Muslimah in America
Religious Freedom and the Intersection of Identity, Narrative Construction, and Female Liberation
Abby Block
Senior, College of Arts and Sciences
Introduction
Throughout many generations of Muslim women living in America, the dominant narrative surrounding this group is that of the oppressed Muslim woman. In this brief ethnography, I argue that contemporary Muslim women in the United States are using their religious freedom to embrace their spirituality, to mold a better, protected public space for Muslim women in the American religious and social landscape, and to defy the dominant narrative surrounding their lives. In a broader scope, these women are not only challenging the stereotypes set to describe them--they are demonstrating to both the non-Muslim and Muslim community what it means to be an American Muslim woman. This ethnography is based on qualitative data obtained from interviewing Muslim women around the St. Louis area and serves as a blueprint for a long-term project focused on the same topic. The sample was collected from the Facebook group “Muslim Women’s Professional Network.”
Literature Review
A great deal of recent scholarship on Islam in America focuses on the formation of a burgeoning American Islam, how first and second generation Muslims in America form their identities within the American mosaic culture, and the ways in which Muslims are currently challenging the stereotypical norms set out to describe them. While individual Muslims may not argue that American Islam is a valid category, many scholars argue that the Muslims in the United States are faceting a new type of Islamic practice that separates religion from cultural practices, focuses more on individual spirituality, and aligns itself against the Christian and secular frameworks of the United States. This trend is not only seen on the communal level--as individual Muslims are developing their identities in the context of the American culture, studies have revealed that individual Muslims craft their identities to both resist and conform to Muslim expectations and dominant majority stereotypes. As Muslim collective and individual identities begin to take on a new light, so too do the ways in which Muslims are engaging the non-Muslim community. Muslims living in America today are more readily challenging the representations of who Muslims are as a people, how they are deemed to fit into the American community, and the commonly held misinterpretations of Islam.
A paradigm in modern American Islamic studies is the idea of a new type of Islam: American Islam. In his address to the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Rhys Williams states, “I begin with the premise that there is an American Islam being created--a version of the faith that aligns with the contemporary United States both organizationally and culturally” (Williams 2010, 127). Within this budding Islamic form, scholars have also highlighted a return to devout religious practice in young adults. The embodiment of piety reflects a generational attempt to craft a Muslim identity that both adheres to the faith and finds a place in a non-Muslim society. Although there may be a trend pointing toward an American Islam, this idea is very nuanced by how Muslims tend to operate and craft their own identities within the American religious mosaic. Current scholarship and my own research both relate that Muslims in America are very conscious of how they assimilate into the American culture.
In an attempt to retain their true Islamic identities, Muslims in America strive to be very aware of what cultural practices, Western or Eastern, actually align with their faith and what practices do not. These conscientious decisions come to fruition in how individuals construct their identities, apart from the collective identity they build with their broader communities. Current scholarship tends to portray that as young Muslims choose to become more religious, they also align themselves against the dominant American culture that is decidedly Christian or secular (Williams 2010, 141). My research, however, finds this trend to be too overgeneralized-- the correlation between religiosity and rejection of American culture is not as positive as it may seem. Many of the women I interviewed actively pick and choose which aspects of American culture to accept or deny, and their choices were not always related to their religious beliefs. Some women also related that they did not want to buy into any part of the American culture, while others retain the desire to embrace both strong Muslim and American identities. The research I conducted does support the idea that individual Muslim identities are a carefully crafted fusion of resistance and conformity to dominant majority stereotypes and Muslim expectations (Mir 2009, 237).
Although young Muslims may disagree on whether to be a Muslim in America or an American Muslim, current trends have shown that the collective Muslim population in America is attempting to promote the Islamic religion as liberating and not oppressive (Ahmed, 2011). My research departs from this grounding principle and observes the ways in which Muslim women in the United States use religious freedom as a driving force to challenge the dominant narrative of oppression surrounding the Muslim community. I also examine the ways in which Muslim women in America construct their identities as Islamic people and how this plays a part in promoting community advocacy and action on the grounds of promoting religious freedom. If these women show us anything, it is that Islam as a religion is the source of their rights and power as women, and therefore religious freedom is essential to promoting an accurate depiction of Muslim women and Islam in general.
Methods
To attain participants for this mini-ethnography, I petitioned to join the Muslim Women’s Professional Network on Facebook, and was later accepted. The manifesto of this group is to engage, connect, empower, and serve Muslim women in the community. The Facebook page for the organization boasts an impressive 734 likes, the actual organization serves 234 members, and the interest is growing, with new likes and members being regularly added. The organization mostly caters to Muslim women in the St. Louis area, but also caters to Muslim women in other parts of the country. Once in the group, I posted a status requesting to hold interviews with women from the organization, and within a few days several women had expressed interest in the project.
