A Muslim woman's life

Muna Alyusuf, January 2006

In this article, the author examines how much Islam defines her as a person, and challenges the idea that the faith conditions every thought and action of Muslim women's everyday life.

When I was asked to write about my life experience as a Muslim woman, I simply said yes believing or deceiving myself that it is an easy task. However when I started writing, I found it difficult. As I started writing my first thought that was “it is no different” from the life of Jewish women; Christian women; Hindu women, Buddhist women etc.

It is easy to claim that being a Muslim defines me, but it doesn’t. My unique experiences which are shaped by the complexity of an Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim cultural in which I was brought up are the defining factors. I am an Arab Muslim woman and it is that unique combination that makes my experience my own; different yet similar to others.

Islam is one of the influences that shaped the person I am today. There is not one way of living through Islam; there is not a right and a wrong way; not really. We have two major traditions in Islamic teaching: Suni and Shiia; within the Suni tradition there are five major sects (Malki, Hanafi, Shafii, Hanbali and Wahabi). Each of them has a different interpretation. Similar to that the Shiia tradition as there is one major sects and many minor ones with their own interpretations.

No one tradition and no one sect can claim or should claim that they are the right one or superior to the others. All traditions and all their sects believe in the five pillars of Islam, and those are as follows: The belief in the oneness of Allah, and that Allah is the Creator, and Muhammed (POH) is his messenger; to pray five times a day; to fast the month of Ramadhan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca; and the Zakat. All Muslims equally believe in all the prophets and messengers of Allah; the Holy books, and the belief in Fate, and the day of judgement. Everything else was open to discussion and interpretation by the Muslim theologians.

Then how does a person experience living Islam, and how a woman grows within a religion that is unknown to many of its own followers. The reality is that there are so many of us Muslim who learns Islam by living it, not thinking for once to explore it through its original source and that is the Qura’an. We learn our duties and the rituals without having access to our Holy Book.

My experience reconfirms to me that there is not one way of living Islam or of being a Muslim, there are many ways of living Islam and of being Muslim. Islam was embraced by so many different cultures, and was integrated within those cultures.

I can pride myself of growing up in a very simple Muslim family in the early 60s where the notion of being a Muslim and living in an Islamic community was a way of life. I was exposed to the simple notion of Islam and that religion is an attitude. Its essence is traced through fairness and respect Muslims holds when treating one another and that as simple as it might look it is the hardest to achieve.

Growing up, my mother sent us off to a religious loving woman who lived in the neighbourhood to learn our prayers. We were with many other kids, girls and boys. We only went for the evening prayers because by then children our ages went to schools.

As for fasting the month of Ramadhan, my grandmother encouraged us to start fasting as young as seven years old. Like any grandmothers she also left little snacks and leftovers to help ourselves into during the day so we don’t collapse. During the month of Ramadhan all the adults read the Quran on a daily basis as part of Ramadhan ritual, and children my age were encouraged to listen to the Quran being recited.

My Grandmother’s goal was for us to be disciplined in our fasting through gradually training us, and when I reached nine years old I was encouraged to fast from sunrise to sunset. Neither my mother nor my grandmother punished me for failing to pray or not being able to fast a whole day growing up. Only when I reached the age of 13 that there were expectations of me to fulfil my duties.

My parents have fulfilled their responsibility of teaching us kids the basic, and now it has been passed over to me to fulfil my duties toward Allah. Islam and being a Muslim was about my relation to Allah. And I decided I didn’t want that relation to be based on fear of Allah’s punishment, but based on the purity of the heart. Therefore, the disciplines became the spiritual side of life; a retreat to the heart and soul.

And then there was 9/11, and I felt as I was exposed and for the first time in my life I had to justify my way of life; the spiritual aspect of my being. I had to justify being a Muslim. And the question of what it means to be a Muslim woman, brought up in a Muslim community and living in a non-Muslim, secular country has been asked again and again.

In reality I have never thought of Islam as a defining factor. Islam is what we make of It, Islam and or being a Muslim is a way of life. Muslim people choose the way to live their own version of Islam.

The reality of my life is that I don’t fit the Western media image of Muslim women, nor do I fit the Muslim main stream, more conservative view of what Muslim women should look like.

My personal and professional experiences have been mostly positive ones whether in the East or the West. I believe in the personal choice of religion, and that if one’s belief in God, and one’s faith is strong, it is our attitude and the way we respect the others that would influence our experiences.

I do believe that ordinary Muslim women and men haven’t yet realised that they have the same right to access their belief; Islam and its holy book the Qura’an as any of the many Imams, and the religious authorities and the many interpretations of the Islamic faith that exist today.