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Your letters - posted May 1, 2007

Posted in Q & A on May 01, 2007

Posted May 1, 2007

Salaam all: I’m still digging out from the avalanche of emails you sent after the premiere of my film, Faith Without Fear. Here are a few your reactions, with many more to come…

“I am a Tunisian but had the chance to be in the States for a few weeks. And what a chance I had just to see your documentary this evening. I was about to go to bed just to wake up early for an exam tomorrow. I found myself stuck to your picture on the TV and could not resist getting out from bed to drop you these lines.

I never felt relieved as I am right now. I thought I was the only person in the world that wants to change the way Islam is being instructed and followed nowadays. In Tunis we have moderate Islam, but the extremism is gaining space and that is what worries me the most. I just wish to have you travel all around the Arabic Muslim countries and debate their way of adopting Islam. I cannot imagine how someone living in the 21st century adopts the 7th century standards.

There should be someone to bring the bright and warm side of Islam to the world. I support all your journeys and paths to reach your and our goal. With your help and the presence of other women, we can contribute to the rescue of our nations to live a good life, not keep waiting for the next life. Thanks for what you are to all of us.” - Nebil

“I am very concerned about the views you project about hijab in your documentary. As a woman who insisted on being an engineer and also insisted on wearing hijab, I have difficulties with women who fight for ‘women’s rights.’ I feel that no one actually fights for a woman’s right to wear hijab.

I have an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and am pursuing my Masters in Software Engineering as well as working full time as a System Analyst in a Fortune 500 company, all while wearing my hijab. It has not confined me at all. Your film gives the impression that women who wear hijab are weak and oppressed. There is nothing weak about wearing hijab when all odds are against us. I would suggest you speak about women’s rights being violated by secular governments in Turkey and Tunis and France, where women are denied their education simply because they choose to wear hijab.

I am honestly offended by your program and felt the urge to write you something and extend dialogue. You do agree that being rigid doesn’t help anyone, and I recommend taking your own advice and looking at these topics from different angles.” - Efdal

Irshad replies: In your defensiveness, Efdal, you’ve missed a crucial distinction. It’s not that I oppose the right of Muslim women to choose hijab - choice, born of free will, is a beautiful thing. What I oppose is lack of choice, which is clear when hijab is imposed on women. And that’s the case in places like Yemen, which I documented in “Faith Without Fear.” One of the characters, Arwa, chooses not to cover like all the other women. Yet every day she faces harassment, even physical threat, for making that choice.

It’s because I’m pro-choice that I’ve spoken up for the right of Muslim women in Turkey to wear hijab if they wish to. As for France, Muslim women can still wear hijab in universities and private academies. The only places of education in which they can’t is state-funded high schools. When Muslim women in France were polled about this policy, a majority of them said they supported it as a way of helping their daughters make informed choices later in life. Once again, what mattered to these Muslim women was that the hijab be an informed option, not a blind obligation.

So here’s the question I’ll leave you with: With all of your privilege as a Fortune 500 employee, why aren’t you using your voice to condemn violence against Muslim women in Yemen who make personal decisions about hijab - the very violence you won’t face in America for making your own decisions about it?

“I was raised in America in a Christian family but took my Shahada [recitation of belief in one God and the Prophet Mohammad as his final messenger] in 1992. I found the beauty and truth of Islam first in my readings of the Quran and some Hadith, and gratefully remained fairly ignorant of the goings-on of the Muslim community for the first few months.

As I became more entrenched in local Islamic community activities, I struggled to keep my balance and not allow the extreme viewpoints of some to overwhelm me. From 1992 until 2000, I did my best to observe the rituals of daily life. I wore a hijab (never wanted to get near the niqab) out in public and at work, and did my best to keep 5 daily prayers. I look back now and know that my 8-year experiment allowed me to see where my faith is and is not.

I identified with your documentary in so many ways, especially your discussion with your mother about inner prayers as opposed to the ritual prayers. I have had the same discussion numerous times with my daughter. She has learned the ‘rules’ from her father, and she insists on asking me all the time why I don’t ‘pray.’ I tell her the same thing you told your mother. And I feel confident in my views because after 8 years of reciting words in a foreign language and bowing and prostrating in ritual sequence, I can tell you my only closeness to God came from my knowing that I was trying to do what was right. When I gave myself permission to do what I felt was right without the imposition of somebody else’s rituals, I finally found a true, unshakable relationship with my creator.

I am inspired by your ability to debate with the very persuasive fundamentalist leaders around the world. You speak powerfully and uninhibited. It makes my heart burst with excitement, and happy to find a leader emerging who has the ability to cut through the ‘crap.’ I can see your message as a brilliant divine light shining into the dark corners of the Islamic nations.

May Allah help us to help those that have lost their way in the darkness. I only hope that I have the courage to take action when I recognize the opportunity. The time has come for peace in our generation and our children’s, and I thank you for your contribution from the bottom of my heart.” - R.L. Zayed

Irshad replies: As my own mother told me, “You go, girl!”

“One thing disgusted me in your documentary, and it was the treatment that you and your mother received when she visited her local mosque to talk about her faith. The danger you face to engage in Islamic debate is mind boggling, and your contributions should be appreciated.

But I am sometimes led to believe that your engagement in the debate seems an angry reaction to the ignorance and hypocrisy of the religious establishment (which I sometimes fall into), rather than a sober-headed attempt to reform Islam through Ijtihad.

Although I consider your views in the larger Islamic debate nowadays to be at the other extreme end of the spectrum, I find it valuable nonetheless. You stir more debate.” - Ahmad Saeed

Irshad replies: Uhhh, Ahmad, what’s wrong with reacting angrily to the ignorance and hypocrisy of the religion establishment? Shouldn’t more Muslims be angry about the narrow-mindedness of the guys who run our mosques and run down the dignity of women worshippers? I’m not saying we should attack these guys with baseball bats; just confront them with our consciences. Sorry if that’s not sober-headed enough for you. Sobriety is no antidote to those who are drunk on their own power.

“I am a child and family counsellor. What I have learned in my years of knowing people of many religions is that the inherent power of women, which is so pivotal to the viability of any community, can threaten and intimidate some men. I feel the issue has less to do with religious beliefs and more to do with power struggles within a community suffering from low self-image.

In certain cultures which have been colonized, or have not been allowed to attain intellectual independence by forces from within, there is a need to control and suppress the sexual and intellectual power of their women to avoid further humiliation. Thanks to the generations of self loathing, these men, in despising and abusing their women, also despise themselves because they ultimately owe their existence to a woman.

I am a mother of grown children about your age and like your mom, I ask you to be very careful for your safety. We need you to continue questioning and challenging.” - Anne