I held five (5) interviews in total, three (3) in person, and two (2) over the phone. Each interview was guided by nine questions revolving around Muslim women in America, religious freedom, and attaining success. While all questions focused around these topics, they were also designed to be somewhat repetitive in order to check the reliability and validity of the participants answers. A complete list of the baseline questions asked can be found in the Appendix. I also asked ancillary questions regarding Muslim women and American politics, but these questions were disregarded in order to narrow the scope of this project. However, the answers given were very intriguing, and deserving of future attention and research. Each interview was semi-structured-- additional questions could be added, certain questions could be discarded, and each interview had time at the end for the interviewee to leave additional comments, or ask their own questions. After conducting interviews, I transcribed each session and analyzed the data from those transcripts. Data was grouped into categories such as recurrent themes, outlying themes, data that deserved more attention or further questioning, and noteworthy quotes.
The Intersection of Identity, Narrative Construction, and Female Liberation Grounded in the qualitative research collected and the currently existing social theories surrounding Muslim women in America, I argue that religious freedom is essential to Muslim women in their ventures to form individual and collective identities, to challenge the narrative of the oppressed Muslim woman, and essentially to promote the idea of the liberated Muslim woman. Religious freedom for these women is seen as right not to be taken for granted, a means to attain success, and a key to discovering Islam in its truest form. Furthermore, all of the women I interviewed are actively engaging religious freedom in their own ways, which is, in turn, acting to change the conversation surrounding Muslim women in the United States. Keeping in mind the structures that attempt to subjugate them, these women are now turning their attention to showing the world how Islam elevates, challenges, and propels them to achieve their most important aspirations.
Defining Religious Freedom
When asked what religious freedom meant to them, all of the participants answered with the notion that religious freedom is more than just its constitutional definition. To these women, religious freedom varies in scope and in purpose. For example, all interviewees expressed that religious freedom means having the ability to practice one’s religion. Some women took this definition further, explaining that it meant being able to practice one’s religion and not being marginalized based on those views. Another participant expressed that religious freedom meant there would no longer be so much ignorance surrounding Islam, in the hopes that the adversity she faced due to her religious expression would subside. All of these answers denote that, while the etymology of religious freedom is important, the implementation of religious freedom as a social construct is more essential. Furthermore, that social construct is dependant on the culture in which it is found.
Some participants went to lengths to describe religious freedom in America as it compares to other countries, such as those in Europe or the Middle East. For example, one woman pointed out how the hijab is legally banned in many European communities, while another woman expressed disdain for the Patriarchal influence common in some Middle East countries, which she argued is not a true aspect of Islam. Although one can debate that religious freedom is a morally relative concept, these women collectively express the idea that religious freedom, at least as it is expressed in the American framework, provides them with the opportunity necessary to express their true Islamic identities, unhindered by a more “restrictive” culture. This is not to say that these women do not face aversion or ignorance in the United States; they do. However, they are eager to show that their religious identities afford them liberation and success, despite what popular depictions of Muslim women may convey. The implications of this idea are far reaching in that Muslim women can, and do, use religious freedom as a way to create their own stories and challenge the dominant narrative that Muslim women are not actually “free.” As all of my participants argued, they are free women precisely because they are Muslim.
Forming Identities
In light of exercising their religious freedom, I questioned exactly how essential being a Muslim was to these women. When asked about their identities, every single woman responded without hesitation that being a Muslim was at the core of her identity, as opposed to being one part of many. This signals that being a Muslim woman means much more than just being religious-- it is essential to their identity, unremovable from their being or actions. One women described what it was like to express her Muslim identity on a daily basis, “when it came to stand up for myself, when it came to my first job, when it comes to school, when it comes to interviews for technology, what I keep in mind when I talk about development, I keep my religious identity in check.” Other women expressed the same sentiment, supporting that their Islamic religious identity was influential in most, if not all, parts of their lives. The Islamic identity is a major influence on how these women validate their own identities, their collective identities, and the ways in which they are engaging religious freedom to create their own narrative in the American mosaic culture.
When delving into why Islam is so crucial to their personal lives, each woman related that Islam allowed her to find liberation and achieve success through fulfilling her Muslim calling, whether that be through her own personal relationship with God or through the good acts that she does for her community. From a theological standpoint, Islam offers divine validation for one’s choices and successes. Three participants supported the idea that Islam allowed them to pursue what they cared about, so long as their choices honored God* and brought about good in the world. In a more sociological context, several women pointed to the idea that Islam
allowed them to have perspective, meaning that they are able to relate more with other marginalized groups, specifically women of color (as many of the participants also identified as women of color). Another woman stated that her Muslim identity allowed her to form qualities that lent to her motivation and success, including “patience, dedication to hard work, humbleness, and having perspective.” In a broader context, it is the fusion of the theological and sociological aspects of being a Muslim women that lend themselves to how a Muslim women’s collective identity is formed.
