can teach me new things, stimulate and inspire my creative and spiritual energies and awareness, and who are not offensive or consider me racist or snobbish for the way that I write about my beliefs that members of all races residing in the United States and the world have an equal opportunity to spiritually, intellectually, socially, professionally, and financially grow and expand our horizons.
As I view women in hijabs and Muslim men in non-Western robes and attire, I tend to think of people as having integrity and being considerate and kind to others. I do not perceive of Muslim clothing as being a sign of a threat, but as a possible invitation to enjoy a meal or celebrate with them at a religious gathering during Ramadan, as has been true in past years.
For those of you who are curious or off-put by the notion of Islam, please know that it is an Abrahamic religion, just as Judaism and Christianity are Abrahamic religions. I have lost my sense that a religion is transmitted through bloodlines, but requires devotion to the messages sent forward in those religious documents which are considered sacred. One of the things I know of Islamic history is that the Prophet Muhammad was aware that both so-called Jews and so-called Christians were dramatically swaying from the instructions and message of “the Book” — the Bible, and the messages which were imparted to him by the Creator, known by many names, were meant to bring people back to a basic understanding of civility and love. The word “Islam” in Arabic, means Peace. We should all recognize this, as true Jews recognize and adhere to the basic-most laws of God, which are called The Ten Commandments. People who violate those laws are not truly Children of God, but are lost and in violation of His words.
Luul Boru and her friends and family are welcome at my table, and I consider Luul and others like her to be valuable citizens of our community. Thank you for your true and living devotion to Allah, God, or however one may reverently refer to our Creator.