In order to promote the idea of the liberated Muslim woman, a Muslim women’s collective identity becomes imperative. It is clear that these women take this issue to heart, as they unanimously express support toward furthering the collective interest of Muslim women. In particular, many of the women related that they want to promote positivity toward the Muslim community in order to create a better space for the burgeoning generation of Muslim women. When asked about the space for Muslim women in the current culture, one woman replied, “There is always this balance of like, for an “American” too cultural, and then actually for a cultural culture, you’re too American. So you never fit into any category, so you’re on that line which is kind of it’s own category.” While Muslim women are communally tied together by their core religious beliefs, there is still a need to create a fully accepted space for Muslims in a predominantly non-Muslim culture. It is to this end that Muslim women are rallying together to establish a better future for their community, and they are using religious freedom to do so.
Engaging Religious Freedom to Challenge the Dominant Narrative
The media and cinema have often depicted Muslim women as oppressed and in need of saving from their religion. In addressing how these women encounter oppression, one woman stated,
Kind of going back to why it is personal for me to give a good impression, that [oppression] is all people see. You know I’ll walk down the street with my scarf and they’ll [non-Muslims] sit there and wonder you know, “her husband probably hit her until she put that on, or her father forced her to wear it.” Where in reality I walked out of the house with it on one day and nobody had any clue. And it just becomes a part of who you are. So yeah, the oppression thing, it’s missing quite a bit.
To be sure, Muslim women still face discrimination in and out of the religion, but the women I interviewed are ready to deconstruct this trend. They imparted to me that Islam gave women rights well before the West or the United States ever did. One participant theologically and historically grounded Muslim’s rights in the story of Khadijah, the wife of Prophet Muhammad and therefore the first Muslim woman. When discussing the importance of Khadijah and her influence on Muslim women, the participant stated,
She married him--she was older than him, she was more successful, and she married him. She also plays a really big role in inspiring us to not let our culture [...] the traditional role of a woman to be a housewife, no that is not in our religion. She was the first Muslim woman, because she was the Prophet’s wife, and she was this model for us as a business woman.
As the quote relays, Muslims have a theological and historical basis grounding their liberation and see themselves as free within and because of their religion. While these women acknowledge that work needs to be done to reconstruct how Muslim women are viewed, this is only half of the story; the other half is yet to be told, and Muslim women are going to do it by enacting change themselves.
So how exactly are Muslim women using religious freedom to push back against the narrative of oppression? They are championing their individual and collective identities as Muslim religious women, they are organizing in ways like the Muslim Women’s Professional Network or CAIR to promote the success of Muslim women operating within the American framework, and they are placing themselves in the non-Muslim’s gaze to confront inaccurate stereotypes and beliefs. On describing how her Muslim identity propels her to change the oppressive narrative, one woman states,
I feel like the identity that I’m carrying makes me a stronger person. I am very proud of my Palestinian background, I am proud of the religion I was born into, so it has just made me a stronger person. And just seeing people around me, with the mentality that Muslim women are oppressed and weak or this and that, it just pushes me harder to my goals, and to work on my goals and reach my goals to just go out and prove everybody wrong.
This quote speaks to the motivation that drives Muslim women to attain individual and communal success through religious freedom, which in turn can be used to promote a more positive construct of Muslim women in the United States.
Discussion
Religious freedom is an essential aspect to the formation of Muslim women’s identities, and a useful tool for Muslim women to construct their own past, present, and future. The goal of this research has been to challenge the Western idea that Islam oppresses women and to challenge ideas of what freedom means in a religious context. Furthermore, this work attempts to make a critical claim that words, and culturally constructed narratives by extension, are indeed consequential, and that such rhetoric can and does have far reaching societal implications. In the case of Muslim women, promoting the narrative of the oppressed Islamic woman can act as it’s own kind of oppression by leading the Muslim and non-Muslim community into think that oppression is the culturally accepted norm. However, this longstanding notion is now being challenged by a blossoming group of spiritually liberated women.
Future Research
This research can be improved in many ways, mainly by obtaining a larger sample size, obtaining a more diverse sample group (as all of the women were chosen from a professional network, and therefore likely inclined to have some social mobility), and attempting research triangulation and expanding the ways that research is conducted, such as including participant observation, focus groups,
deeper into how exactly Muslim women are utilizing religious freedom, what success means to Muslim women, how this community understands religious freedom as opposed to a majority religion community, or perhaps how different genders in Islam understand religious freedom. Another great topic to look at would be how Muslim women organize politically to construct their collective narrative.
Appendix
Interview Questions
1. What does religious freedom mean to you as a Muslim woman living in America?
2. Has your faith influenced your career path?
3. Does being a Muslim woman affect your any part of your work life?
4. Can you describe what it has been like to form your identity as a Muslim woman living in America?
5. Have you achieved any successes, professional or personal, that you credit to being a Muslim woman?
6. Do you think that you experience your definition of religious freedom in the U.S.?
7. If yes, do you feel that you can use your religious freedom to your advantage in your professional or personal life?
8. Does your religious freedom allow you to gain autonomy and independence?
9. Is there a space for Muslim women in politics?
*Every woman referred to Allah as God.
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